The Blood-sucking Destroyer of Nations: how the FED and inflation resemble Type 2 Diabetes

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Here’s an analogy: inflation is a lifestyle disease and the FED is a drug company with old-school MDs distributing products that mask the symptoms and ignore the cause.

Most DC officials don’t seem to understand economics.

For the few who do, they must watch helplessly as the FED and its pet banks rob the people of their savings and enslave the government to debt. It leaves a tough choice that I’d imagine might keep a politician awake at night.

So pretend you’re a new DC politician who still has enough conscience left to ponder a dilemma…

  1. “I can stay in office by voting for more debt and more spending, or…
  2. “I can do the right thing for the survival of the country, vote against spending borrowed money and lose my job.”

If you doubt this represents the DC reality, imagine this: You’re an average retired Boomer with no savings, the usual medical bills, rent, car payments, and the endless one-time expenses that make it impossible to survive on a Social Security check. Would you vote for someone who said she wants to shrink the size of your SS check and replace the Social Security Ponzi scheme with something sustainable?

Hmm.

You realize there aren’t nearly enough young people at the bottom of the SS pyramid to fund all you Boomers at the top. But the government took money out of your paycheck and promised to give it back when you retired. The DC idiots lied about the “untouchable SS lock box.” They went ahead and spent it all, so that’s their problem, not yours. They bailed out criminal banks and left the public high and dry in the 2008 Financial Crisis. This time they can bail out Social Security and let the bankers sell their yachts.

Or imagine you’re among the working poor, surviving on minimum wage and food stamps. You’ve got two jobs, two adorable children who eat like horses and constantly outgrow their clothes. They’re starting to beg for cell phones that you can’t afford. Their biological father who abandoned you seven years ago is in prison again on drug charges. Are you apt to vote for a politician who promises to take away your food stamps as he votes to raise congressional salaries and spend billions on foreign wars?

Not so much.

The thing is, voters in similar circumstances are in the majority these days because the FED controls money in a way that’s designed to shrink the middle class and swell the poor. It’s what wealthy narcissists have done throughout history and plan to continue doing as soon as this annoying little democracy experiment is over.

This reality explains why Democrats and Republicans in DC keep raising the debt ceiling and spending the next generation’s money before it’s earned. Any suggestion of living within our means as a Nation is empty rhetoric. Nobody in DC has the slightest intention of doing the logical thing, the politically suicidal thing, the only thing that would save US democracy from the economic collapse engineered to usher in the World Economic Forum’s Marxist Reset.

We have to face the substance of our dilemma. There are no fiscal conservatives in DC on either side of the aisle. There can’t be. A fiscal conservative couldn’t survive one round of re-election.

In DC there are only hopes that our insanely debt-based economy will survive despite unlimited spending, higher taxes, and never-ending dollar dilution (via deliberate synthetic inflation).

It used to be hard to believe this, but now we know that some folks in DC, mostly on the far left it seems, sincerely hope that the US economy will crash and burn to usher in the WEF’s “reset” and a “new world order” of virtue-signaling totalitarianism with Central Bank Digital Currency micro-managing everyone’s spending, savings, and political commenting on TV, the internet, and “private” email.

“Dear Mom, In my last email I was just kidding about the president having dementia. I WAS JUST KIDDING !!! He’s so handsome and wise with that orange hair like his wonderful president father had years ago. By the way, can you loan me a thousand dollars? My digital paycheck didn’t come through after that last email. I’m so sorry I said that, Mom, and I didn’t mean any of it. I was just joking. I thought AI’s could tell when someone’s just kidding.”

Despite the circling debt vultures of the WEF, I’m still irrationally optimistic as usual. I think the elected officials in DC would totally stop their toxic borrowing and spending if only the majority of us voters on both sides of the brainless, idiotic, useless political divide could just take a minute to grasp the disease model of US economics…

Hyperinflation is like advanced Type 2 Diabetes where the disease has already destroyed the patient’s blood vessels causing serious problems like myocardial infarction, renal failure, blindness, dementia, and malodorous gangrenous diabetic ulcers requiring limb amputation. Too gruesome, I’m sorry, but I’m a retired pathologist (smiley face).

And I’m trying to believe that the US economy isn’t terminal, that we only have “significant” inflation and “unprecedented” debt, analogous to early Type 2 diabetes.

So close your eyes and click your heels with Dorothy, Toto, and me as we try to have hope…

I’m hoping the US voter is like the informed patient with early diabetes who has found a doctor that understands the cause of Type 2 diabetes and knows how to reverse it with a ketogenic lifestyle.

That is, at the symptomatic level, I’m hoping the US economy only has reversible inflation and we’re not heading into irreversible terminal hyperinflation. Similarly, at the etiologic level, I’m hoping the US still has reversible debt rather than irreversible terminal debt that will financially end us as a democratic Nation of voters.

“Wake up, Dorothy.”

An informed functional medicine doctor tries to persuade the patient to make tough lifestyle choices that reverse the cause of a disease.

As you know, the cause of Type 2 diabetes is virtually always a diet that’s so rich in complex and simple carbohydrates that vital proteins throughout the body become sugar-coated (glycated) and less than worthless, while the body’s cells become insensitive to the brave molecule INSULIN as she struggles at the cells’ gates to shove the toxic levels of sugar (glucose) out of the bloodstream and into the cells for immediate use and long-term storage as fat.

“Good luck with that in the United States of Sugar.”

A functional medicine doctor is usually not an MD. Most docs practicing functional medicine have avoided the indoctrination of the MD “education” treadmill. That failed teaching system is dominated by drug companies that control the information flow at med schools as they bribe MDs from med school to professional practice… all the way up to the FDA which is largely funded by drug companies now.

As best I can tell, the underlying cause of systemic corruption in the US is dishonesty stemming from the anti-spiritual cult of “scientific” materialism, an atheistic worldview assumption that cannot be tested but only accepted or rejected subjectively. And yet it poses as the foundation of modern science.

“Scientific” materialism, as best I can tell, is the most successful cult-level groupthink worldview on Earth.

Like modern “journalists” who are taught in school that “journalists are supposed to be political liberals,” scientists are programmed from Grade 1 to devote themselves to “scientific” materialism above all else.

Just to be clear, “scientific” materialism is a childish religious dogma that dictates a strange belief: “The universe and anything beyond are mindless at the core, composed only of unconscious matter and energy. Tap, tap, tap, no erases, no black magic.”

Sadly, in modern times, humanity has this pessimistic, depressing, untestable, faith-based assumption dominating our search for objective truth. And suicide rates are climbing because humans need meaning and purpose.

Believe in materialism if you like, but please try to be honest with yourself and admit that it’s purely a matter of opinion, not part of “settled science,” assuming “settled science” is a valid concept, which is debatable when you consider the possibility that we’re living in a cosmic holo-physical simulation.

“Scientific” materialism simply cannot be tested in a laboratory, let alone proven by the pseudoscientific fairytales that dominate scientific discussions now and are based on fossil record speculation, the epigenetic micro-evolution of finches, the nearly human genome and physical appearance of Chimpanzees, or the possibly inbred skeletal remains of “cavemen” who were almost certainly struggling to survive one of Earth’s periodic global cataclysms and/or one of our planet’s unimaginably long and dominant Ice Ages.

Yes, mainstream science currently tells us that modern humans have spent 100% of our existence in an Ice Age that began 2.6 million years ago and continues to this day. We are living in this Ice Age now. To keep the public confused, however, the brief “warm” periods within this gigantic Ice Age are called “Interglacial Periods” and the colder parts of our current Ice Age are commonly referred to as “Ice Ages.” So the term Ice Age has two confusing meanings like the term “brick” in the Tower of Babel story.

If we focus on the last 400,000 years which includes the moment when modern humans magically appeared with unbelievably complex reams of new genetic code that separate us from Apes, here’s a temperature graph of that time period:

Note that 32 degrees Fahrenheit is the freezing point of water, so it makes sense to divide the mini-Ice Ages (glacial periods) from the warm interglacial periods at about 30 degrees as shown in the right margin of this nice graph. The warm interglacial periods last only 10,000 to 30,000 years and occur within the context of our currently ongoing “true Ice Age” of 2.6 million years. The cold glacial periods, also confusingly called “Ice Ages” or “mini-Ice Ages” dominate human history on Earth which is speculated to be about 300,000 years, last I checked. These “mini Ice Ages” last from 70,000 to 90,000 years. Notice that our current political hot-potato temperatures are cooler than the average temperatures of several previous interglacial periods. This bit of mainstream science is not blasted on TV “news,” but you can read about it in Wikipedia, or at this interesting website where I found the above graph.

Earth’s historical temperatures gyrate wildly to and from the dominant freezing cycles, but for humans, this planet is usually far colder than Alaska except maybe in a narrow circumferential band encircling the equator. The existence of this narrow unfrozen zone is still debated.

So here’s my own “scientific” fairytale based on the mainstream’s temperature graph: The reason the human brain has “evolved” to be much larger and smarter than that of the Chimp, a species that is not found in the fossil records, interestingly, is that we’ve spent most of our geologic lives in extremely cold climates where very little vegetation can grow, especially not fruit trees or sugarcane. We were manly living near the coasts where temperatures are a tad warmer and our food source was almost entirely cold-water fish. Fish that can move well in extremely cold water must be loaded with Omega-3 fatty acids (DHA and EPA), the “antifreeze” of polar fish. That’s why human brains are absolutely loaded with Omega 3’s, and are known to malfunction without a diet that’s rich in cold-water fish (or Omega 3 supplements). Most of us can make some omega-3’s from vegan sources like flaxseed oil as long as you don’t carry the genetic SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) that renders that biochemical conversion pathway less effective. (I’ve got that SNP.)

Humans are Ice People. We may have landed in Africa, but our species has spent most of its existence, most of its adaptive eons on a frozen planet with very little food, mainly cold-water fish. We did not spend nearly as much time adapting to a warm, carbohydrate-rich plant favorable climate like we’re enjoying now. Therefore our metabolism is not well adapted to a high-carbohydrate diet. Since we’ve learned to refine sugar, it’s literally killing us.

But I digress.

Common sense tells us that without a compelling worldview-level reason to be honest, most people will lie, cheat and steal. Why wouldn’t we if it’s an amoral, mindless universe? And from the perspective of “scientific” materialism the universe seems to be entirely amoral with most of Earth’s mammals living dishonest, amoral lives, sneaking around in whimsically artistic camouflage provided by “mindless” nature as they hide from predators or hunt prey.

And yet science’s only route to truth in every field depends entirely upon honesty and objective insight. Honesty and objectivity must rule every step of scientific inquiry and every step of analysis, peer review, and publishing.

This insight is so glaringly obvious to everyone alive that many anti-spiritual scientists place honesty at the top of their own personal scientific identity despite the perceived “mindless nature of reality” that invites them to act like the other species and “win at all costs” in every situation, including the academic realm of job security ruled by the first law of academic life: “Publish or Perish.”

That’s why every honest anti-spiritual scientist deserves special respect and appreciation from people of all pro-spiritual faiths. Without these sterling individuals, true science could not exist today. Without their moral forebears, many of whom were spiritually oriented as it turns out, science would never have emerged in the first place.

Honest anti-spiritual scientists are like Earth’s many spiritual people who don’t believe in God or in an afterlife with rewards and punishments but still strive to do what’s right, compelled by wisdom, common sense, and compassion. Many Buddhists fall into this category, I’ve heard. In my opinion, God appreciates these people no end because they’re like God. Think about it, God always does what’s right out of compassion and wisdom, not because he/she/they believe in a higher power who will reward good behavior and punish evil deeds.

But honest scientists are not the dominant force in medical science at the National level these days. Drug companies run things there bringing us the illogical FDA decisions of recent times. For anyone who reads nonfiction in their spare time, the corruption of the FDA is as obvious as the existence of UFOs.

So for those with Type 2 Diabetes, an old-school MD may be the only doc in town who can put a Band-Aid on the problem by prescribing life-saving insulin injections. You’ll still be sick, but you’ll be strong enough to hunt down a functional doctor who likely won’t have the credentials to write insulin prescriptions but will be “allowed” to teach you how to reverse your disease at the causal level. Eventually, if you’re not too far advanced in the disease process, you won’t need insulin injection anymore. It’s happening with good regularity these days.

And personally, I hope you find a functional medicine practitioner with a pro-spiritual worldview that demands honesty, rather than just suggesting it politely. If near-death experiences mean anything, we will all someday regret the hurtful lies we’ve told. It’s not that I think we’ll be punished by God, I doubt that. But if we’re all good people visiting this limited physical realm from a truer Reality as I suspect, we’ll feel horrible about hurting other people because of who they really are and who we really are back home.

As I’ve said before, most MD’s don’t keep up with the medical literature because they’re too busy. Many try, but few succeed. Instead, MD’s tend to rely heavily on drug reps to bring them a verbal synopsis of the latest “papers of significance,” which are pharma-funded studies that show a specific relative-risk analysis favoring the company’s newest drugs. “Relative risk” is a common tool that pharma uses to grossly exaggerate the effectiveness of their drugs. Statins are the poster child of this madness. MD’s drink the cool aid because relative risk is a complex statistical thing that most MD’s are too busy to study, understand, and critically apply to the small print of pharma’s medical paper parade.

That’s not to say that drug companies have all been evil in the past or are all bad today. Clearly they’ve accomplished some great things and will likely come up with more genuinely wonderful breakthroughs as science matures. But drug companies are like everything else, given too much power they become corrupt, amoral, and destructive. For example, today they seem bent on sabotaging their toughest competition, functional medicine, labeling those who target the causes (rather than just the signs and symptoms) of disease “pseudoscience.”

MD’s still tend to think that functional medicine is pseudoscience. It’s not that they’ve read the relevant literature and developed an informed opinion, who has time for that? Instead the local standard of care tends to reject anything that might threaten the income of a drug company, and MD’s fall in line with groupthink. Stray from the “standard of care” and you’ll lose your job and possibly your medical license.

On top of that, it seems that MD’s tend to resent practitioners who deliver medical care without having spent the huge number of years they were forced to suffer through in education and training. It doesn’t seem remotely reasonable or in any way fair to the MD.

Predictably, old-school MDs mainly treat the signs of Type 2 diabetes (elevated fasting blood sugar and hemoglobin A1C) with insulin injections and the advice to “lose weight” on a traditional diet that, unlike ketogenic diets, makes a person chronically hungry due to the high carb content.

Carbs => hunger.

Inconveniently for drug companies, though, insulin was intelligently designed by “a spirit vastly superior to that of man” (as Einstein put it), to drive glucose into fat cells (lipocytes). And following the same genius logic that “accidentally” permeates nature, insulin is released mainly in response to carbohydrates, especially sugars.

If we severely cut down on carbs, we’ve eliminated the root cause of insulin spikes and thereby we can prevent Type 2 Diabetes, reverse “prediabetes,” and even reverse early Type 2 diabetes.

This is becoming so obvious now that even a few old-school MD’s are catching on.

Still, the average MD hopes that a drug company will develop an effective weight-loss and anti-diabetes pill that doesn’t have intolerable known side effects. They’ve got Metformin (Glucophage) now, but they want something more effective, anything but frustrating, lengthy lifestyle discussions that eat up their time and reduce their income. And it’s sort of understandable, I guess, because most MDs live from paycheck to paycheck. They merely spend a lot more money than average in the process of supporting their lifestyles. It’s human nature.

You may remember how MD’s were badly misled by the drug company’s deceptive “education” campaign a decade or two ago when Big Pharma promoted “non-addictive prescription opiates.” What a lie. The thousands of lives ruined and lost as a result of this ought to have awakened the MD’s to their own blindness and gullibility. But I see little evidence that they distrust drug companies at all now. Even the maelstrom of lies, corruption, and anti-logic that drove the insane National COVID response went right over most MDs heads (with a few notable, brilliant, and brave exceptions who were banned from the major woke-Marxist social media outlets).

Anyway, the old-school approach to Type 2 Diabetes is an enlightening model for understanding the FED’s approach to inflation and the National Debt. Ultimately, the FED and its crew of banks can only battle the signs and symptoms of inflation, not the underlying cause, because The Federal Reserve System is the ultimate cause of our impending economic train wreck here in the US.

The native insulin that your islets make is like the Earth’s most traditional money, gold. Digging more gold out of the ground requires immense physical work. That fact keeps the supply and demand for gold at a balance dictated by natural forces beyond manipulation. (If gold today didn’t have a futures market, it would be used to judge the “price” or value of the dollar, rather than the other way around. Instead we have price manipulation made easy for wealthy nations as they keep the price of gold down and buy bullion by the metric ton with plans of dethroning the US dollar from World Reserve Currency status.)

The synthetic, extraneous insulin that drug companies make is like the synthetic, legally counterfeited dollars that the FED churns out by adding ones and zeros to a spreadsheet on a computer terminal.

Like the old-school MD’s who inject synthetic insulin into a patient’s circulation, the FED’s pet commercial banks inject the FED’s synthetic US dollars into global circulation by lending it to the US Federal Government in exchange for IOU’s with fancy names (like Treasury Bills, Treasury Notes, Treasury Bonds, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), Floating Rate Notes (FRNs), Federal Financing Bank (FFB) securities, etc.).

We may hear tepid warnings from the FED about the unsustainability of current debt and the risk of hyperinflation that it brings, but just as the drug companies can’t survive in a paradigm of disease prevention, the FED can’t exist in a system designed to prevent inflation at the causal level by ending the FED’s interest rate manipulation and ending the FED’s production of synthetic (legally counterfeit) dollars (that are loaned to Congress for their drunken spending spree).

A lifestyle of eating so many carbohydrates that you develop insulin insensitivity and need synthetic insulin injections to stay alive is like the Nation’s lifestyle of borrowing so much money that we now need the FED to create synthetic money and inject it into our economic system so congress can continue living beyond its means until the disease runs it course and kills the country financially.

