Love

I will
love you forever
no matter
what

Free Humanity

The expression "Free Humanity" can be read both as shorthand for the declarative statement, reminding us of the fact (or what I choose to believe as fact): Humanity is free (to choose); and as an imperative, reminding us always to act on behalf of all people for their (our) truest and greatest good.

Trapped

I see an enormous machine, the size of our entire civilization, of cast iron construction, oily and black. It takes as feedstock mostly young children, about five or six years old, but also occasionally grim-faced adults. The machine's operators, gruesomely fitted with heavy harness-like appliances, each stamped with a string of presumably individualized symbols, deftly manipulate the controls while maintaining visages that indicate trance-like focus or concentration. I peer into the machine's dark interior and notice the heavier cast parts marked in raised letters, BABYLON MFG CO. Soon I realize that the jumble of parts, with their violent and erratic movements giving a dangerous appearance and producing terrifying sounds, performs no useful work. The children do not know this. They are frightened. They are on their own, and the exit is not marked. Many years pass before the inductees make their way out, the children now shell-shocked young adults and the adults now mere wisps of humanity, gaunt and bowed. They take their places at the machine's empty consoles where operators have worn out or committed suicide. Those who refuse to be harnessed or to report to their station cycle again through the machine.

From a wider perspective, I sense the entire scene surrounded by a dark and unnerving predatory energy, as if just beyond the periphery of my vision (and far beyond any operator's ken or focus), that by undiscoverable (paranormal?) means seems to influence or direct the machine operators' movements, to devastating effect on those inside (judging by the immediate response of anguished cries). I feel this dynamic infecting all with terrible dread and despair.

I survey the operators again, more closely. I think I recognize people I know, friends and family, even. I see my own doppleganger and terror begins to well up in me as the awareness emerges that I have been merely dreaming this outside perspective. My body jerks awake and I find my grimy hands skillfully working two greasy black levers.

Presumably incorrect prediction of the end of the world

Re: Harold Camping's prediction of the Apocalypse for May 21, 2011.

Maybe Mr. Camping was right, except that the end of the world did not happen as he imagined. Suppose that the Rapture occurred, but only a few scattered people from around the globe were taken—so few (3, 4, 16, 20?) and so widely scattered no one noticed they occurred simultaneously; and that the rest of us have been 'left behind,' to our own devices.…

Well then, we'll just have to make the best of it. I suggest we turn to one another for support, practice kindness toward each other, love each other. How bad can this be? … I think we'll be alright.…

Update to the Censorship of 'The Key'

Updated 9/5/2011

(This updates my previous post,
Apparent Censorship of Whitley Strieber's book, 'The Key'.)

In Whitley's Journal entry of May 26, 2011, Sinister Forces in My Life, he writes:

What happened was that somebody very deftly edited the book after I had already signed off on it. Not only that, the edits, I have subsequently discovered, were actually in the proof pages I sent to the printer. So they happened when those pages were in my possession, but were not done by me.

This extra detail, which did not appear in Whitley's May 15 Journal post, confuses me somewhat. I assume by 'proofs', Whitley means hard copy prints. This implies the edits would have had to be hand-written, so that the edits he disavows should be in a hand other than Whitley's, unless the unknown editor also managed to imitate his handwriting. Could a handwriting expert distinguish between Whitley's edits and those of the 'ghost' editor? Even if not—perhaps especially if not—this could add more credence to the paranormal intervention hypothesis.

In the past, Whitley has reported that electrical equipment sometimes malfunctions in his presence. That the edits happened with the book in his possession allows attributing the unauthorized edits to the same kind of poltergeist-like activity. And it aligns perfectly with the phenomenology of the 'dark' paranormal forces, which (at least according to my experience) seek to cause maximum confusion, fear and division among humans. (Refer also to George P. Hansen's book, The Trickster and the Paranormal.) [Furthermore / Moreover], Whitley's description (retold here) of his mysterious visit with the 'Master of the Key' itself smacks of the paranormal. Why would we not at least allow the same for the book's mysterious alteration? We might view the former event emanating from coherence (light, love) and the latter from 'de-coherence', chaos or entropy (darkness, fear). In the context of the description of another paranormal experience posted to the Unknowncountry.com Web site in 2004, Whitley says of The Key in passing: "That is the central message of the Key, incidentally. It is why the man I met on that night defined sin as 'the denial of the right to thrive.'" If the message of The Key enables one to thrive and the sabotaging of its message thwarts that, this would appear a classic case of a dark paranormal event (a dark miracle, if you will).

We might even consider that if some person is actually found to be physically responsible for the unauthorized edits, we should at least consider that these 'sinister forces', as much as I understand them them, may also work through humans. This seems implicit in Whitley's use of the term/phrase, 'sinister forces' and his assumption that human agency was involved in The Key's alteration/sabotage. Most of us subscribing to the standard Western scientific paradigm show a conditioned aversion to the devil-made-me-do-it hypothesis, but it would sure seem to explain a lot. And it furthermore allows me to regard such human accomplices/dupes with some measure of sympathy, because I find myself in exactly the same position.

Apparent Censorship of Whitley Strieber's book, 'The Key'

Updated 9/5/2011

From The Old Edition of the Key was CENSORED, the New One is Not, dated May 15, 2011:

The file that I sent to the printer of the orginal edition and to Tarcher is dated November 16, 2000. It was generated by converting the a Word file into PageMaker using the conventional process, which certainly wouldn't have led to the changes that appeared in the book.

At some point prior to being printed, the file was edited by somebody other than me, and the edits resulted in crucially important changes. When I got the proofs back from the printer, they corresponded with the original, but when the book was actually printed, changes had been made.

Both here and in Jim Marr's 05/19/2011 Dreamland interview of Whitley (The Censorship of the Key), it is assumed that the changes between approval of the galleys and printing were effected by human agency. This seems highly improbable, for a number of reasons, each of which, when added together, diminishes the probability of human conspiracy or a lone human actor. Just finding someone with a deep understanding of the book's message and its implications for humanity, who could also be persuaded to pervert/dilute the message, would, in itself, I think, pose a very difficult challenge. (Still, improbable events do sometimes occur. This forms the basis for the concept of synchronicity, for example. I have heard many reports of 'miraculous' or spontaneous [i.e., highly improbable] healings, which would serve as another class of examples.)

As an alternative to the 'human actor' theory, might we consider a paranormal 'explanation'? I wrap 'explanation' in quotes because a hallmark of the paranormal is that it does not follow the normal rules or logic by which we hope to explain happenings in our world. This is exactly why we call certain events/phenomena 'paranormal'. For most people, then, a paranormal explanation is no explanation at all. However, if you have experienced enough events which appear intelligently orchestrated and which could not possibly have been caused by any human (or at least any human acting within the normally accepted range of human capabilities), then you are familiar with its modus operandi; and this event certainly [plugs right into | dovetails with] my experience of the paranormal. I wonder why this did not (apparently) occur to Whitley, considering his extensive paranormal experience. (His Dreamland shows contain numerous recountings of his strange experiences. For example, while comparing notes with Corina Saebels, he speaks, among other things, of streetlights routinely going out as he passes them and watches regularly failing soon after he dons them.) I suppose we could attribute this oversight to our natural reluctance to admit to paranormal intrusions into the tidy and comforting scenario into which we intend to cram the universe. With regard to this, consider Whitley's 05/28/2011 Dreamland discussion (toward the end of the interview) with Jeremy Vaeni about their close encounter experiences, in which Jeremy says (@54:32), "I didn't want it to be real." And, "So it's weird that you would then not want this to be real, but—as you know—you don't. For some reason, you don't."