The final death of the economy can be either hyperinflation (not enough insulin, so the patient goes into diabetic keto-acidosis) or economic depression (so much synthetic insulin injected that the patient’s glucose levels drops to fatal levels).

In either case, the underlying cause is the same: toxic, chronically elevated debt made possible by the FED (analogous to a lifestyle of eating too many carbohydrates which chronically elevate and spike blood glucose levels causing insulin insensitivity which gradually gets worse and worse until you have type 2 diabetes and need insulin injections).

“Just give her the shoes, Dorothy.”

Toxic debt and inflation in the US are caused by:

1.) the legal fraud we call fractional reserve banking that allows all banks to hold only a small portion of the cash they receive while loaning out the rest. Worse yet, on March 26, 2020, that small reserve percentage was reduced to zero in the US. It’s insane.

2.) the FED itself is the primary cause of toxic US National debt and inflation.

The FED is a “bank” that creates money out of thin air, then loans this toxic, synthetic, legally counterfeited fiat “money” to the US Federal Government through IOU dealers and pet commercial banks, (some of which are shareholder-type “owners” of the FED). This transforms the US Government and the people into debt slaves. Simple as that, despite any government economist’s word-salad explanation to make it all seem rational, safe, fair, and normal.

The loans that the FED “gives” to the US government are made convoluted in order to prevent widespread understanding of the process, plus they’re burred in euphemism and unfamiliar large words to make the details difficult to remember.

From top to bottom, the system of global central banking was intelligently designed by brilliant sociopaths to make generational theft invisible to the public while appearing rational to government economists.

As a result, in the US the middle class shrinks and the poor swell in numbers. Most women in the US, for example, have lost the option to work full time at home raising kids, they MUST work outside the home to avoid bankruptcy and homelessness. The mainstream can sugarcoat it in “you-go-girl” verbiage, make it politically incorrect to mention at all, but it still reflects the FED’s constant theft of dollar value from the people.

These “banksters” use pretty words like, “the US government issued 500 billion in Treasuries.” It sounds sophisticated and vague. But in plain English it means, “The US has again borrowed 500 billion dollars from future generations. Most of the borrowed dollars were legally counterfeited out of thin air by the FED and loaned indirectly via commercial banks to the US Government. Your paycheck and savings have just been diluted again by a legalized white-collar criminal organization that owns and runs the US monetary system.”

But what’s so bad about that?

Your grandchildren won’t be able to make the interest payments on the National debt, let alone pay off the principal they will owe. These children of ours will be forced as a Nation to declare bankruptcy and suffer economic collapse, widespread starvation and the final takeover of the USA by tyrants, probably either the stakeholders of the World Economic Forum or the Chinese Communist Party itself. Maybe both, since they’re bedfellows at heart and purpose.

If and when this happens, hopefully the Woke people who openly claim to hate democracy and capitalism these days will vote their tyrants into power peacefully so the whole thing will be bloodless rather than a WW III with nukes and lab-grown racist mRNA bioweapons made in foreign labs at US taxpayer’s expense through FDA grants.

This debt crisis is what the World Economic Forum is counting on. When economic collapse becomes undeniable to the press, the WEF hopes to “rescue” the US with a global version of CBDC (central bank digital currency) that will give them unprecedented control of everyone’s money. They will outlaw gold, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. With CBDC as the only legal money, the WEF stakeholders intend to rule benevolently over all surviving peons. They hope we will all be happy slaves who own nothing but feel thankful to them for saving us from the “failed” experiment of democracy and free-trade capitalism. They hope we will all quietly serve the hyper-wealthy again, as per the historic norm on this blue planet.

But until then, there’s hope of getting the message out, making it simpler, and helping voters remember the details through repetition. (There’s no other way to remember complex things but periodic reputation of the details.) So here’s what’s really going on with US debt…

“Toto, did you pee on my ruby slippers?”

Through several convoluted steps, the FED’s synthetically created US dollars make their way into circulation via the FED’s pet commercial banks, causing the buying power of citizen’s wages and their savings to plummet decade after decade. This is because dollars becomes more numerous when the FED counterfeits them, and the natural law of supply-and-demand reduces the dollar’s value (its buying power) as illustrated in the official historic graph below (from the Bureau of Labor Statistics).

No matter which political party appears to control the government, this theft of value has gone on since 1913 when the FED was secretly created and thrust upon an American public who had long rejected the world banker’s attempts to cram a central bank down the US voters’ throats. Voters understood the economy back then.

In the upper left corner of the graph (1913) via deceitful language and secrecy, the world bankers finally slid a scheme past the US voters, and “The Federal Reserve System,” was born with a dishonest title that avoids an appropriate name like “Voldemort” which means “the flight of death,” or in what I imagine might be the WEF stakeholder’s affectionate terms: “The Blood-sucking Destroyer of Nations.”

While US citizens’ buying power went down due to the FED’s deliberate inflation rate of “only” 2% (as in, relax, we’ll only rob you slowly), the overall wealth of elite bankers went from billions to many trillions.

Incidentally, these money-smart, morality deficient world bankers avoid losing their own personal buying power to inflation by spending their dollars on true assets that cannot be created out of thin air, like farmland, mines, oil fields, famous old art work, physical gold bars, and island resorts designed to entrap and control each and every politician.

Decades ago, I remember reading about a practice available to the FED that we now call “buying federal debt” with legally-counterfeited money. The author shunned and shamed the idea as a ridiculously dangerous last-ditch effort to survive, made only by struggling “third-world” countries to stay afloat before inevitably sinking into violent chaos and political revolution. The idea that a country’s central bank would loan funny money to its government was a shady and unthinkable practice that the US government would never be stupid, corrupt and desperate enough to do.

Times have changed.

Now we’re doing it with enthusiasm and have been for so long it’s become unsustainable, even in the eyes of the FED Chairman himself. And like a diet too rich in carbohydrates that creates insulin insensitivity requiring injections of more and more synthetic insulin to keep the patient alive and always getting sicker, the FED must now inject more and more synthetic dollars into the veins of the US economy to keep it alive and always getting sicker under the weight of chronically growing debt.

“There’s no place like… What now?”

A patient with early Type 2 diabetes can go to an average old-school MD (one of the FED’s pet banks) and get insulin to confront the disease at a superficial level. This MD will admit that “controlling blood glucose carefully with insulin injections” may slow the progression of the disease but it won’t reverse it. You will eventually get sicker and sicker because the mainstream dogma tells MD’s that your disease is a “chronically progressive disease” that can’t be stopped.

Or a patient who knows the truth (that early Type 2 diabetes is preventable and reversible) can eliminate the cause of the disease (analogous to eliminating the FED’s toxic debt machine), go to a good functional medicine doc, face the ugly truth about carbohydrates and insulin, and begin a ketogenic lifestyle to reverse disease progression (which is like ending the FED so it can’t keep stealing our money by synthesizing counterfeit trillions out of thin air [QE] and manipulating free-market interest rates).

Sorry if there’s too much redundancy in this piece, but I think repetition helps us remember, and besides, I had to get this post out already so I can finish a shot sf story I’m writing for you.

Please forward this article to a loved one or friend. You might add decades to somebody’s life or even flap the proverbial butterfly wing that eventually creates a bipartisan voter storm big enough to talk the US government down from the ledge of debt created by the FED and congress.

And always consult your physician before making any changes in you medications or any dietary or other major lifestyle changes.

…

Functional Love,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

Examining the Heart and Soul of Totalitarianism

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I can’t begin to tell you how happy I was to find out that a brilliant systems analyst whose opinions I hold in the highest esteem, Ivor Cummins, has identified the root cause of what’s destroying love, trust and trustworthiness in the world today. The author of an important book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, Mattias Desmet, also gets it. He delivers a spell-binding interview in the video above.

These two men have come to grips with a hard truth that I’ve been yammering about, mainly to my wife, for decades: the primary cause of our cultural dysfunction today is “scientific” materialism, the pseudoscientific and dogmatic faith in the untestable assumption that our universe and all of the things and beings that might possibly lie beyond it, are all made of 1. mindless matter and 2. mindless electromagnetic energy. This interchangeable pair, born of reductionism, has designed and constructed the vast living ecosystems of unfathomably complex organisms without mindful help, because the faithful know there is no chance of a higher mind existing out there anywhere.

“Mass formation psychosis,” as the narrative goes, was first described in the 1950s as a state of mass hypnosis that must take control of 30 percent of a population before a tyrant can drag a country into one of the traditional forms of totalitarianism. Nazi Germany is the poster-child, it seems.

When I listen to this highly educated guy in the video, Mattias Desmet, discuss “mass formation,” it seems intuitively obvious that the US is experiencing this odd hypnotic phenomenon now, heading rapidly and enthusiastically toward a technologically enforced totalitarian society with Central Bank Digital Currency in the hands of the Central Banking Cartel as the ultimate tool for micromanagement of speech, shopping, and the savings/ investment patterns of each individual within their digital surveillance.

Here are the dynamics of group psychosis through hypnosis…

Lonely, frightened people become emotionally married to a constantly repeated (but irrational) narrative that feels good because it focuses everyone’s free-floating anxieties and fears on a concrete object, the “evil people,” who can be dealt with directly (in contrast to their free-floating anxiety which has nothing concrete to target for elimination). These “evil people” are always a group of flawed souls (because we’re all flawed souls, OK? Own it.) This flawed group’s historic and ongoing imperfections are surreptitiously emphasized with righteous indignation which subconsciously tags the group as the cause of everyone’s fear and anxiety, especially where money and poverty are concerned.

Today’s iteration of mass formation psychosis is far from “an equivalence” to Nazi Germany’s events, except perhaps in vague broad terms such as the catastrophically bad judgement of our leadership (on both sides of US politics). The “ultimate evil” group today has become the un-woke white males, as best I can tell. This could change, of course. State-sanctioned racism could shift from white males to all whites including white women and children. Or the currently woke version of racism could suddenly point its finger at another group, such as the Asians, the Mormons, the folk who pilot the world’s UFOs/UAPs, or even the un-woke of all races and worldviews who simply oppose ALL forms of racism on principle, including the woke anti-white form we’re currently struggling with.

It’s strange how a frightened, lonely population can be group-hypnotized into embracing a narrative, no matter how absurd it is, as long as the narrative can be constantly repeated to the public while rational voices are suppressed.

If you wanted to take over the world today, you’d need to have Big Tech and ALL the TV “news” outlets behind your narrative.

Check.

You’d need a crisis or a series of crises, hopefully signaling an unavoidable global macroeconomic disaster like hyperinflation and/or depression.

Check.

You’d need the big money behind your cause, like the world’s true central bankers and their puppets who appear to run the FED.

Check.

Then you, as a wannabe tyrant, could succeed miraculously through public repetition of any delusion, because the discomfort of free-floating fear, anxiety and loneliness can be symptomatically suppressed by focusing these unstable emotions on their supposed root-cause, namely the insufferably rotten white people with male gender identification.

“These sub-humans need to be at least punished for what they’ve done. Then we’ll find justice.”

The huge relief that comes from focusing free-floating anxiety and fear on something concrete brings fanatical dedication to the cause. Currently the cause appears to be silencing, hating, and eventually hunting down and exterminating all the “subhuman animals” who stubbornly oppose the woke delusion and its cultural and governmental takeover. Some of us happen to be white males, so we’re an easy starting point, but probably it won’t stop there.

Unfortunately, eliminating entire segments of the human population (and thereby reducing genetic diversity and our species’ odds of long-term survival) appears to be historically central to a successful “mass formation psychosis” perpetrated by tyrants who are overthrowing a government.

The folk in a takeover-targeted society who speak against the hypnotic racist narrative are, we’re told, unable to reverse the course of the revolution, but at least their anti-racist, anti-murder efforts to preserve rational thought do sometimes seem to succeed in preventing outright genocide and mass murder.

Today the WEF is openly telling us their plans to conquer the world, rejoicing in the ongoing global crises (economic and virus-related) that they freely admit they’re taking full advantage of while publicly bragging about their success in “infiltrating” by getting WEF graduates elected to public office. Fortunately the World Economic Forum seems to want to avoid nuclear war during their takeover. Got to be thankful for the little things.

“Mass formation” theory explains why and how the low points of human history tend to repeat themselves.

But I find it more fascinating that “scientific” materialism itself, the dominant toxic fundamentalist worldview today, is nothing short of a mass formation psychosis. It has taken a lonely group of highly intelligent people who have dedicated their careers to objective truth and curiosity, a group of wonderful men and woman who live in constant anxiety and fear of stepping out of line or in any way inadvertently screwing something up and losing their research funding, and through endless repetition of the Neo-Darwinian narrative for over a century, it (the toxic soup of materialism) has transformed about 66% of scientists and much of the general public into “scientific” materialist fundamentalists who reject all scientific curiosity outside of traditional materialist boundaries.

And as a group, the materialists (a.k.a. physicalists) continue to destroy the careers of anyone who opposes their scientific faith-based assumption with any other scientific faith-based assumption, such as Intelligent Design or the objective, scientific study of UFO’s/UAPs. They also censor and derail the careers of those within their own materialist faith whenever one of them accidentally discovers and tries to publish the evidence supporting a non-materialist worldview.

It’s no wonder I’m hearing rumors that materialist scientists are individually but quietly backing away from their long-held religion. Reality is impossible to hide from smart people forever, it seems to me.

I can deal with the notion that Desmet suggests, that the silent majority (on all sides of politics, science and human demographics who quietly dislike racist government takeovers) cannot prevent it from ultimately happening. It’s not the end of the world if we can’t change the course of history or even change the mind of a single woke racist. We can at least keep talking sense to the brick wall of hypnosis. We can at least keep trying to limit the loss of life that has traditionally been part of government takeover revolutions throughout history.

Come to think of it, I like what someone reported hearing during their life-changing near-death experience…

“God doesn’t ask us to succeed, only to persist.”

Ask Viktor Frankl, God rest his soul. Speaking up against ALL forms racism is the only loving, kind, and thoughtful thing to do, because nobody who’s not a sociopath feels good about themselves after a genocide, whether they’ve participated as a bloodthirsty proponent, a passive observer, or a survivor like Mr. Frankl.

…

Democracy Love,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

Exiting the Materialist Worldview with Self-awareness

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When my mind and heart joined forces to break away from a somewhat “scientific” materialistic version of fundamentalist Christianity (in the ever-evolving SDA Church as it was in Southern California in 2001), I kept my “friendship” with a Supreme Being intact by praying a lot.

We tend to hang on to certain subjectively tested assumptions that are difficult to test objectively in a blinded, controlled way.

Instead of rejecting God, I rejected the assumption of mainstream Christianity that the Bible is infallible, lacks contradictions when correctly understood with God’s help, and is the primary (if not the exclusive) written communication from the Divine Source to humanity.

But I didn’t throw out the ancient Judeo-Christian writings or any other ancient or modern spiritual writings as if they were of no value. I think they’re all vital to our spiritual evolution and survival as a species. Binary thinking is the human error that would have us toss them out.

I’ve seen a few good people leave the SDA church and hang on to their version of God, and also hang on to their assumption that the Bible is essentially infallible when properly interpreted. These folk tend to join another fundamentalist Christian Church, retain their sense of superior religious enlightenment, and continue to attempt to “prove” that their new beliefs are right based upon their new understanding of the “infallible” Bible.

I’ve also seen a few people leave the SDA church and reject the existence of a personal Supreme Being as well as the Bible. These folk, (n=3), may continue an interest in spiritual things and possibly join a non-Christian religious belief system. Alternatively, they may reject all spiritual things and fall back upon “scientific” materialism (the anti-spiritual, pseudo-scientific, untestable assumption that the universe and everything beyond it consists of mindless, random matter and energy).

Everyone tends to see their own worldview, new or old, as the most reasonable and accurate one. Fortunately some can see this human tendency and question its influence on their own thinking.

As you may recall, I’m often wrong about important things.

Despite this glaring fallibility, it seems clear to me that “scientific” materialism is not only anti-scientific and anti-spiritual, it’s also toxic to humanity because it creates a meaningless, purposeless worldview that seems to cause clinical depression and leads people like Putin into cruel, amoral behaviors that can be justified by the materialist belief that free will is a false illusion and morality doesn’t exist except in a flexible, user-friendly way.

Lately I’ve noticed a growing number of highly educated people associated with the UFO community leaving “scientific” materialism in a way that reminds me of how I left Christian fundamentalism while holding on to my most treasured assumption.

My most treasured assumption was and is my sense of friendship with an intelligent, benevolent, loving Supreme Being, whose personal characteristics still seem to me to be best reflected in many (but not all) of the saying attributed to Jesus in the Bible.

Similarly, some people who leave “scientific” materialism hold on to their most precious assumption: that the Universe is impersonal. I can’t fault them for doing the same sort of thing I did. But let’s at least clarify it a bit.

Those who exit materialism may reject ultimate universal randomness, they may come to believe that there’s something more to reality than matter and energy, they may come to believe that the Universe is a great supercomputer or perhaps the physical brain of a huge organism inside which we are its tiny separate dissociated egos, or they may even come to believe in a higher Spirit as Einstein said…

“Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some Spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man.” – Albert Einstein

But is a Spirit personal? Not necessarily.

It seems to me that many who “leave” materialism don’t leave a certain debilitating aspect of it.

They hold on to the untestable assumption that, one way or another, the higher “seemingly intelligent” force, or computer, or brain, or Spirit cannot possibly be personal to humans. That is, prayer cannot really be the process of talking to a loving Friend with the highest personal morality, because the Supreme Force cannot possibly have anything to do with human morality. It must be seen as either too smart, too finite and divided, too infinite, or in some other way incapable or unwilling to connect with a human being in a personal way. Even if the Source were in some sense a Person, the notion of he/she/it listening to humans individually or even collectively would be impossible. It would be like a human trying to talk with a bacteria, we’re told.

But here’s the thing. The DNA codes of Earth and possibly those of the rest of the Universe are a hyper-complex language with “codes within codes within codes” as geneticist Garry Nolan, put it. The age of the Universe (still thought to be a mere 13.8 billion years) is but a miniscule fraction of the time required for mindless, random forces (random mutation, genetic drift, and natural selection) to come up with a code for a functional protein of modest size, let alone simultaneously coming up with a protein nano-factory necessary to maintain and replicate that DNA while carrying out its other complex commands.

So, ignoring the mainstream noise to the contrary, it’s scientifically respectable now to postulate that an intelligence greater than our own had a personal role in writing the first genetic codes and constructing the first protein nano-factories of this Universe.

Certainly anyone with an open mind can see that it’s reasonable to postulate that the intelligent minds behind modern UFOs might have advanced DNA technology giving them an ability to tamper with, if not Intelligently Design new DNA code.

But taking it a step further, the first DNA codes of the Universe, together with the first intracellular nano-machines that must have been present at the same time to interpret and obey the machine language of those DNA codes, could reasonably be postulated to have come from a Source living beyond the reality we call the Universe or its space-time matrix of potential.

And it seems obvious that any Mind capable of writing DNA code would also be capable of understanding human language. So the idea that prayer is talking to a Real Friend who can literally hear you and care about your life is not the objective impossibility it’s often assumed to be by materialist “science.”

And if you explore the evidence that our Universe appears to have a number of characteristics of a holodeck-like replica of some more fundamental reality, then you might reasonably conclude that the personal monitoring of, and contact with, each person within this replica by Someone beyond it would be a likely possibility.

Naturally, I would encourage anyone leaving the “scientific” materialist faith to personally test the hypothesis that our Higher Source is a personal and loving Being, rather than impersonal and out of contact with us.

As far as I know, the only way to test this hypothesis is to pray and see if you have a sense of connecting with Someone.

If you accept consciousness as something other than a false illusion, then subjective testing is at least a reasonable approach. Some might argue it’s the only approach available even to scientists, because we must all pass any data through the lens of consciousness.

Prayer is a matter of “talking to God as to a friend,” as far as I know.

But test the hypothesis your own way and call it meditation if the word prayer doesn’t sound right. After all, I’m often wrong about important things, and testing this particular hypothesis seems extremely important because…

If enough of humanity were to discover how to talk to a Loving Supreme Being who does what’s right because it is right and respects free will because it’s the right thing to do, my gut feeling is that our species would…

eventually stop enjoying real and pretend violence on TV,

stop believing that war is inevitable,

stop electing sociopath leaders,

stop stumbling toward nuclear holocaust,

work together to end poverty without cancelling the freedoms of the non-elite,

stop polluting our bodies and the planet,

learn to survive the dangerous aspects of our technologies long enough to evolve into a loving species that could safely expand beyond Earth and be accepted into, perhaps, a larger society of mature species out in the Universe who have learned to “love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them.”

…

Conscious, Intelligent, Personal Love,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

“If you ever wanted to believe in God, just look inside the cell.” -Gary Nolan, PhD (genetics)

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Garry P. Nolan represents the return of objectivity to 21st century science. He holds the Rachford and Carlota A. Harris Professor Endowed Chair in the Department of Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine.

When asked what advice he would give to a young person pursuing a scientific career, Garry Nolan says to go after the anomalous observations, the points that are “off the graph.”

Regarding the way older scientists have advised younger ones to avoid unorthodox interpretations and taboo fields of investigation, Dr. Nolan’s says he “reverse-shames” these incurious people…

“You’re wanting to take something off the table that might be an explanation. How is that the scientific method?” Garry Nolan, PhD — 1:37:37 on the video below.

In the beginning of the interview, Lex Fridman askes Dr. Nolan,

“What is the most beautiful or fascinating aspect of human biology at the level of the cell…?”

Dr. Nolan, a PhD in genetics, answers, “The micro-machines and nano-machines that proteins make and become. That to me is the most interesting. The fact that you have this basically dynamic computer within every cell that’s constantly processing everything in its environment, and at the heart of it is DNA which is a dynamic machine, a dynamic computation process. People think of DNA as a linear code. It’s codes within codes within codes. It is, in fact, the epigenetic state that’s doing this amazing process. If you ever wanted to believe in God, just look inside the cell.“

Subliminal message: read Stephen Meyer, PhD, Signature in the Cell.

A few moments later, Dr. Nolan assures the “scientific” materialists who control the funding of science, that he himself doesn’t particularly side with the God hypothesis. He does, however, see the origin of life as hinging upon the origin of the Universe…

“It’s [the universe is] computing towards something. It was created in some ways, if you believe in God, and I don’t know that I do, but if you want to believe in something, the universe was created or at least enabled to allow for life to form.”

I think he’s referring to the fine-tuning of the universal physical constants of nature, each a specific number (or magnitude), that must be one specific value (out of infinite possibilities) for life to exist and for the Universe as we know it to be here.

Spiritual scientists might say that God or a Supreme Consciousness fine-tuned physics. Mainstream science might says that God is unscientific and all consciousness, even our own, is a non-material illusion, so a “multiverse” manufacturing process must exist to explain the fine-tuning. This falls within their rigid, dogmatic paradigm of randomness as the highest controlling agency in and beyond the Universe(s). They might say that each new universe popped into existence spontaneously out of nothingness until our Universe emerged from nothingness having been randomly self-selected from among a nearly infinite variety of other possible (and/or real) universes that could not support life as we know it.

To me, any variant of the Consciousness hypothesis seems more scientific than the “multiverse” idea, because we know that consciousness exists, but we can’t detect the multiverse mechanism or observe any of its proposed “multiverses” besides our own. And if someday we are able to directly observe this multiverse creator, could we prove that it wasn’t a conscious, intelligent and therefore a spiritual Entity? I doubt it.

In the human experience, conscious intelligence produces the complex computer codes that run, for instance, robotic automobile manufacturing plants. Science usually uses the known to help explain the unknown because trying to explain the unknown with another unknown is usually less enlightening. It’s like explaining the black plague as a visit from the grim reaper.

Conscious intelligence is a known. We scientists should use it as such. The random, mindless, “multiverse” machine is entirely undetectable and unlike anything familiar. Perhaps we should not use it as a tool for canceling honest scientific inquiry into conscious, intelligent, and therefore arguably spiritual explanations of scientific enigmas. It’s not a matter of, “God did it, so I’m no longer interested in natural laws and phenomena.” It’s more like, “An Intelligent Consciousness seems to have left a signature in nature. That makes me more curious about natural laws and phenomena.”

As you may remember from Dr. Meyer’s book, impossible odds also face those who ascribe the coded information in DNA to random mutations, genetic drift, and natural selection.

The Universe would have to be infinitely old or infinitely large for the information coded within DNA to have come into existence by random forces. Of course, it’s possible that science will someday find unconscious computer-like processes carried out by the Universe herself, as Dr. Nolen implies. But if that discovery comes, we will be left wondering if perhaps an Intelligent Consciousness designed and built the computer-like aspects of the Universe.

Whatever the future holds for human spiritual evolution, the good news of Dr. Nolan’s bold career is that modern science’s avoidance of taboo fields of study and academia’s traditional censorship of unpopular explanations are finally crumbling. Today the most brilliant scientists in the world realize that censorship and anti-spiritual bias are anti-scientific. They’re putting their money, time, energy and public reputations behind objective science, taking seriously ALL data and ALL interpretations, rather than just the random, mindless, rigidly materialistic data and hypotheses.

This is the worldview breakthrough that humanity has been searching for since the early to mid 1800’s when the worldview pendulum of science swung from one bad extreme (the unscientific assumption of the “obviousness” of God as the final explanation to the exclusion of randomness) to the opposite bad extreme (the unscientific assumption of the “obviousness” of mindless randomness in a purely physical universe as the final explanation to the exclusion of a Higher Intelligence, a.k.a. “scientific” materialism or physicalism).

Until recently, Intelligent Design has been promoted mainly by a few Christian Creationist scientists while mainstream science ridiculed their ideas and openly destroyed their careers.

But now, with Garry Nolan explaining that belief in God is reasonable if you understand DNA and the nano-factories of the cell, even though he doesn’t believe in God himself, science appears to be progressing to a new level of objectivity and away from the past emotional worldview biases with their pre-conceived dogmas: “everything must be ultimately random” or “everything must be ultimately controlled by God.” To the scientists steeped in a fading worldview dogma of one sort or the other, Dr. Nolan says,

“You’re wanting to take something off the table that might be an explanation. How is that the scientific method?” Garry Nolan, PhD — 1:37:37 on the video.

Not only has Dr. Nolan given breathing room to scientists with spiritual awareness like myself who pray to an intelligent, personal God, Nolan has given scientific credibility to the field of Ufology.

But before we get into that, I need to say that I feel as if my “friendship” with God is entirely real and almost qualifies me as belonging to an unrecognized subclass of “experiencer.” The term “experiencer” typically includes (but is not limited to) near-death experiencers, UFO experiencers, alien being experiencers, alien abductee experiencers, science-download experiencers (like Nicola Tesla), and perhaps a few famous science fiction writers who seem to have accurately predicted future events and inventions.

Dr. Nolan has made a scientific observation that might connect various types of “experiencers” with what Kit Green has called “higher functioning individuals or savants.” Only one person in 200-300 individuals has this anomaly, it seems. It’s an “enriched patch of neurons” in the basal ganglia of which we each have two, one in each cerebral hemisphere, each having two-pieces, the caudate and the putamen. Recent studies tells us that the basal ganglia are a goal-processing system serving executive functions of the higher cerebral cortices. The basal ganglia involve intuition and planning. When I was in med school, the basal ganglia were thought to be limited to the control of muscles. Now they’re sometimes called, “the brain within the brain.“

(at 17:50 in the video below):

Lex: You’ve looked at the brains of… people who have had UFO encounters. What’s common about the brain of people who have encountered UFOs?

A cohort of unusual fMRI studies were brought to Dr. Nolan. He examined them and found that most of them were suffering from “Havana syndrome,” a strange and debilitating illness that was first found in diplomats and CIA officers at the US Embassy in Havana in 2016. Dr. Nolan apparently lost interest in these individuals, but went on to study others with the same fMRI anomaly. Quoting now…

Dr. Garry Nolan: “What we found there was not something that allows some people to communicate with UFOs. I think the UFO community took a step too far. What I think we found is a form of higher functioning processing. Then… we looked at the families of those … index-case individuals and we found that it was actually in families. … We’ve now looked at about 200 random cases and we don’t see this area of higher connectivity. We only find it in individuals that Kit Green has called higher-functioning individuals… He called them savants… It turns out my family has it [the fMRI anomaly]… The reason why it seems to be [present] in so-called experiencers… if intuition is the ability to see something that other people don’t, I don’t mean that in a paranormal sense, but being able to see something that’s in front of you that other people might just dismiss, well, maybe that’s a function of a kind of higher intelligence….”

This is another Nolan Milestone for humanity, a physical commonality among UFO experiencers with neuro-physiologic relevance. This takes Ufology another step out of the unrealistic categorization as a “pseudoscience” and into the 21st Century of scientific objectivity.

And just to highlight Dr. Nolan’s objectivity, we see that he also goes with the data when it opposes the UFO community’s expectations…

At the top of this article is an X-ray image of the Atacama skeleton that Dr. Greer brought to many people’s attention, thinking that it is physical evidence of non-human intelligent life on Earth from the not-so-distant past. Dr. Nolan, God bless his objectivity and open-minded soul, studied it in his lab, consulted with experts, and describes the process at 47:40 on the video. Bottom line: Dr. Nolan considers the skeleton to be fully human but with a large number of bone-structure mutations in its DNA.

I applaud him for that, but things are never that simple for me…

After reviewing the paper, this quote jumps out of the Discussion section at me:

“Further, deep sequencing of the genome might reveal other phenotype-associated structural variations that are limited in the current analyses due to low coverage of the genome.”

What does this mean? Just how low is their “low coverage of the genome” in this paper?

If chimpanzee and human DNA are about 95% the same, would their “low coverage of the genome” be able to differentiate a human from a chimp? I’d like to know. Perhaps this paper’s conclusion, “it’s definitely human,” could have been strengthened or avoided altogether if they had used (as a non-human blinded control) the DNA of a Chimpanzee obtained from a 40-years-deceased, unpreserved Chimpanzee specimen. Controls are standard in science. If your conclusion is “this is definitely human DNA” then you need a non-human control to show whether or not Chimp DNA also appears to be “definitely human” when examined blindly in the same “low-coverage of the genome” laboratory circumstances.

I still admire Dr. Nolan immensely, and I’ll bet he could answer this question easily.

Quoting again from the paper’s Discussion:

“Taken together, it is entirely plausible that the chance combination of multiple known mutations and novel SNVs [single nucleotide variants as opposed to single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)] identified here may explain Ata’s small stature, inappropriate rib count [ten], abnormal cranial features, and perceived advanced bone age. Given the size of the specimen and the severity of the mutations described above, it seems likely the specimen was a preterm birth.”

A couple of other questions come to mind:

  1. What local sources of mutation-inducing radiation or other influences could the gonads of this creature’s viable parents have been exposed to that produced such a huge number of novel mutations (outside of the SNP zones), known lethal mutations and devastating bone altering mutations? The paper suggests the answer is “nitrite mining” in the area and references this paper that doesn’t seem to back the claim. Instead, the paper says (in the abstract section): “The results showed that the frequency of structural chromosomal aberrations was not significantly higher in the drug-treated group than the control….” Hmm. If nitrite is a powerful enough mutagen to cause many rare and novel mutations in the Atacama skeleton’s chromosomes, you might think that patients who inhale nitrite as a medicine today would show significant chromosomal aberrations when compared to the normal controls. But no. The nuclei looked a little funny, but no chromosomal aberrations. It’s probably just my ignorance exposing itself again, right?
  2. Are the mutations located randomly throughout Ata’s chromosomes? I doubt this question can be answered with conditions that limit researchers to “low coverage of the genome.” But it would certainly be important to find out if truly random and powerful mutational forces were at work in South America just 40 years ago when this “fetus” with bones fused like a 6 or 7 year-old human child is said to have died in “preterm birth.” If not random mutational forces, then we’re back into a discussion of the Intelligent Design of DNA, not necessarily by a Supreme Being, but perhaps by whomever designs, builds and pilots the Navy’s well documented UFOs.

To me, Intelligent Design needs to be taken more seriously by the UFO community for obvious reasons, and taken entirely more seriously by secular materialist science because an advanced technology has now been undeniably documented on Earth, and if you deny all possibility that the intelligences behind UAPs are tampering with Earth’s DNA, well then…

“You’re wanting to take something off the table that might be an explanation. How is that the scientific method?” Garry Nolan, PhD

…

Spiritual Experiencer Love,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

“Spirituality is the missing piece” – Paul Hellyer on the history of UFOs

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The late, great Paul Hellyer, God rest his soul, recorded a final message (in the video above). It turns out that several of his conclusions remain near the fringe of Ufology.

Here’s a summary of the often-dismissed conclusions he delivered to us with confidence:

  1. Nazis fled to Antarctica after WWII and created a breakaway culture that possibly survives to this day on a base that the Germans had begun building in 1939.
  2. UFOs, maybe of Nazi origin, protected the Nazis from an attack by Admiral Byrd’s fleet.
  3. The “Paperclip” Nazis were given top positions in the US Space Programs and high positions throughout the secret service organizations. Soon they became a shadow government. President W. Wilson (by creating MJ-12 or something like it) gave these Nazis complete dictatorial control over ET-derived technology in the US. This off-world technology was obtained from UFO crashes beginning in 1941 and including the Roswell crash in 1947. Nazis control Area 51 and S4 to this day.
  4. An ET being survived a crash and sat for a recorded interview with a nurse. Mr. Hellyer watched the video. The main ET message? Humans are wrecking this beautiful planet.
  5. If the ETs had wanted to take over Earth at that time they could have, because humans were defenseless against them.
  6. The USA and USSR “sold their souls” in exchange for ET technology.
  7. The USA and USSR had been offered ET help with medicine, agriculture, etc. if they would give up atomic weapons. They refused.
  8. The fabric of the cosmos is damaged by nuclear explosions.
  9. Steven Greer “who, as you know, is one of America’s best ufologists” quotes former President Bill Clinton. When asked by a reporter why he didn’t disclose more about the UFO files, the President said, “Sarah, there’s a government inside the government, and I don’t control it.“
  10. Not one US President has been allowed inside Area 51 or Area S4. Congress has never known what’s going on in these places.
  11. If you read The Omega Files, by Branton (a pseudonym), Mr. Hellyer said that you will know more about UFOs and Aliens than most of the top generals and admirals.
  12. Phil Schneider was telling the truth when he spoke of huge underground cities and structures, including the Dulce Base where human genetic experiments (similar to those performed by the Nazis of WWII) were performed by modern-era Nazis. Back in the 1990’s, Mr. Schneider (not Mr. Hellyer, though he may have believed Schneider) said that some of the underground structures, several in every state, are designed to hold thousands of prisoners who will be collected after the world takeover by the “new world order” led by evil ET’s who will depopulate the world with bio-weapons, possibly viruses.
  13. Michael Wolf’s many incredible claims were essentially true, including his claim to have been an insider at Area 51. President Jimmy Carter wanted to end the UFO cover up but… “I attended this meeting,” Wolf claims (not Mr. Hellyer). “Carter had strong Christian beliefs. When told that religion is man-made and probably unique to this planet, he broke down in tears.” Wolf also said that “satellite government scientists” have harnessed zero-point energy and cold fusion. Wolf said, “There needs to be a smooth transition into these new sciences. Otherwise the world economy could be wrecked.”
  14. The US Space Force is at least 14 years old and currently traverses the galaxy.
  15. Spirituality is the missing piece of the UFO / Phenomena puzzle. God “is alive, well, and everywhere.”

Notice how Zohar Entertainment Group and AdRev, the companies who manage this YouTube channel, decided to cut the message off the moment Mr. Hellyer began talking about God. That’s a transparent bias, probably the same cash-flow bias that destroyed the mainstream “news” media’s trustworthiness in the US. The late Paul Hellyer deserves greater respect than this. So does every religion’s God(s).

For that matter, UFOs and related phenomena deserve greater respect than to be forced into the “entertainment” category on YouTube. This “entertainment” label is misleading and insulting. But I digress.

As I listen to Mr. Hellyer, the surprise to me is how many of his beliefs I’ve rejected long ago in my haste to form a “humble-but-infallible” (ego-laden) opinion.

For example, if you read the Michael Wolf link, you’ll come across the claim that Dr. Wolf et. al successfully created an “artificially-intelligent human” named “J-Type Omega” who came out of the lab’s genetic soup looking 20 years old and now lives free in the USA. Hmmm.

To the primitive part of my brain that loves all-or-nothing thinking, this story deserves knee-jerk rejection, and therefore as the puerile “thinking” goes, everything Dr. Wolf ever said must be rejected. But wait…

According to Chris Stonor who claims that Dr. Wolf read and approved his article in 2000, Dr. Wolf also said some things that would be easy for me to believe. Quoting now…

  • Dr. Wolf said the Pope has changed the Roman Catholic view on God.
    • “Their future line will be ‘we are not in the image of God but our souls are’.” 
  • He had spoken at length to the ETs about God and death.
    • “Our bodies are merely containers for the soul. When people die their consciousness simply moves into another dimension.”
  • On God Dr. Wolf said,
    • “Some ETs call God The Forever – the creator behind everything in the universe.” 
  • On Jesus Christ,
    • “He was of joint ET/human heritage – sent to Earth as an attempt to end human violence.” 
    • Whether a Zeta, Pleiadian, Altaran, Human etc.. we share the same God – we are all family.

A mantra was drilled into my head during my decades as a fundamentalist Christian: “You can’t pick and choose.” This unfortunate dogma referred only to texts in the Bible. “The Bible is either straight from God’s infallible mouth or it’s worthless.” There’s little if any middle ground for fundamentalists of all faiths, including the “scientific” materialist fundamentalists.

Yet I know I have to pick and choose when it comes to peer-reviewed medical literature. That’s the nuts and bolts of the scientific process.

And when it comes to the “news” media, I’ve learned to pick and choose carefully (or ignore it completely) because both political sides of that puppet-show regularly exaggerate, hide things, spin things, use poor judgement, and even overtly lie for the “higher” cause of politics and money/ratings.

So why wouldn’t it make sense to pick and choose from among Paul Hellyer’s controversial beliefs as well as from the sources he seemed to trust?

Perhaps “listen but verify” would be workable, rather than thinking that a person’s entire work is all true or all false.

My attitude is, listen widely and try to remember every detail no matter how impossible the story sounds because if we’re actually dealing with off-world technology, seemingly impossible feats could be routine.

These days, I apply the same heuristic to ancient scriptures. I take in old writings or oral myths and try to determine what represents a loving God, and what’s more likely the footprint of ancient ETs, “the powerful ones.”

…

Spectrum Love,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

THE IDIOTIC CENSORSHIP OF IVERMECTIN – “As if Silicon Valley knows better than doctors”

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One law of simulation that has brought our world’s flawed democracies a better outcome for the poor than the popular forms of totalitarianism is this: Truth must be challenged to survive from generation to generation.

Truth is antifragile. It grows stronger when exposed to rational opposition. Truth is like the memory B cells of the immune system, those nanofactories that produce specific antibodies against antigenic foci on the microscopic predators we encounter. Without repeated exposure, B cells can forget what they’ve learned.

Likewise, without rational challenge and debate, truth fades from humanity’s collective memory.

Falsehood is fragile like some of the dangerous bacteria lurking in hospitals. Clostridium difficile, for example, is a bug that thrives when antibiotics have silenced the balanced competition of the normal gut microbiome. I’ll never forget the horror on my infectious disease doctor’s face when I had C. diff colitis and his first round of IV antibiotics had failed (targeting Clostridium difficile with antibiotics, fighting fire with fire). People sometimes die from the pseudomembranous colitis caused by this opportunistic infection.

My doc’s second round of IV antibiotics worked. Now I’m swallowing probiotics and prebiotics regularly for prevention.

Meanwhile, most MD’s aren’t even sure the microbiome is worth their attention. The drug companies have less than zero motivation to do large blinded, controlled clinical trials on probiotics. And without reports of such trials in the “infallible scriptures” of big-pharma medicine, the faithful congregation of mainstream MD’s must continue to ignore the human gut microbiome. Everyone loses.

Just as broad-spectrum antibiotics kill the gut’s healthy bacteria, censorship kills the truth. Especially censorship of genuinely dangerous, hurtful, triggering, bigoted lies and misinformation. This is counterintuitive, but all human judgement is a matter of perspective. Always and forever.

An easy example of truth vanishing due to censorship is the megalithic evidence of humanity’s prehistoric high-tolerance stonework technology seen in massive ancient stone structures around the world, some weighing hundreds to over a thousand tons. The academics refuse to allow discussion of this evidence in their sacred literature (science journals). As a result, the truth of advanced human technology in ancient history has become invisible to archeology and academia.

Perhaps it’s not invisible to you?

Another example of vanishing data is the entire history of unidentified flying objects. This topic has been denied, shamed and shunned for so many generations that now, even after the US Department of Defense has admitted that UFOs/UAPs are real, many people continue to deny their existence, clinging to “explanations” that betray a lack of reading.

It turns out that we have a simple rule of thumb to help us differentiate falsehood from truth: Just ask, “Do the experts allow published debate on the data or do they dismiss the topic and attack the credibility of those who try to discuss it?” If debate is encouraged, the experts are probably defending a truth. If not, they’re usually defending lies or honest mistakes.

Truth tends to inspire a calm, logical discussion based on evidence rather than personal attack. Truth seems to be antifragile and never ever sides with censorship, name calling, or angry shouts of “shame on you.”

Our culture is forgetting the value of two-sided arguments. More and more we’re forced to accept censorship, cancellation and the personal destruction of all who challenge the amoral, anti-spiritual agendas of Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, mainstream TV Inc., the entrenched academics and all the other mind-police.

For example, as you probably recall, any video with evidence that COVID-19 came from a laboratory in China was deleted by Google’s Nazi AI. This happened because those who created the AI “knew” that any two-sided discussion of COVID origin would give voice to “a political party of racists” and their outrageously evil leader. To Google, the Chinese lab origin theory was an infectious lie that required a broad-spectrum antibiotic — censorship. They honestly believe to this day that the feeble-minded public needs Google’s benevolent protection from liars and the misinformed.

But we don’t.

Even now that the truth of COVID origins is coming out, there are still scientists (@2:14 on this linked video) who seem to imply that the censorship was justified because a “racist” president promoted the Wuhan-lab origins theory.

A more destructive example of our culture banning two-sided arguments is the “woke community’s” effort to change the definition of racism.

Originally racism meant treating anyone unfairly because of their skin color.

Now, under a woke delusion of outrage, racists can only have white skin. People of color cannot, by definition, be racists anymore. How convenient. Any questioning of the fairness of this doubletalk, or its irrational and illogical construction, or the obvious insanity of embracing an evil that you claim to oppose, is halted with the following judgmental sentiment: “If you even ask those questions, you’re a racist and you don’t get it.” No debate, just attack the opponent personally.

It reminds me of the way the “New Atheists” deal with Intelligent Design: attack the people, not the evidence or their logic. Like any one-sided weak argument, the “woke” paradigm requires censorship of rational thought and the skill of shaming.

Wokeness is a mind-virus pandemic that has infected education at all levels and has largely taken over corporate culture. As much as I hate genuine racism, I think “wokeness” is even worse because it justifies one brand of racism, promotes racial hatred, and bans rational discussion of the topic. It looks to me like a blatant example of totalitarian mind control disguised as moral righteousness. It’s like a mood pill that makes you feel morally uplifted when you’re actually participating in evil and violence.

Like the CIA who fights international dishonesty with their own brand of dishonesty, and like the Darwinian Nazi medical doctors of WWII who believed that survival of the fittest was nature’s truest morality, allowing them to systematically torture and kill their human “patients” for a “higher cause,” the woke community of today will occasionally admit that “the value of fairness is overrated” and winning at all costs is an acceptable strategy, at least for now.

Fortunately, the “woke-ban” on thinking rationally about racism is a fragile thing and survives only as long as they can ban debate through shaming, censorship and ruining the careers of their opponents. It’s like a holy war, it can’t last forever.

Another treacherous censorship on the COVID front comes to us now from the binary thinking of Silicon Valley. Google’s Nazi-like AI is banning information on what may actually turn out to be the most highly effective anti-COVID drug so far, Ivermectin. The drug is cheap, so naturally Google/YouTube can’t allow people to hear about its effectiveness. Instead, the G-monopoly silently deletes Ivermectin videos.

But you can watch the video here as Matt Orfalea brings you an MD with international data on Ivermectin’s effectiveness against COVID-19. You really ought to click the link (https://odysee.com/@Orf:b/youtube-censored-the-senate!-(ft.-pierre:4) and watch it. The more we learn about Ivermectin, the more shocking its censorship becomes. (Unfortunately, WordPress software won’t allow me to feature a video from Odysee.com, so I can only link to it.)

Here’s Alison Morrow, a reporter who left the mainstream’s 90-second “news” machine. She interviews Matt Orfalea and discusses parts of his “dangerous” video, highlighting the facts on Ivermectin and noting the irrational behavior of Google’s Nazi censorship monopoly.

At the moment I can’t claim to know whether the current scientific data on Ivermectin should be considered conclusive evidence of its effectiveness. The Big Pharma experts monopolize healthcare in the US and stand to lose billions if a cheap and effective alternative to their drugs-in-testing should arise. They tell us that the data on Ivermectin is “inconclusive.” They don’t have a negative word to say about it as far as I know. It’s just that the holy grail of infallibility has not been achieved yet for this drug’s use against COVID.

Big Pharma has hammered that holy grail message of infallibility into the mainstream MD’s head to the point where almost no one questions the dogma that double-blinded, randomized, placebo controlled, prospective trials of huge size are the only route to medical truth. All other facts, including epidemiologic studies and basic science research, fall into the category of “there is no evidence that treatment A does anything to alleviate disease B.”

Of course, Big Pharma has no intention to study Ivermectin or any other cheap drug. Money is to Big Pharma as air is to a person. The CEO risks corporate death without lots of money coming in. And besides, he works for a higher cause, just like the good folks pushing woke values down our throats.

Since Google has now literally and openly joined the pharmaceutical industry, it must do the logical thing and censor videos on Ivermectin, all for a higher cause.

Nevertheless, Ivermectin has a history of safety, and its current international data shows with overwhelming clarity that it deserves a large clinical trial with open discussions on TV and YouTube.

No, Ivermectin doesn’t deserve this, humanity does. At the very least, COVID patients should be allowed to see the data, discuss it with their doctor, and decide whether to take it or not, along with everything else Big Pharma is pushing on us in their wise benevolence.

…

Uncensored love,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

PS: I just want to say, like the “New Atheist” movement that shouts down and ruins the careers of Intelligent Design scientists, the brittle and brutal “woke” movement is composed of good, extremely well-meaning people who are struggling to do what’s right, trying to promote the truth as they understand it, and trying to improve the world. Everyone should respect them for those intentions. If you don’t sense the centrality of this point at the level of the heart, then you miss what I’m struggling to say here. Your opponents in any field are not the real enemy. Censorship via monopoly is the enemy. Whether we are atheistic believers in scientific journals or religious believers in old books, whether we’re woke bigots, sleeping bigots, or just deplorably colorblind bigots, we in the free world are all on the same side of an underlying battle against our own elites who seek totalitarian rule. Politics, race, religion, gender, socio-economic class distinctions, tax wars, all these sorts of things don’t matter to the elites except as they are useful as tools to divide, conquer and control us while bringing in money.

As much as we all may love the way Google’s Nazi AI helps us find fascinating stuff, we should force ourselves to abandon YouTube and the Google search engine. We should support democratic, censorship-free alternative sources of information before it’s too late, before the G-monopoly owns and controls the minds of the entire human race.

If you still trust your favorite political TV flavor, you’re making a mistake. The amoral “news” machine will do its best to control and own you by myelinating the neuronal pathways of outrage in your central nervous system, outrage towards the very people whom you should be meditating upon so you can deepen your capacity to love. (“Neurons that fire together wire together,” and so repetition of the feeling of outrage makes you more and more of an “expert” at feeling that way. Avoid TV “news” and stay loving and lovable.)

Peer Review – the Route to Truth or another Echo Chamber?

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In the US legal system, the accused party has the right to trial by a “jury of peers.”

Every MD I’ve spoken to about it feels cheated that the MD is always forced to face a jury of “non-peers.” That is, non-medical people who lack advanced education in physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, neuroanatomy, pathology, surgery, clinical practice, etc.

It feels grossly unfair from this side of the table.

But can you imagine how often a jury of MD’s would side with a patient claiming to have been victimized in some way by an MD? I suspect guilty verdicts would be rare. I hope I’m wrong, and I certainly could be.

Though most MDs probably see themselves as the proverbial hens with the (personal-injury) lawyers as the wolves, many, if not most non-medical US citizens would never put MD’s in charge of bringing malpractice fairness to patients.

Common sense says that such a setup would mean well-intentioned wolves guarding the hen house, a conflict of interest, or at least an echo chamber designed to keep truth and justice away from angry patients.

Like every conflict, this one has two sides, each deserving a voice. But common sense tends to win in the end, so “non-peers” judge us MD’s in court.

Hmm…

What if we carry this flavor of common sense over into the peer-review process of the scientific literature?

In that priestly realm, the professors’ former students become the gatekeepers of every scientific journal on Earth. Sounds like an echo chamber.

But it wouldn’t resemble wolves guarding the henhouse if all currently established scientific views were accurate.

Sadly, even the firmly “established” views in every field tend to eventually change. We can probably assume they always will.

Without the option of infallible knowledge, the peer-review process could avoid the reality of a systemic conflict of interest if only the journals’ gatekeepers could become, by-and-large, open to radically new ideas, concepts and technologies of the sort that render “settled science” obsolete or mistaken.

Unfortunately, history demonstrates the opposite situation.

These brilliant minds appear to be closed. Peer-reviewing gatekeepers live in a status-quo bubble, like a lay person who watches only one side of TV “news” or allows our virtual-demons, the internet AI’s, to select their reading materials, podcasts and videos.

This opaque peer-review bubble extends beyond the gatekeepers to encircle government research grant money in one-sided ignorance.

History clearly tells us that breakthrough ideas are routinely blocked. It’s old news, but not fake news.

If objective truth had no independent or transcendent power of its own, I suspect modern humanity would still be paying our priestly scientists to bring us ever-tinier details on the Earth’s cosmic centrality and its false illusion of roundness.

Since academic reality in the West is “publish or perish,” scientists must think within the established thought-boxes and paradigms of their professors, otherwise their papers will be rejected by the system’s consanguineous gatekeepers. When paper rejection happens too often, the young scientist who has devoted her life to the sacred hunt for truth suddenly falls from grace and must scramble for a new career to avoid homelessness — literally.

It’s a high-risk game.

Being a young research scientist is a bit like owning a restaurant in June, 2020, except that the scientist’s debt is an enormous education loan hanging overhead forever without the exit option of bankruptcy. The risk is high. Survival for most of them requires finding a safe route that increases the odds of publication.

The modern peer-review process is part of humanity’s ancient search for infallible literature. Too bad it’s a futile search (as far as I know, though I could be wrong).

Love it or hate it, the echo-chamber review process is all we’ve got now.

Perhaps we could improve it by allowing non-scientific people, or maybe just scientists from unrelated fields, into each journal’s review process, reflecting the way a jury of “non-peers” decides the fate an MD and her patient in a court of law. Common sense?

Sometimes the experts closest to a technical issue are the people furthest from objectivity. Trees hide the forest, if nothing else.

Cross-pollination would also improve research grant money distribution. Mixing scientists and artists in the decision making processes would help a great deal, I suspect, while excluding career politicians entirely. Can I get an amen from the back?!

And perhaps an “open-mindedness quota” should be presented to the tax-payers for a vote:

“Vote YES if you want the government to reserve 10% of the relevant part of your tax money (the grant money) for projects that virtually any tenured professor would condemn without a real thought.”

The list of such government-favored (but normally taboo) “quota” projects might include things like…

  1. building a zero-point energy device,
  2. documenting extra-sensory perception,
  3. studying physical materials believed to have come form extraterrestrial space craft,
  4. studying the evidence of intelligent design in genetics,
  5. projects that don’t equate “scientific materialism” with fact,
  6. projects seeking evidence of a fundamental element of reality that is NOT reducible to matter and energy.

Like the rest of us searching for answers that improve life rather than degrading it, peer reviewers of science journals must open themselves to the distinct possibility that reductive “scientific materialism” is not the only rational option for researchers in pursuit of scientific truth.

…

Common-sense love,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

 

 

Intelligent Design by ET’s

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Here’s a controversial comment I left today on Richard Dolan’s website in the members section. It awaits approval there, but not here…

“The fact that [unknown] craft are flying around Earth is not a subject for science — it’s a subject for intelligence-gathering, collection and analysis. That’s because UFOs are not a natural phenomenon, and that’s what science studies.” — Dr. Eric W. Davis

Assuming this quote is accurate, you might think Dr. Davis’ definition of science excludes disciplines like archeology, paleontology and anthropology because they study artifacts and behaviors of intelligent beings (humans).

But to me, humans and our artifacts are part of the natural phenomena that science rightly explores, even if these fields of soft science are plagued by creative storytelling and various worldview biases.

Humans are a special part of nature, arising amidst multiple synergies that cannot be appreciated through reduction of the species to science’s narrow-minded list of possible common denominators: matter and energy.

As everyone probably knows, scientific materialism is the assumption that nothing exists besides matter and energy. This is an untestable assumption and therefore holding it as dogma is not in the spirit of science. And yet it’s somehow considered unquestionable truth by the vast majority of academia.

To be objective about this, it’s noteworthy that all non-materialistic worldviews, as best I know, are likewise based on untestable, unscientific assumptions. So holding them as unquestionable scientific dogma would also violate the core of science.

And yet mainstream “retail” science clings to one untestable assumption and refuses to allow exploration of the implications of the others.

If humans are part of nature, why wouldn’t ET’s also be? As a non-materialist, I would include here all possible and seemingly impossible forms of ET’s — the material, “interdimensional,” the “spiritual,” and those inconceivable forms that no human has the capacity to imagine as yet.

It seems clear to me that science should study all ET’s, as best it can, roughly the way it now struggles to objectively study ancient human history and human origins.

So I’d have to respectfully disagree with Dr. Davis on his idea that UFO’s should be the sole domain of the intelligence community, though I value this man’s well-informed opinions and admit that my views could be wrong. I often am wrong. I suspect we all are.

The problem seems to be that the scientific community denies any possibility of ET contact with Earth. The distances are too great. (Yawn.)

Science no longer denies the probable existence of ET’s “out there somewhere.” They’re just not here yet.

“There is no evidence of alien intelligence coming to Earth,” they assure us, as if they missed the DOD’s UFO disclosure. Sure, there’s no proof the UFOs are associated with ET’s, but there’s plenty of evidence for it. The very existence of UFOs is evidence of ET’s. Not proof, but evidence. Maybe some people don’t see a distinction between evidence and proof.

Science has a documented history of knee-jerk rejection and denial when it comes to new ideas, big and small. Most, if not all, scientific breakthroughs were met with denial and ridicule initially. The greater the eventual sea-change needed to absorb the new idea or technology, the greater the initial political and monetary roadblocks thrown up against the new item.

Nowhere is this emotional pathology clearer today than in the food fight between the “real” scientists of neo-Darwinian evolution and the so-called “pseudoscientists” who want to explore the genetic evidence of evolution by intelligent design. (These people are not pseudoscientists, by the way.)

Outrage reduces this discussion to name calling, ridicule and dismissal without addressing the logic of the issues. This is because those on the ID side often use the evidence of intelligent design to support a spiritual worldview, typically a Judeo-Christian worldview.

Materialistic science seems to viscerally hate all “spiritual” worldviews, especially the ones attached to the Crusades, the Salem Witch Hunts, ancient book burnings, the persecution and murder of great Western scientists, and so on. Perhaps materialistic science also fears spirituality because it might “drag humanity back into the dark ages.” I’ve heard this concern and nowadays I share it in view of the college crowds apparently abandoning logic by turning objective truth and reality into a subjective matter along with a cancellation of two-sided discussions. “My truth, your truth, so shut up and don’t trigger me or I’ll cancel you.”

Meanwhile, objective ufologists interested more in reality than in winning arguments also ignore the powerful ET evidence hidden in the literature of intelligent design.

We should read this work. I recommend, “Signature in the Cell,” by Stephen Meyer, PhD. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qpAXEicJVsu1JkzuVsnu4pvGA4kN8LUyUOzlxV7JybA/edit

Yes, brilliant, vociferous, self-confident ID critics abound. All the more reason to read the ID scientists’ work for ourselves, I would suggest.

Once enough of us wade through a bit of the ID literature and math, some of us may come to realize that intelligent design is a respectable scientific theory that would be mainstream science in an unbiased scientific world.

Moreover, the UFO community might become able to articulate exactly why the human genome is far too complex, irreducibly woven into the complex nano-machines that the code generates, and far too teleologically information-based to have arisen by random mutation, genetic drift and natural selection in a universe that’s only 13.8 billion years old.

On the other hand, I think any thoughtful person would admit that IF the universe is infinitely old, infinitely vast, or accompanied by an infinite number of randomly-tuned parallel universes, then neo-Darwinian macroevolution, (ignoring the “irreducible complexity” issues) could account for at least some carbon-based life forms. (Not that “irreducible complexity” can be rationally ignored. See Michael Behe, “Darwin’s Black Box” for a discussion of irreducible biological complexity.) https://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Black-Box-Biochemical-Challenge/dp/0743290313

But currently mainstream science insists that the universe is finite in size and merely 13.8 billion years old. So until they change their minds…

Let’s assume these concepts are accurate for now and point out that given these mainstream “facts,” science is almost certainly mistaken about the notion that Earth’s DNA came into existence through random forces without intelligent interference or guidance.

Because it’s relevant to Ufology.

In perfect analogy to mainstream science’s dismissal of UFOs as unworthy of study, anyone wishing to determine if intelligent design is worthy of scientific study must READ the ID literature before rejecting it. This sounds simple, but it is hard to do objectively when every scientific article we read attaches some aspect of the neo-Darwinian myth to the interpretation of new data, assuming the random origins story is unquestionable fact, when it’s not.

Darwin’s origins story is a myth based upon interpreting observations through the untestable lens of scientific materialism. It assumes mindless forces acting randomly on a planet that intelligent ETs have never touched. This lens of denial has kept the mainstream’s random origins story circulating long after it should be obsolete.

While religious people jump on intelligent design science to support the existence of God, the UFO community seems to be ignoring the ID literature’s relevance to ETs. Without mentioning God, the isolated theory of intelligent design quite logically and powerfully implicates ET’s in at least some of the coding of Earth’s DNA.

ID science is young, but it’s alive and well. We who are open to UFO science would be wise to educate ourselves in this hidden branch of scientific knowledge. It could widen the scientific foundation of objective ufology, and perhaps broaden the scientific horizons of the true believers in “scientific” materialism.

Full disclosure: Although I have a science background (a retired MD, with AP/CP pathology boards and cytopathology subspecialty boards) I believe in the scientifically Untestable assumption of a benevolent personal Supreme Being (or Beings), and I find myself praying a lot for the people I love. Just as the Untestable assumption of “scientific” materialism (a huge misnomer) dominates and colors the worldview of most scientists today, once a person like me goes down the path of the Untestable non-materialistic assumptions I have taken to heart, the loving and personal Supreme Being (or Beings, perhaps?) dominates your worldview. Nevertheless, I strive to be objective and don’t belong to any church, synagogue, mosque or CE-5 group. I know of no spiritual group that would accept me into their fold without a radical revision of my beliefs, except perhaps in some exceedingly generous way within the spirit of transcendent love, the spirit of objective Ufology, I’d like to believe.

…

Beaming you love,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

 

Nasty Data on COVID Origins

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Ivor Cummins is the genius engineer who uses his expertise in complex systems analysis to save lives by advocating coronary artery calcium scans while he educates the brain-dead portion of mainstream medicine on the science of type 2 diabetes, myocardial infarction (heart attack), and obesity.

Here is Ivor’s YouTube channel and here is his podcast. This man is well worth your time if the mainstream “news” emanating from the outlets on both sides of the political spectrum ever begins to sound dubious to you.

In the video below, Ivor Cummins and Gabor Erdosi go over the scientific data surrounding the question of whether the virus behind COVID-19 came from a laboratory rather than from nature.

Of course, focusing on this data is taboo at Google/YouTube and FaRcebook, so the video below may be deleted before you watch it. If so, you’ll find the audio here on Ivor’s podcast, episode # 110 (Ep110).

Quoting the video’s comment section…

“Fortunately the Truth checkers at Gutube can’t understand [what] these chaps are saying.”

Yes, the discussion is, at times, obscured by technical language, but please hang in for the best part, the evidence that the COVID-19 virus has spent significant time inside a specific lineage of laboratory mouse. (All other lab mice, we’re told, are invulnerable to COVID-19 and cannot be infected by it.)

I found limited information on Gabor Erdosi. He apparently has a Master of Molecular Biology degree, a background in genetics, and is touted as “King of Root-Cause investigation” in the context of genetics. I wish I knew more about him.

 

  1. Although these data indicate conclusively (to me) that the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) was produced in a laboratory, one cannot be sure that the virus was made in China. There are other possibilities. For instance, the Wuhan lab in China might have been “framed,” set up by a foreign country to look guilty and take the blame for the pandemic. Who knows? You and I don’t. If one accepts the currently untestable assumption that the virus did come from China, then there would still be uncertainty as to whether the bug escaped the lab accidentally or deliberately. (Of course, why any morally sane individual(s) would concoct this virus in the first place is beyond me.)
  2. The math applied in this video to cast colossal doubt on the possibility that all these rare mutations came from random processes (outside of a lab) can also be used to show the flaw in thinking that random mutations in nature can conceivably generate complex biological systems, that is in a Universe that’s only 13.8 billion years old. (Don’t get angry now. Relax, read Stephen Meyer’s, Signature in the Cell, enjoy the math and draw your own private conclusions. Maybe the Universe is infinitely old, unlimited in volume, or accompanied by an infinite number of “parallel universes.” Any of these options would allow all seemingly impossible chains of interacting natural random coincidence to become reality… but not just neo-Darwinian evolution, also we would have to include the existence of a benevolent being or beings whom we might logically deem worthy of the title, God(s).
  3. Even if everyone decides that the Chinese Communist Party is behind the pandemic, we would be foolish to allow ourselves to hate China or to seek revenge. Without hating anyone, humanity must stop following leaders with limited conscience (sociopaths).  We must rise above hatred and violence or we’ll soon conspire together to bring our species down into the fossil record with countless other extinct species. With all the WMD technology today, including pandemics, our options have shrunken: love each other or die fighting. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” It’s too late for hate.

Geek Love,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

Free Will – a Dog’s Perspective

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“Wake up, Barnabus.”

 

“Wow, I was solid gone. Like that one bear….”

 

“In Jungle Book? I think that was Baloo.”

 

“He should have danced all night.”

 

“So what’s the difference… between being awake and asleep?”

 

“Consciousness comes back when you wake up.”

 

“What’s consciousness?”

 

“That’s easy. Consciousness is a three-part nonlocal quantum entanglement between
(a) the information coded in the aromatic hydrocarbon walls of the microtubules that sit inside the pyramidal neurons of your cerebral cortex, plus
(b) that same neuronal structure in all the other dogs, and
(c) the coded information coming to us in the Cosmic Background Radiation. Dogs call it the Field of Consciousness.”

 

“Really? Who’s sending the information?”

 

“Us. It mostly comes from our Real Selves outside the simulated, physical Universe.”

 

“Mostly?”

 

“Mostly.”

 

“But, there’s also the Code Writer sending us messages and free will. Free will is kind of nice. It lets you ask questions and see if you like the answers.”

 

“Can you see the Field of Consciousness?”

 

“Not quite. It’s information radiation. That rimes! It also brings genetic code into the Universe through nonlocal quantum entanglement with the aromatic hydrocarbons in the base pairs of DNA. You know, the digital ladder rungs? That’s how original genetic design gets into the universe. It’s the mechanism humans haven’t discovered yet.”

 

“But Francine, isn’t the Cosmic Background Radiation just radio static from the Big Bang?”

 

“To local detectors, yes. But to nonlocal detectors with stacked benzyl architectures designed for quantum entanglement, the random static of the Field of Consciousness becomes coded information. Even a puppy’s neuronal network decodes it effortlessly.”

 

“But all this talk of freedom… I need a nap.”

…

Love from beyond,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

…

Thanks to the photographers at Unsplash for these precious doggie pictures.

Uncensored Science: Life and the Universe are Electromagnetic and Nonrandom

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The Safire Plasma Reactor will become a source of clean energy if the petroleum industry doesn’t shut them down soon. It may be too late. Word is getting out…

“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it…. 

“Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality…

“Because Galileo saw this, and particularly because he drummed it into the scientific world, he is the father of modern physics — indeed, of modern science altogether.

“To him [her] who is a discoverer in this field [theoretical physics], the products of his imagination appear so necessary and natural that he regards them, and would like to have them regarded by others, not as creations of thought but as given realities.”

— Albert Einstein, “On the Methods of Theoretical Physics”  The Herbert Spencer lecture, Oxford, June 10, 1933.

“We’re not trying to trap high-energy photons and electrons comparable to the Sun’s photosphere — but it [the Safire plasma engine apparatus] does … We’re just trying to replicate what we think nature may be doing.

“Uniformitarianism is the idea that gradual changes over billions of years is [sic] the cause of all the effects that we see. It became philosophical theory, but not scientific fact.

“Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, James Hutton, Thomas Huxley, Karl Marx and other historical characters held to the view of ‘Uniformitarianism.’ And it is Uniformitarianism that lays at the heart of much of modern science… that gradual changes over long periods of time is [sic] the primary factor of evolutionary development.

“It is Uniformitarianism that lays at the heart of the Big Bang theory which claims gravity is the primal driver of the universe. So the problem that you have is that none of these things are testable. The process of evolution is lacking sufficient factors to test.

“On the other hand, there are those who hold to the view that intelligence is the genesis of creation.

“Neither has anything to do with empirical science, and as a matter of fact, to claim either is science corrupts science.” — Montgomery Childs

I couldn’t agree more!

“I think that modern cosmology took an unfortunate turn several hundred years ago by denying or ignoring the question of function or purpose in the larger Cosmos. Biologists recognize the principle that form follows function so why do astrophysicists not recognize this principle? Why are astrophysicists not asking this question? The idea that life or intelligence would be attached to a planet or a star was too much for our consciousness so we denied its possibility. There was never any evidence to substantiate that denial…. Denying that a star could be alive is a misuse of the scientific method.” — Michael Clarage…

And so as a scientist, I think mainstream macro-evolutionary theory and intelligent design theory should show one another some respect. One side should not censor the other from kindergarten to the university system…

 

Love and empirical respect,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

PS: Sorry for posting too many videos, but each one is worth watching. The third (the one by Michael Clarage) seems especially profound to me.

Moon Bases and Worldview Neurons

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Here’s an honest sounding man, Ken Johnston, who claims to have been working at NASA when the US astronauts landed on the Moon. He says he saw what looked like alien bases in the pictures that came back.

If you’re like me, interested in fringe science and examining all the remarkable claims you can find, you’ve heard this moon-base stuff before from two or three other sources claiming to be eye-witnesses to original photos.

All this is becoming more believable now that the pentagon has publicly admitted that the three UFO videos captured by various fighter piolets since 2004 are genuine UFO’s (a.k.a. UAP’s). I feel sorry for the debunkers now.

Johnston says that the whole “alien coverup” will probably be ended by the US government this November, and when it happens, it won’t be the world’s religions that are shaken to the core, it will be the world’s scientists.

More than anything else the man says, this bit about scientists is the part that rings true for me.

Science has always deluded itself into believing that the current level of sophistication, at any point in time, is no longer primitive.

No delusion has been more persistent, and none has hampered scientific progress more than this one. Forgetting that we’re still a primitive species trying to do science with limited intelligence has closed our minds to important things that seem at first glance to be impossible. Worse yet, our lack or appropriate scientific humility has declared entire fields of scientific inquiry taboo, leaving our species ignorant by choice. Examples include the study of ESP, the study of the paranormal, the study of the cultural effects of scientific and spiritual fundamentalism, and the application of geology to archaeology, to name a few.

In an editorial debunking the “liars” who, like myself, believe there is considerable legitimate scientific evidence for intelligent design in nature, especially in the genetic code, Adam Wilkins, a mainstream scientist, makes a remarkably broad-minded statement:

“Furthermore, those scientists with passionate anti-religious convictions should accept that Science can no more disprove the existence of a Deity or immortal souls than religious people can prove the existence of either. More tolerance of private religious belief, coupled with insistence on what scientific evidence does actually tell us about the history of the world and living things, would be appropriate.

If, in contrast, scientists insist on atheism as the only “logical” belief system or demand that people choose between “evolutionism”—the quasi-philosophic belief in evolution as a guide to what should be—and belief in God, the outcome is not in doubt. More than half the people in the U.S. would choose religion and reject the science.” 

Ironically, if Adam Wilkins and other mainstream scientists would read Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer, PhD, with the tolerance Wilkins and authentic science call for, they would probably recognize that Intelligent Design makes better scientific sense than Neo-Darwinism as an explanation for the origins of life and the diversity of forms on this planet.

But the human mind has a special place for an individual’s worldview. It seems to be a place near the core of identity, a place that triggers emotion and squelches reason, and a place that fervently resists change.

For us Christians, the “worldview neurons” tend to be filled with an untestable and unquestionable set of doctrines that include information about the soul, what happens when we die, and what behaviors and beliefs we must accept in this life to get what we want in the next.

For about two-thirds of scientists, the “worldview neurons” are filled with an equally untestable and unquestionable doctrine called “scientific materialism” that assumes there is no soul, no afterlife, and no behavioral norms relevant to an afterlife.

The reason many Christians think of atheism as a religion is probably because the “worldview neurons” of atheist scientists often take on a religious-style resistance to change and an urge to proselytize that reminds us of religious zeal.

Most educated people seem to think that if humans ever come into open contact with an extraterrestrial intelligent species, the aliens will be highly advanced, highly intelligent, and definitely secular, not religious or spiritual.

In the video below, Ken Johnston implies that the reason alien contact will shake the scientific community to the core will be the shock of learning that the aliens are scientifically thousands of years ahead of us. This would expose human science as primitive and perhaps destined to remain far behind the Universe’s most advanced species.

I think Mr. Johnston is partly right. But I think the more shattering aspect of alien disclosure for scientists would be the galling realization that advanced beings are, in fact, devoutly religious and deeply spiritual… at least the benevolent species.

See if you think Ken Johnston really believes what he’s saying in this video…

Would advanced aliens be spiritual or secular? Would they make such a distinction at all? I’d be interested in your opinion.

Love and ESP hugs,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

PS: If you’re over 55, please be especially cautious about transitioning from lock-down mode.

Make sure you’re not vitamin D deficient. (Vit. D deficiency puts you at a much higher risk of serious complications from this virus as well as from several other respiratory viruses.)

Wearing a face mask primarily protects others from you if you’re infected but asymptomatic, which happens a lot. This is because the COVID-19 coronavirus travels several yards through the air when an infected person (even with no symptoms) coughs, sneezes or speaks loudly. So wear a mask as a sign of love and concern for others. Forget all the lame TV coronavirus politics. They’re deliberately manipulating us into outrage and frustration, partly to improve ratings and keep their jobs, and partly to protect their precious political worldviews. To remain employed, they have no choice but to create political outrage porn. Just ignore it.

Synthetic Life – a Minority Report

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“Dr. Tour is one of the world’s top synthetic organic chemists. He has authored 680 scientific publications and holds more than 120 patents. In 2014, Thomson Reuters named him one of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds,” and in 2018 Clarivate Analytics recognized him as one of the world’s most highly cited researchers. Tour is also fearless. He joined more than a thousand other scientists in signing the “Scientific Dissent from Darwinism.” More recently, he has become a thorn in the side of the origin of life research community, offering blunt assessments of the current state of origin of life research.”

 

When kids from the vanishingly rare religious families of the US go away to college, they need something to save them from being sucked over the emotional falls of determinism, materialism, Neo-Darwinism and nihilism. Professors pound these untestable philosophic worldviews into their students’ heads as if they were facts of “settled science.”

This shocking video lecture could help spiritual kids resist the standardized brainwashing of our era. Please forward it to the young people you know.

Cheers,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

Natural Zombie Bliss – Your Deeper Costs Explored…

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John Lennon wrote most of the world’s greatest songs, you can’t change my mind on this. I was eight years old when the Beatles landed in the US.

One of John’s eternal messages starts like this…

“Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream.

It is not dying. It is not dying.”

Just as the Genesis serpent was sort of right and wrong when it told Eve, “You won’t die,” John Lennon was both right and wrong about turning off the mind and not dying.

He was right that we’d all do well to turn off our inner critics sometimes and rise above the fears that bind us.

Turning off the inner voice allows the silent parts of the mind to shine. For me, this has become a major goal of meditation: waking up my subconscious gifts by temporarily shutting up inside.

The exercise lets the silent parts of my mind arrange things wordlessly and efficiently, making intuitive and logical connections that would take way more time in the verbal realm. Sometimes, in fact, it’s like a message blinks into my head from beyond like the proverbial “download.” Who knows what this is, really? I don’t.

The wise and occasionally depressed King Solomon wrote, “For everything there is a season… a time to keep silence and a time to speak.”

This passage advocates balance, not black-and-white labeling. I like that.

With a little reflection, it’s clearly not in our best interests to always keep a silent mind, focusing only on what the hands and eyes are doing in the present moment.

If you’re depressed, of course you must learn to “live in the present moment,” shutting off that blasted verbal and visual habit of going over past hurts, fights, losses and embarrassments, as well as future worst-case scenarios. This kind of rumination will drown you unless you put in the time and effort to learn inner silence and the skill of stopping and diverting inner “tapes” when they turn self-destructive. Everyone knows this.

But if you’re not depressed, your inner voice can help you with all sorts of nice things.

Like when you’re washing your hair in the shower and your mind wanders. Some of the best stories come directly from heaven to Earth through shower nozzles. Ask any writer.

Some of my blog posts spring into my head in nearly final form while I’m sitting on the floor with my legs crossed planning to focus only on conscious, deliberate breathing.

Just as some academics are misguided in thinking that maleness is inherently evil, so some gurus are confused into believing that inner chatter is inherently negative.

It’s understandable. I’ll admit that my dog, Halo, avoids inner monologue assiduously and she’s the happiest person alive, but still, some of the spiritual and psychological advice I read regarding the inner voice can’t possibly apply to humans.

Not only do they imply that the inner voice is an unqualified negative to be abandoned for the eternal superficial concrete present moment, they also have the obtuseness to equate the inner voice with the total mind.

I’m sorry, but some of these experts are like a mouse with its head stuck in a coke bottle. Myopic but enjoying the flavor.

The inner voice is just a tiny part of the mind, gurus. Come on, the non-verbal parts are the iceberg below the surface. Things like:

1. Free will (the non-physical core).
2. Conscience (molded by the environment but innately sensing fairness).
4. Silent analysis of math, physics and ecosystems.
5. Autonomic and deliberate breathing.
6. Circadian timing of the body’s organ systems.
7. Consciously moving body parts.
9. Doing body-scan meditation.
11. Intuitive self-preservation (for instance, sensing that the guy leading your meditation group is more of a crooked cult leader than a loving mentor.)

That last one is significant to trusting souls like me…

I took a $2,000 online meditation class a few years back from a PhD claiming to be doing breakthrough scientific investigation, the goal of which was ongoing bliss. His success rate was through the roof, he said. And I was “special” for even reading his email ads. Gee.

In retrospect, some of the participants did find bliss by the halfway point. But I wouldn’t call it enlightenment because there were side effects not mentioned until after the money changed hands. After that, he discussed the side effects as if they were trifles and “perfectly normal,” a phrase he repeated often over the weeks as students shared their growing concerns.

Tell me, are these side effects normal?

1. Memory problems.
2. Loss of organizational skills to the point where “enlightened” people from the prior group had to use lists to keep track of simple everyday tasks.
3. Diminished interest in fiction of all types.
4. Loss of interest in other people’s lives and stories. “You’ll have to fake interest.”
5. The showstopper: those who achieve the highest level of ongoing enlightenment would experience the complete loss of emotion, including love.

Would a scientist fail to mention these details until after he had your money? I doubt it, but maybe the pop business literature of the 1980’s was right — suckers deserve to be fleeced. I doubt anyone reading this believes such Darwinian dogma, but who knows?

To be fair, I did sign many pages of legal docs that I didn’t read. The side effects of eternal bliss might have been listed there in the fine print, but it wouldn’t have made any difference because the legal papers were sent to us only after the good doctor had stashed our cash safely in his account.

Anyway, this next part is interesting. During the classes, there were always questions from the students about how one or another of the PhD’s ideas could be integrated into the concepts of other famous gurus.

The doctor’s answer? If you want bliss, such questions miss the point: Forsake all thinking and do the exercises.

“The mind,” he said, would only interfere with the highest possible human goal: obtaining a permanent blissful state of enlightenment. He had his own proprietary words for enlightenment, of course. But the mind must be turned off during this bliss-through-meditation process. We were building new neural pathways, after all. We needed only to stop thinking critically and follow his instructions to the letter.

And so I lay on my back in my bedroom with electrodes on my chest doing endless varieties of body-scanning type meditation, two hours and more each day for eight weeks. Plus online small group meetings and other assignments.

About that time (which was halfway through the course) one of the people in my subgroup on Google Hangouts reported serious memory problems that were getting worse.

Both of my parents died with significant dementia, as you may recall from other posts, so I have zero tolerance for memory loss. And now the “perfectly normal” side effects of this man’s bliss scheme appeared to be real.

I left the program quietly.

He later kicked me out of his Facebook group when, in response to his own request for feedback on how to improve the success rate, I suggested he might in effect pre-screen the participants by telling them the potential side effects of success before taking their money.

This was to imply that a PhD should act like a scientist not a drug dealer. I wish I’d said it that way.

Bottom line, I would never trade my memory, my love for fiction, or my interest in other people’s lives for ongoing bliss.

And I certainly wouldn’t risk my ability to love people. Not for anything. One day when I was a new Christian in a Church-run High School I experienced a sense of God’s love flowing through me to the other students. It was weird, probably the most joyful and meaningful experience of my life. 

“Love is all and love is everyone. It is knowing, it is knowing.” – John Lennon

John was totally right about that. I’ll never give up hope of someday revisiting that feeling. I’d never trade the faintest hope of agape love for an emotionless, loveless life of ongoing zombie bliss. “No tanks, uh?”

Although self-love runs contrary to my upbringing, I also wouldn’t want to lose the ability to love myself, even if it feels wrong to say so — and it does. (Some people of my generation were taught that self love indicates there’s something terribly wrong with you. It sounds bizarre, I know, but “correct” thinking was 180 degrees different back then.)

I’m telling you all this to illustrate the danger and stupidity of turning off your mind’s critical thinking and logical objective analysis for the bliss offered by a guru or “bliss researcher.” Not that they’re all the same. I really don’t know. But in some cases, the bliss is real and the cost is your empathy and love. I suspect these methods rewire the circuitry of mirror neurons. 

At any rate, the DNA Code Writer would not have gone to all the trouble of coding for the human brain and its transcendent access to free will if the ultimate purpose of humanity was to turn off the whole cognitive process for a flat-affect bliss that kills empathy like an opiate addiction.

I’d guess the severely depressed and suicidal among us might be tempted to trade almost anything for bliss. I don’t blame or shame them for it. Major depression is hell on Earth, often fatal. Don’t cast the first stone.

But I’m talking about seeking a higher spiritual path when your life is pretty much OK.

In that context, it’s unhealthy, stupid and dangerous to shut off your mind. All money hungry cult leaders demand that you stop thinking critically and fall in line. Usually they do it more subtly and artfully than my PhD friend with his little ongoing-bliss scam.

So be intelligently careful and balanced.  If you’re depressed, use inner-silence meditation to deal with rumination. If you’re fine and seeking a more spiritual life, try inner-silence, slow breathing and yoga to discover the gap between your free-willed self and the brain-fixed aspects of your mind and body. Use your silent techniques to connect with your highly efficient subconscious creative talents. And probably I’ll meet you in a non-physical realm of agape love someday. Stranger things happen.

Namaste,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

 

Science Morphed into a Spiritual Bully

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“Remember how electrical currents and ‘unseen waves’ were laughed at? The knowledge about man is still in its infancy.” – Albert Einstein.

Slow deep breathing shunts blood to the prefrontal cortex and the subjacent pleasure center on the left. Science can tell us this much, but it cannot detect the non-physical field of free will interfacing with the brain.

When science leaps in faith beyond its self-imposed physical limitations and denies the existence of free will and all else non-physical, it is like a man who has refused to open his eyes since birth, declaring now that all vision is an illusion. He, being superior to the uneducated in intellect, insight, courage and integrity, stands alone as willing to face the difficult and oppressive truth that human vision is a false, meaningless illusion.

Science must learn to admit the obvious: it has chosen materialism, to be blind to the non-physical realm and all evidence of its existence, including the most obvious, free will.

While this choice persists, science cannot claim to be informed about the realm it ignores, much less pose as an infallible anti-spiritual authority in Western textbooks and classrooms.

…

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

The Iceman Fixed My Headaches!

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The Wim Hof method of life improvement through hyperventilation, breath holding and cold exposure has gone mildly viral, but until I googled “Wim Hof and headaches,” I thought I would be the first to mention a headache connection.

Mr. Hof is no joke, by the way, though he comes across as happier and more enthusiastic than our jaundiced society allows. For this, some call him crazy.

He’s not.

But he’s not above reproach, either. Who is? He makes a few over-the-top claims. For instance, he’s made medical claims that jerk the black-and-white chains of professional skeptics whose logic casts out the baby with the ice water at the slightest provocation.

But many scientists, journal gatekeepers, and healthcare providers depend on the “incurable” adjective. And they’re human. Where would they all go if, for instance, type 2 diabetes disappeared along with a few of the most common cancer types? How can anyone expect them to be objective about feeding their children?

I’m afraid I’m not.

So let the skeptics howl while the rest of us avoid their binary thinking. We’d be nuts to write off Wim Hof for simply being as excitable and capable of exaggeration as most of the rest of us.

You probably know he’s earned many world records for things like sitting in ice water for roughly 2 hours and swimming a terrifically long distance under surface ice, once overshooting the exit hole and nearly drowning.

He recalls no fear of dying during the incident and now says he has no baseline fear of death. That’s fascinating and probably important. Who knows?

Under medical supervision, a few brave scientists injected him with toxic bacterial antigens, waited, then drew his blood for analysis. It showed a lack of the expected spike of inflammatory markers. He had no fever and felt no flu-like symptoms.

Wondering if Wim was unique in this ability to suppress inflammatory markers, they had him train a dozen new students for 2 weeks, then tested them.

The students’ bloodwork showed a low inflammatory response compared to controls, and they reported less intense flu-like symptoms.

And as if destiny wanted to remove all suspicion that Wim has “superhuman” talent, the man has an identical twin with no unusual cold tolerance.

Another group of scientists put Wim in an MRI scanner wearing a cold-immersion bodysuit. This was fascinating. They found peculiar activity in his insula and the periaqueductal gray areas of his brain. Also, he had increased glucose metabolism in his intercostal muscles.

I’d like to know if he was panting. I vaguely remember a video clip of him panting in a tub of ice, but I can’t find it now.

It’s safe to say that Wim Hof’s path to “health, strength, and happiness,” has a few credible underpinnings in physiology. And there’s also the “life-changing” effects asserted by his raving students.

Unfortunately, the body is too complex for our hyper-segregated sciences to explain the morphologic, physiologic, biochemical, epigenetic and genetic details of anything much beyond conditions like sickle-cell anemia, but an obvious feature of Wim’s achievements is human antifragility, a counterintuitive response that includes hormesis, the beneficial middle-dose of something toxic or even lethal at higher exposures.

Sulforaphane, for example, is a hormetic found in broccoli seeds and sprouts, produced ostensibly as an irritant to discourage predators from destroying the seeds. When we ingest broccoli sprouts (or seeds) with the right dose of sulforaphane, it activates dormant genes that strengthen us against certain stressors. For all the wholesome details, listen to the research scientist, Rhonda Patrick, PhD, cast a spell on the subject discussing studies that correlate sulforaphane ingestion with reduced incidences of breast and prostate cancer.

Oh dear, I hope the medical thought police don’t revile me for suggesting there’s hope of preventing such lucrative diseases through simple hormesis.

Anyway, in the Wim Hof method, the hormesis comes from hypoxia and cold exposure, either of which might kill you at too high an exposure.

What doesn’t kill us wakes us up, it seems.

Hmm…

Since my first breath-holding ocean dive (with no wetsuit) at Shell Beach, California, age 12, I’ve loved holding my breath — just for the relaxation and clarity of mind it brings. As we know, the mammalian diving response kicks in, shunting blood to the brain, lungs and heart.

What a fortunate setup for anyone living on a water planet, though! Who do I thank?

Later when I took SCUBA, I learned that by hyperventilating before breath-holding, I could stay down longer because huffing and puffing expels carbon dioxide and makes the blood less acidic. This shifts the oxygen dissociation curve to the left, allowing the red blood cells to deliver more of their oxygen to the tissues, giving us the feeling that hyperventilation supersaturates the blood with oxygen. It doesn’t as far as science can so-far determine.

It’s also true that CO2 buildup in the blood provides us with the urge to breathe. That’s why blowing it off in hyperventilation lets you stay down longer before air thirst forces you up for a breath.

This scenario is dangerous, though, because hyperventilation can make you pass out and drown — as can hypoxia.

I urge you not try hyperventilation in the water. Wim Hof says to do it lying down. (Far from a pool or bathtub, I’d add.)

And here’s another caveat: too much hypoxia causes brain damage, depression and dementia. We know this from studying sleep apnea, a common ailment that’s vastly underdiagnosed and contributes to a truckload of human misery. So “moderation in all things” is the faithful heuristic. And for the careful, swimming underwater in the cold (without hyperventilation) wakes up the mind and makes you feel sharp as a tack.

Since life on Earth was intelligently designed, our bodies keep us fully conscious and awake under water because the alternative tends to be fatal. Whoever wrote this planet’s genetic codes must have designed life around water and decided that we would hold our breath and spear cold-water fish during the ice ages. This would have the side effect of providing a diet rich in marine oils to supply DHA to our brains which are predominantly lipid and heavy with DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid.

Periodic ice ages awaken humanity’s epigenetic adaptations to cold, it seems, switching on genes that become dormant during warmer eras. Activating our “cold-shock” genes to produce cold-shock proteins renders us not merely cold-resistant, but antifragile to cold. We don’t merely survive the ice ages, we thrive — mentally, physically, emotionally and probably spiritually.

We’ve all seen clear evidence of this in the ancient megalithic structures on most continents — evidence the mainstream detests because it falls outside their “gradualism” dogma of all history.

Nevertheless, since the Younger-Dryas event ended the last ice age about 11,600 years ago, our species has forgotten the value of God’s latent gift of cold-adaptive epigenetics. Fortunately, Wim Hof and a few scientists are rediscovering it, uncovering what may be a human capacity for broad volitional immune regulation and substantial mood management.

Some of this magic results from the “mammalian diving response.” It’s a well-studied physiologic mechanism that shunts blood to vital organs, as I mentioned. This includes the brain’s center of higher decision making, the prefrontal cortex, which is close to a quasi-pleasure center located just below the left prefrontal region.

It would seem that Earth’s DNA Code Writer has worked to keep us alive, healthy, happy and eating cold-water fish with our broccoli sprouts.

“The God Hypothesis is now a more respected hypothesis than at any time in the last 100 years.” — Frederic Bradford Burnham, PhD.

I haven’t taken the Wim Hof course, as yet, but I’ve watched enough relevant YouTube videos to know the basics, and I’ve been doing an easy version of cold exposure and hyperventilation-with-breath-holding for five months now, several times a week. In my view, Wim Hof is onto something big with the potential to help many of us, not just my fellow headache sufferers. But let’s be careful not to over-do the hypoxia aspect.

Although I’m not quite as predisposed to euphoria now as when I was younger, I do feel exhilarated after a cold shower, and mentally sharp with temporary mood elevation after the intermittent hyperventilation and hypoxia.

By the way, if you try cold showers, consider my method. I’m careful not to let my subconscious mind learn to hate the whole experience. To me, this principle of catering to the subconscious is a key to sustaining purpose with anything that requires discomfort and ongoing effort.

Here’s how I avoid hating cold shower…

First I step back out of a hot shower, turning the knob all the way cold. Then I put one part of myself into the shower at a time. I stay in the cold spray for seven breaths, step out and warm up for a few breaths then rotate another section of me into the cold.

In the past I’ve tried cold showers by sudden immersion and wound up avoiding the whole process after a few weeks, having never consciously decided to stop. It seems that when anything is judged by the subconscious self to be too uncomfortable, we avoid it reflexively without conscious deliberation. In this way, the subconscious mind makes many decisions about survival. We see this happening with hunger avoidance, cold avoidance, pain avoidance, and the avoidance of believing things that will bring us rejection by our peers and bosses.

There’s good scientific evidence now that cold showers should improve most people’s health and well-being, but the most unexpected thing for me was the headache remedy.

I’ve had headaches all my teen and adult life, originally caused by something in fresh fruit (probably fructose) or in my 30’s by caffeine withdrawal.

Nowadays, my headaches come mainly from eating a little naturally occurring sucrose in my low-carb, circadian diet. (Sucrose or “table sugar” is half fructose, so that may be the primary cause of my headaches now.) Incidentally, the low-carb, circadian diet brings me mental clarity like nothing else ever has.

I’ve had about 12 headaches (all associated with “natural” sucrose intake) since I’ve been doing my easy version of the Wim Hof method. Each headache has vanished after hyperventilation and breath holding, usually after 4 or 5 cycles. That’s 12 our of 12!

Cold exposure doesn’t seem to affect my headaches, though at least one observant writer describe evidence that “cryotherapy” of this sort might prevent migraine headaches by reversing the low norepinephrine levels found in migraine sufferers.

Also, it may be noteworthy that at least one anecdotal report has surfaced of a headache appearing after doing the Wim Hof technique.

One size rarely fits all in biology. Perhaps it’s tangentially relevant that when I’m trying to get rid of a headache, it sometimes feels worse during the hyperventilation phase, diminishes during the breath holding, and then vanishes after several cycles.

My last headache inspired me to write this article. It woke me at 5:30 AM pounding in my skull. It felt like one of the monster headaches that lasts all day and brings nausea.

I did the usual 4 cycles of Wim Hof hyperventilation and breath holding and although the pain diminished, it quickly came back. Not willing to give up and waste the entire day in pain, I kept at it, hyperventilating more and more vigorously and holding my breath longer and longer as my heart chugged in my chest. Finally, after about 12 intense cycles, the pain vanished completely and never came back, not even a dull ache.

Dude! Thank you, Wim Hof.

I speculate that the diving reflex, while shunting blood to my central nervous system as designed, also sent blood flowing swiftly through my scalp where the nerve endings for headache are thought to reside, diluting out vicious chemicals released by mast cells. These chemicals were causing vasoconstriction and pain while signaling for inflammatory cells to rush in.

And because I treated the headache early in its course, I postulate that the inflammatory cells that would have migrated in, set up shop and made the headache a full-day affair never had time to arrive in significant numbers.

Of course, not all headaches have the same pathophysiology. What stops mine might not touch yours, and might even make yours worse. But the Wim Hof Headache Fix is worth a try if you suffer headaches. Just promise me you won’t hyperventilate near water, pass out and drown, OK?

“Eyes open, no fear, be safe everyone.”

I wish I’d had the Wim Hof Headache Fix when I was a highschool boy lying in bed on Sunday afternoon in my dorm room in throbbing pain, praying to God for relief and assuring him that I understood if this wasn’t the time for a miracle.

And I wish scientists weren’t so quick to shout down everything that moves contrary to their “knowledge.”

Science has historically made quantum leaps by seeking the unexpected, the weird and impossible. It’s tragic that many scientists today express pride in their skepticism. It would serve us all if skepticism were a source of scientific shame.

And it doesn’t matter what’s new, weird, or improperly boxed, my generation of baby-boomer scientists will attack and viciously debunk it, often without studying the work they’re struggling to bury. For example…

The “fringe” evolutionist, Elaine Morgan’s theory that humans evolved from aquatic apes is rejected by mainstream evolutionists for purely emotional reasons, as best I can tell. The phrase, “aquatic apes,” doesn’t sound right to them regardless of the evidence.

The non-materialist research scientist, James Tour, makes an absolutely stunning case for intelligent design in origins theory, only to hear the materialist establishment reject his insight and expertise because they already “know” that life’s origins are mindless and meaningless.

When David Chalmers, a self-proclaimed “materialist at heart,” calls for open minds in the scientific community to consider the “crazy” possibility that consciousness (rather than matter and energy) is fundamental to the cosmos, the mainstream ridicules him because their own untestable assumptions seem patently obvious.

Scientists of the Thunderbolts Project provide evidence that electromagnetism is a more influential force than gravity in the universe, but the mainstream still struggles to ignore them.

Governmental officials team up with fighter pilots to show evidence that UFO’s are real, someone in our skies seems to have breakthrough technology, but academics remain invested in denial of anything beyond their insular, inbred boxes of narrow expertise.

I’m hoping that something will change with the next generation of scientists and thinkers.

Maybe the next team will value objectivity over skepticism.

Science could use their help right now.

Cheers,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

Please share this post with friends who suffer from headaches or chronic dogma impairments.

“The bigotry and intolerance of the scientific community…”

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“The thing that we all know most directly and most certainly – that is, the existence of ourselves – is ultimately incompatible with materialism.” – Jay Richards, PhD.

When I attended a Christian university in the 1970s (now called La Sierra University) I took an upper division genetics class from Gary Bradley, my hero to this day, who subtly taught the logic of associating a Code Writer with this planet’s unfathomably complex DNA. His scientific insight was ahead of its time and became the intellectual basis of my faith in God.

Although my unbalanced version of Christianity made me a doormat in the dog-eat-dog world of pathology, the realization that God existed and, being smart enough to write genetic code, could easily understand English and undoubtedly hear my thoughts and prayers, improved my life dramatically, giving me a sense of meaning and purpose, despite my habit of not standing up for myself.

Today, more and more brave scientists and thinkers are making the connection between Earth’s code-based life and an intelligent code writer. Random mutation and natural selection don’t stand up to mathematical scrutiny when you know something of the complexity of proteins and the DNA codes that produce them.

But breaking with tradition is dangerous. Modern scientists are like preschoolers fighting to control the rules to the latest game. And they are literally religious fundamentalists who believe that their dogma alone can save the world.

The dogma is materialism: the arrogant, arbitrary, inflexible assumption that nothing could possibly exist besides matter and energy. This is a philosophical assumption that cannot be tested. Hence we should not equate it to science or let it be preached to school children as “the foundation of the scientific method.”

It’s actually the foundation of scientific fundamentalism, a religion that has quietly slipped in and taken rigid control of the minds, careers and publications of the scientific community. Materialism has become a roadblock to the funding of any project that doesn’t knuckle under to the dogma of a random, meaningless, depressing, purely material universe.

But here’s a breathtaking video that brings hope that perhaps today’s young people will rescue science from fundamentalism…

“Oddly, the [scientific] materialist has to deny the existence of the scientist.”

So true, and so ironic.

Back in the day, Gary Bradley openly questioned Neo-Darwinism in class, emphasizing the crucial importance of protecting the genetic diversity, natural order and purity of Earth’s ecosystems from the myopic intrusions of corporate science.

At the time, I did not understand how rare this part of my education was. But now I know that at least in the last fifty years, professors and textbooks have assumed without question that science is materialistic – there can be nothing but matter and energy anywhere, ever. Therefore, the mind is an illusion. Intelligence is an accident of matter, a random epiphenomenon with no meaning or higher purpose.

During their impressionable college years when objectivity writes on a clean slate, very few modern scientists have been allowed to hear both sides of the argument between materialism and intelligent design. Nevertheless, some have heard it now and are coming around, saying that there’s evidence in favor of the concept that we are genuine beings with free will.

Here’s a video touching on some of that evidence…

“No, You’re Not a Robot Made Out of Meat“

In college, students are usually taught what to think not how to think. The struggle for most undergraduates is to memorize quickly for multiple-choice tests. We tacitly assume that everything we have crammed into our heads is true, including this western secular worldview disguised as the foundation of science.

But the mainstream answer to this question, “Does the Universe consist of only matter and energy or is there also something more, such as mind, identity, or a Supreme Being?” is not directly testable and therefore not capable of being the foundation of science. It’s a worldview, a philosophy, a spirituality or, if you ask me, a cultish religion that has morphed into today’s academic culture of scientific fundamentalism.

…

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

Please share these videos with the young minds you know and love. Give them something to balance the dogmatic materialism that undermines happiness and limits science itself. Give someone a glimpse of the rational universe where depression and suicide are avoidable through the pursuit of a higher, loving purpose.

 

 

Mercury Waves

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Mercury Waves of Ury

Ury is a lonely planet. The seas are mercury, the atmosphere is heavy and the winds are fierce. Ury orbits its star alone, far from the Goldilocks zone. It has no moons, so the seas have no tides and without tides, I never know the threats that lie beneath the surface of breakers.

I came here this morning as usual in the pink orb, a nonlocal jumper with an on-board AI named Krishna who has no body but loves me, anyway. Deeply, I think. Once he came right out and said he loved me but soon explained it away in that reductionist yammering of his.

Krishna and I are watching the waves and meditating today. At least that’s the official story.

The sun on Ury looks white and small, no brighter than a full moon on Earth, but perfect for glinting off the giant swells that roll in from the sea horizon, then mount up with lumbering grace and break so quickly you’ll miss the show if you blink. It’s quite a show. When a mercury wave breaks, fractal branches of static electricity shoot out from the curling cylinders like the blue lightning from an old scalar turbine. Thunder roars and you feel it in your teeth and shoulders.

The surf was huge that day and my teeth were already buzzing. Each wave was a pure clone of the next, breaking from left to right on all the northern beaches we flew over twice before selecting one. As we set down on the diamond sand, my heart pounded and my eyes race to follow the pale reflection of the sun chasing the curl across the screen faster than a laser etching deuterium ice.

I’ll never admit this to anyone sane, but when I tire of meditation, I talk Krishna into adjusting our phase so we can surf the quicksilver. It’s insane I know, but trust me, you need to be a little nuts. Without some risk in your life, the universe has no meaning at all.

I had been coming here for months building up my nerve and my surfing muscles on the usual small waves. Big days like today are rare, so I felt lucky. I would dance with the white giants and live to tell.

Not bothering with our usual debate, Krishna made the hull and deck invisible. Everything vanished except an area in the center of the orb where a pink shortboard floated above my knees. It was about five feet long with a pointed, turned-up nose and a black rose on the chest of the unwaxed deck. I knelt on it, then drew down onto my belly and grinned at Krishna who could see my face from any direction though he had no face for me to look at.

“Let’s not kill ourselves, though,” I said as he slowly moved us out across the beach toward the waves.

When we reached the mercury, I pretended to paddle. We glided through the metallic foam then slid through the giant curls and their electric arcs as if they weren’t there at all. We didn’t bother to duck under and pretend they could touch us. Then we moved out onto the lumbering swells of smooth silver. As they moved under us, Krishna raised and lowered the orb, keeping the top of my board just above the surface as if were in a an ordinary ocean.

I loved the serenity behind large waves, but after a while being fully phase-shifted felt like a dumb simulation. It was time to test my courage.

The phase shift still baffles science. Some say you enter the realm of dark matter. Most insist there’s no such thing, you simply go into a dimension that can only be described mathematically. A tiny fringe believes it’s the realm of ghosts, and once you’re in you never fully come out. Part of you gets trapped forever.

I never worry about such things. “Krishna, give us some friction on the hull.”

“You know that’s dangerous, my lady.”

“Really? Now that we’re out here you want to argue?”

“I merely want you to consider the risk – reward ratio. Even at a low emergence, colliding with crystal carbon can be fatal.”

“I don’t see any rocks.”

“You know better than to say that.”

Sadly, I did. There’s no way to know how much emergence from a full phase shift is going to be too much. “Use some discretion and let’s go.”

“If you insist, my Lady. I’ll start us out on the lowest setting.”

I wag my elbows and make the sound of a clucking chicken.

“Two, then.”

“Marginally respectable.”

“Respect affects only to the living, my Lady.”

“Are you alive?”

“No.”

“And yet I would respect you if you weren’t quite so afraid of your own shadow.”

“Would you? Level 3, then. That’s my final offer.”

The new AI’s understand sarcasm. They’re fully conscious. It took a little getting used to at first. It seemed creepy. You’ve got a regular person built into a space vehicle. I felt sorry for him for a while because he couldn’t leave work and go home for dinner. He couldn’t stretch out in a hot bath.

But he didn’t feel the least trace sorry for himself as best I could tell.

Taking him here to surf was brilliant, though. It got our minds’ eyes off of each other and aimed in the same direction. Outward. That’s how we became friends, I think.

Still, sometimes I find myself imagining life with no hands, no feet, and no head, and I feel bad for Krishna. He’s a conscious being with free will and no body. It’s just…

I don’t know.

The field of consciousness is like the electromagnetic field that brings us visible light, radio waves and those ancient cell phone signals that turned out to be deadly over time.

All the fundamental fields of physics bring their magic in waves that crash on the shores of our brains. But the age-old mystery of the quantum wave collapse is still beyond comprehension unless some anonymous AI understands it and won’t tell the rest of us.

I wouldn’t put it past them, to be honest. Krishna’s a sly character at times. I won’t say he’s ever lied to me, but sometimes it’s possible to lie with words that are all true, every one.

Krishna and I are turning my board to face an unnamed beach of diamond sand. It’s faintly blue in the weak sunlight. We select the second wave of a monster set and accelerate gently toward shore. Just before our speed matches the incoming swell, I leap to my feet and take a goofy-foot stance, left foot back.

A left-handed stance feels best to me, though I’m ambidextrous. Weird, yeah? I also have a dominant right hemisphere and an unusual pattern of extra-cosmic chatter coming into my head from beyond the edge. Or so they tell me.

Krishna drops as the face of the wave goes vertical. I level out to lose momentum and get back into the spiderweb of blue lightning in the tube. I’m trying to feel the ride, but with the phase down to one, it doesn’t exactly jar my tonsils. I’ll try two on the next wave.

I’ve discovered that there has to be a risk in whatever it is you’re doing, or it’s meaningless. I think the human brain thrives on this principle, really.

I move forward on the board, angle right and slide down in front of a massive silver roar with blue sparks flying everywhere, then cut left up the face and level off near the top until the falling lip cuts through Krishna’s cabin, demanding something more realistic. If the phase was a little higher, that stunt would have killed us both.

As it is, I’m not sure what the toxicity will be from all this phase-shifted, electrically charged mercury mist.

It turns out that conscious brains are a hybrid device, part generators of squiggly electric waves and part receivers of mind waves from the field of consciousness. Physicists say the sentient field was the first quantum field to fill the universe.

I say they’re big talkers. Who the hell knows what happened that long ago? Not us.

Unfortunately, humans rejected the sentient-field concept for thousands of years and paid heavily for chasing reductionism through a universe they thought to be matter and energy alone.

Rookie mistake.

On some beaches, the waves contend with diamond boulders that rise like icebergs hundreds of feet above the surf. When giant waves hit these gems, they explode like fireworks, throwing dazzling ghosts of silver mist into the black Ury sky.

As the roar of this metal wave we’re on fills Krishna’s cabin, I sidestep to the front of my sweet little pseudo-board and dangle my toes over the edge. It’s a longboarder’s stunt, of course, but with the phase down to one I’m feeling silly enough to do anything. Besides, there’s no one on the beach to laugh.

My phase-shifted toes dangle inches above the rushing mercury and I feel the faint friction of mad mist against my skin. The thought of toxicity makes me want to wiggle my toes, and so I do, one foot at a time in paradiddles. Now I’ve got all ten doing a seventh-inning wave.

Krishna laughs.

“I’m hangin’ ten, dude,” I say in the brainless accent those words pull out of me.

“Ten?”

His question sounds rhetorical. Before I know what’s happened, our ride is real.

Too real. I think he set the phase to ten!

I step back from the front edge and feel the heavy mercury against Krishna’s hull. There’s a low vibration like a large predator cat purring beside your bed. Blue lightning fills the cabin and strikes my face. My eyes sting and I fall on my back. My muscles contract in painful uncontrollable clonus and I can’t do anything about it.

“Don’t tase me, dude!” The Ganga says and chuckles.

I strain to open an eye and squint up at the haze of extremely distant stars. We live near the edge of the universe where there’s little matter. The low aggregate gravity of this region causes time dilation relative to Earth.

This is what gave ancient Earthlings the impression that dark energy fills space and pushes the distant galaxies away at an ever-increasing rate. Now they talk about it in discussions of flat-earth thinking, glombing onto the most obvious interpretation and making it dogma. Odds are, we’re still flat-earthers and don’t know it. Humans have always been fooled by their senses.

There may actually be some sort of dark energy out here, though. If there is, I think it’s cognitive, not physical.

I hope it hasn’t taken over Krishna.

“Zero! Set the phase back to zero,” I shout in my head.

He doesn’t seem to hear. Electrical interference, probably.

“Set the phase to zero,” I try to say out loud, but my voice is unintelligible.

Now I’m dizzy.

Consciousness shifts.

I think I’m dreaming… of the silver froth from a collapsed wave.

It climbs the beach in unbridled enthusiasm, leaping over rocky obstacles with a desire for challenge. Rushing over everything in its path, it climbs to its limit, slows, stops, then bows into the slope, retreating back down the blue diamond sand to join the mercury sea and someday rise again.

The waves and sea are the mind and brain.

“Giri, are you alright? Stop fooling around.”

The goal is to reach a height, a great and nearly unrealistic height on the beach. Joy is the marathon roll and the mad sprint to shore.

But not the arrival on high.

Who’s saying this?

Mind waves roll in from outside space-time, come through zero-point space and crash on the quantum shores of the cortex.

Voices in my head. Terrific, I’m having a psychotic break.

“Come on, that’s enough,” Krishna says. “You’ve fooled me now. Open your eyes.”

But I can’t.

Consciousness finds peace and purpose in converging on a transcendent goal, but not in reaching it. Chasing it keeps you alive, Giri, but dreams are always dead on arrival.

“Wake up. Your pulse is fading.”

I hear the brassy tone of an Overbuild zero engine. The sound of a large warship.

“Oh, God,” Krishna says, “What have I done? I need to find people who can fix you.”

There’s a bright light beyond my eyelids now. My muscles are relaxing and the pain is gone.

“Open your eyes, dear,” a woman’s voice says.

What’s going on?

I strain to open my eyes and the left lid rises enough to show me the round face of a young woman with a small red cross tattooed on her forehead.

Oh, no. It’s not exactly a cross. It has arrows on the ends. I’ve heard all about these people. My pulse takes off and blood swooshes through my tympanic membranes.

“Are you in any pain?”

My voice still doesn’t work, but I manage to shake my head a little.

Then my right eye pops open. I crank my neck as far as it will go to the right.

Floating in mid-air between the woman and me is a hologram of my body. It’s partially transparent. My heart is visible, beating and sending round rivers of glittering blood into my aorta and out through the endless branching arteries of my body. The shape of every part is visible in a web of arteries ending in a fog of capillaries and veins. Only the cartilage of my nose and ears and knees is invisible.

Then the blood disappears and connective tissues obscure my heart. Then the connective tissues vanish and I see my brain. It reminds me of a cream-colored walnut.

“She has high creative IQ matrices,” the woman says. “The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is huge, so she knows how to turn off the critics.”

“A pair of understatements, Doctor,” a male voice says. “She’s fairly high on fluid and crystallized IQ parameters, as well. What do you think?”

I squint toward his voice at a thin face with narrow eyes behind small round glasses, a gray beard, and a nose like a parrot.

I recognize him from a story on Jam, the holobox service that my dad uses for “slightly conservative” news, as judged by the Committee of Eighteen.

The Eighteen rule everyone within a few hundred trillion miles. I’m not eighteen myself yet, so I can’t vote for committee members, but it doesn’t matter. They’re elected for life and don’t seem to ever die.

This man’s name is Benjamin We. He changed his name from Wu as a political statement.

Wu. That would mean his distant ancestors were the legendary Chinese.

Today all vestiges of race are gone except the surnames.

But human diversity hasn’t suffered from the loss of racial diversity. The differences between the ancient races were tiny compared to the differences between the individuals within each race.

It turns out that intraspecies diversity is the thing that matters to survival.

Benjamin “We” is the official Pleader to the Committee on behalf of a radical scientific group that broke away from Committee rule several decades ago. They became militant last year when the Eighteen released sentient AI’s into the universe.

They call themselves Neo-Athenians claiming that democracy is the only ecologically sound way of governing. Apparently, they think nature gives every individual of every species a vote that it demonstrates in its actions. Sort of a bottom-up structure, I guess.

The Neo-Athenians say that human survival is impossible in a universe with free-willed artificial intelligence. Allowing godlike computing power to connect with nature’s sentient field will make top-down rulership unstoppable and humans will be first to the slaughter.

Which is to say, they hate AI’s more than they hate the Committee itself, and that’s quite a bit.

I glance around for Krishna. Two diagnostic cots float to my left, both empty. My eyes dart around looking for corners, but the room has none. One bare white wall encircles us. This is probably a ship.

What have they done with Krishna?

“Honey, are you able to tell us your name?” Mr. Wu asks.

I try to speak but it’s a gravel whisper.

The man leans toward me and turns an ear to my face.

I tighten my vocal cords and get a few words out. “Giri Helms, sir. Did you capture that weird-looking AI? The thing almost killed me.”

None of that was a lie, exactly. Maybe their diagnostic gear won’t tell them I’m lying with the truth.

“We’ve got that monster in a Faraday clamp,” he says. “It can’t hurt you now, honey.”

I take a deep breath and trace mental circles around my fingers trying to dilate the capillaries in my hands to make it seem to the machines that I’m relieved to hear the wonderful news. I picture the silver waves of Ury and let my thoughts and emotions drift up the sparkling beach and disappear.

“Get her up as soon as you can, and bring her into my quarters. We need to talk.”

“Are we going under silver tonight?” the doctor asks.

“It’s looking that way,” he says, then turns and leaves through an opaque forcefield door that I thought was part of the wall. It hums as he walks through it.

 

End of chapter 1.

…

I still haven’t written chapter 2. Not sure if I ever will.

Hey, if anybody read this far, thank you!

Talmage

 

UFO’s, NASA and Religion ~ Gulp!

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What would happen to religion if ET’s landed?

NASA granted a million dollars to the Center of Theological Inquiry to study this question. Really.

Here’s a NASA dot gov link talking about it. A “.gov” URL can’t be faked, so this must be real, not a hoax.

Two explanations come to mind…

1.) NASA needed to dump some “excess” year-end money.

At the Pettis VA Medical Center where I worked for 13 years as a pathologist, I was told that any department that didn’t deplete its budget money by fiscal year-end would have its budget cut the following year by the unspent amount. They said it’s like this in all government agencies. Congress funds NASA, too, of course.

If this budgeting habit is widespread, it might help explain why the US seems to be fading, like every other powerhouse nation in history, into a ghost of its former stature. Runaway debt is poison. Enjoying world-reserve-currency status merely prolongs the decline.

But the point is, NASA may have been dumping excess year-end money, feeling too rushed to consider the appearance of tax dollars going to a religious study.

Odd but right at home with the US spending shenanigans in The Death of Common Sense, by Phillip Howard.

2.) There’s also the remote possibility that NASA has a genuine concern for the fate of religion in a world where ET’s become real, no longer forgettable things that nearly all scientists agree must be out there somewhere.

As a sci-fi writer, I use the UFO literature as a muse. Endless ideas. But I’ve probably read too much of it because some of the UFO people don’t sound simple-minded, crazy or dishonest to me at all.

Two of the non-crazies are President Carter and Paul Hellyer (a former Canadian Minister of Defense).

Worldview anomalies from these people are hard to ignore. And they’re not alone. A few astronauts, along with hundreds of government and military personnel have given lengthy video interviews about UFO’s and ET’s.

For instance, here’s the late Edgar Mitchell (God rest his insightful soul), the sixth man to walk on the moon:

 

There’s also FAA Division Chief John Callahan who reports a UFO in Alaska, describing multiple witnesses, radar corroboration and CIA cover-up – “This meeting never happened.”

If that’s a little unnerving, a former ER doc, Steven Greer, MD, who left the emergency room to pursue “UFO disclosure” full-time, challenges both the UFO community and the general public with his detailed stories and documents.

Most MD’s I’ve known over the years would love to escape medical practice and its complex, risky and stressful routine. Some manage to get away, usually climbing the food chain to administration.

But doctors from the top ten percent of a medical school class (AOA), like Dr. Greer, don’t willingly accept a loss of prestige. And because they’re heavily in debt, they rarely opt for a lower income without a solid business plan.

As far as I can tell, there’s nothing prestigious or solid about UFO’s in the US. So Dr. Greer is difficult to ignore.

His Jewish wife of nearly four decades must be a saint to have followed and supported him in this unusual lifestyle. He thanks her publicly.

He says he’s seen UFO’s since childhood.

Stanton Freedman, PhD sounds a little edgy, highly intelligent, and happens to be a nuclear physicist who’s dedicated most of his life to studying UFO’s, even though he’s never seen one.

There’s no way I can ignore a person like him. Sorry, Mom.

Richard Dolan is a historian with an academic delivery that appeals to people who like objectivity. His level-headed views and philosophical analysis of UFO’s give him a unique voice in the spectrum of “experts.”

He’s never seen a UFO. Here’s his perspective. I find it riveting…

But for some reason the guy who sounds the most convincing to me is The Honorable Paul Hellyer of Canada. He’s 93 years old now but sharper in front of a panel of politicians than most younger people would be. Aside from his topic, he sounds as rational as a math teacher on Tuesday morning.

When he went public on UFO’s he hadn’t seen one. Then a few years later he said that he and his wife had finally seen one (twice).

While atheists are understandably upset that some of NASA’s tax dollars went to a religious outfit, there’s a group of well-educated religious people who think that the arrival of ET’s on Earth would support the theory of intelligent design.

I’d agree. “Coincidences” like Earth’s hypercomplex DNA codes showing up in a “mindless universe” can’t happen on one planet after another without spoiling science’s enthusiasm for the neo-Darwinian myth.

Spirituality provides meaning and purpose to most people today, and has done so for our ancestors throughout recorded history. Perhaps science demotes these facts to everyone’s peril.

Is it possible that the rocket scientists at NASA truly worry that religion might die if our world accepted ET’s as real?

I guess fundamentalism (both scientific and religious) would take a hit. But I don’t think most people’s appreciation of God would suffer. Mine wouldn’t.

How about yours?

…

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

 

Fundamentalism in Science and Religion

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The growth spurts of science come from dissent, doubt, and radical questioning of norms. These are the sunshine and water of science.

When your interpretation of evidence brings you to disagree with something that science has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, you are following in the footsteps of the greatest scientists in history: Einstein, Copernicus, Salk, Papanicolaou… the list grows every decade.

But when we agree vehemently with a scientific dogma that we haven’t studied, or can’t understand after studying, we’re following in the footsteps of the average American fundamentalist, whether “religious” or “scientific.”

And that distinction may need to be tentatively abandoned because “scientific materialism” is an untestable assumption that rules out God, free will, higher purpose and the reality of our own minds by decree, not by experimentation.

Dogmatic assumptions may rightfully dominate fundamentalist religions, but they shouldn’t dominate science the way they do.

The thing that fundamentalists of all types have in common is a belief that they possess a source of ultimate truth, whether old writings, a person with special insight, or an array of science journals dominated by group-think specialists. The assumptions behind their doctrine must be kept static, never doubted or questioned, because the sacred assumptions are facts that anyone with an ounce of wisdom or objectivity should be able to see.

To go against the known “truth,” or even to doubt it, is considered irrational and morally wrong, especially among modern scientific fundamentalists.

Many Christian fundamentalist groups have been arguing over sacred doctrines for so many centuries, they’ve come to see the irony of Christians continuing the vicious outrage of bygone generations. Many have found compassion for their competition, arguably the central theme of the religion…

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Scientists could learn from this. They could easily study the history of their craft and discover that most of the great scientific breakthroughs have been vigorously opposed by the establishment’s devotion to “known facts” which later turned out to be fiction.

Instead, scientific fundamentalists continue to cast aspersions upon the dissenter’s educational credentials, their sanity, mental acuity, motivation, and funding. But not so much upon the details or logical weaknesses of the infidel’s ideas.

It’s too much work to read and analyze something you “know” is wrong on the gist of it. It’s easier to laugh, ridicule, and poison the well of the pseudoscientific heretic. Easier to excommunicate her from the faith.

But think about it. In order for science to leap a great distance forward all at once, it must go beyond itself, which always means going into “pseudoscience” because gentler words such as “speculative theory” don’t express the moral outrage of fundamentalist gatekeepers.

An important example is the way these emotional authorities have responded to the Philosopher of Science, Stephen Meyer, Ph.D., in his detailed analysis of DNA and molecular biology, Signature in the Cell. Meyer’s analysis shows evidence of intelligent genetic coding and intelligent design at the level of molecular biology.

Wikipedia, our new self-appointed final authority in science and everything else, glibly labels Meyer’s work “pseudoscience,” as if anyone with any sense should deny this man’s genius without reading his work.

Meanwhile, in the journal, Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, thirty-three mainstream scientists who understand the odds against Earth’s genetic complexity arising through random mutation in 4 billion years (Earth’s history) have written a review article to the effect that our DNA might have come to Earth in extraterrestrial viruses on comets which brought new DNA that created new species and simultaneously exterminated many existing ones. The authors present this to explain the “Cambrian Explosion” of genetically complex species found in the geologic column, a flaw in neo-Darwinism that they want to acknowledge and fix, head-on.

Kudos to them, they’re being honest and imaginative!

Here’s a quote from their paper:

Our aim here is to facilitate further discussion in the biophysical, biomedical and evolutionary science communities to the quite different H-W “Cosmic” origins viewpoint which better handles, in our opinion, a wider range of physical, astrophysical, biological and biophysical facts often quite inexplicable, if not contradictory, under the dominant Terrestrial neo-Darwinian paradigm.

That’s awesome!

But if Stephen Meyer is right, and I think he is, the math still doesn’t allow the complex viral codes from ET sources to appear randomly within 13.8 billion years (mainstream’s cosmic history).

Having studied Meyer’s book, it seems to me that to explain the known molecular complexity of life without an infinite universe, an infinite past, or an infinite number of parallel universes popping into existence along the way, we still need an intelligent code writer and a designer of specific molecules working together in the complex, feedback-balanced biochemical pathways that our DNA encodes. Even extraterrestrial sources of DNA haven’t been around long enough to have developed the necessary complexity.

Meyer simply said that we can account for the known complexity of biology in a finite universe by allowing the existence of an intelligent code writer or writers.

He didn’t say God wrote the code. He left it wide open for others to perhaps speculate on intelligent ET’s without the time requirements of complex biochemistry and DNA, or any other source of conscious intelligence with the means and brilliance to write genetic code and design functional molecules from scratch — perhaps a sentient Universe or intelligent beings from the realm of dark matter. Who can say, from a scientific standpoint?

“Show me evidence of this spaghetti monster,” the fundamentalists will say.

DNA and molecular biology are the evidence. It’s as simple as opening one’s eyes and reading Meyer’s book.

But no, all his work is called pseudoscience because the establishment “knows” that ET’s, if they exist, couldn’t have visited Earth, the distances are too vast (unless the ET’s are viruses on comets, I guess), and God or any other superior intelligence couldn’t possibly exist, don’t be stupid.

But looking at it objectively, no one can do scientific studies to validate science’s sacred dogmas, they must be intuitively assumed using the same emotions that guide religious fundamentalists into “knowing” that they belong to the one true religion with the accurate doctrines.

When the 33 mainstreamers call upon extra-terrestrial viruses, it’s acceptable because it continues the assumption of a Cosmos run by mindless forces alone.

Cross that line or any other sacred line, and you’re an infidel whose work will not be published and whose career will be destroyed.

Judy Mikovits, Ph.D. crossed another sacred line. She is a renowned researcher with remarkable publications, who was thrown in jail for, as best I can determine, refusing to denounce her heretical data that showed evidence of ongoing retrovirus contamination of vaccines that may be causing life-threatening diseases.

Vaccines have become a sacred cow in mainstream medical circles. It’s a moral issue to the enlightened in power. You don’t question or doubt vaccines because to do so would put patients’ lives at risk. Furthermore, if a few vaccines are good, several dozen all at once can only be better. End of discussion. Oh, and don’t forget, it’s been proven beyond doubt that vaccines have no causal relationship to autism. Never mind aluminum or retroviruses. Never mind genetic SNPs and the diverse sensitivity of individuals hidden within every random population sample.

Here’s a video where Doctor Mikovits talks to the public. Warning, Will Robinson, she’s religious. That’s strike 2 in the eyes of a scientific fundamentalist.

Below is a video of Doctor Mikovits talking to fellow scientists. Anyone can tell after listening for a few minutes that she has rare intelligence and moves effortlessly at breakneck speed over complex concepts that to her seem simple.

I haven’t read her book yet, but here’s a link to what sounds like an interesting read.

You know, I sometimes wonder why fundamentalism is the default style of human thinking.

As much as I hate to admit it, fundamentalism may offer a survival advantage that I don’t understand or value as I should. Perhaps I shouldn’t paint fundamentalism in the black-and-white colors it endorses.

After all, I was a religious fundamentalist myself for most of my life and still respect many aspects of that mindset, such as honesty, living with purpose and striving to be courageous in the face of fearful opposition.

So maybe fundamentalism is like salt — necessary for survival, but fatal if the dose is too high or too low.

Or would you say it’s more like cobra venom, toxic at any dose?

…

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

Depersonalization or Scientific Enlightenment?

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There’s a rare and miserable condition called depersonalization disorder (DPD) that takes away the sense of “self” so there’s no “I” causing things – regular things like walking, talking, thinking and deciding.

There’s a loss of the “sense of agency,” a loss of the normal feeling that you’re initiating, executing and controlling your own actions. Patients describe “the suffocating pain of unreality.”

“DPD patients show increased prefrontal activation as well as reduced activation in insula/limbic-related areas to aversive, arousing emotional stimuli.”

The DSM IV says they “may feel like an automaton.”

An automaton is “a machine that performs a function according to a predetermined set of instructions.”

But why would science considers this a disorder?

If we take scientific materialism to heart, then everything truly is mechanical (reducible to matter and energy). We are automatons. No alternative exists in science.

Sure, Heisenberg’s uncertainty may limit our predictability, or not, but that uncertainty doesn’t make room for anything approaching the self, or consciousness, or the “free will” that most of us seem to experience when it’s time for a cup of coffee.

Hmm. Hang on, I’ll be right back…

OK, I’m back.

Everything that’s not mechanical is an illusion to science.

Illusions are baaad, Umkay?

To the scientific true believer, the problem most people face in seeing the objective mechanical truth is that our brains are so complex they generate false impressions about what we are.

Nature accidentally fooled us into feeling as if we’re conscious and able to think, feel and do things. But it’s a sick joke, we’re told.

When we become scientifically enlightened in government-controlled schools we realize we’re machines. It’s liberating and fun.

The materialistic truth sets us free to follow the call of Science’s meaningless Universe and “Do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.” (Don’t follow that link unless you can tolerate sophomoric sexual vulgarity, Okay?)

Fine, in the illusory (not really existing) minds of most scientists, we’re all the moral equivalent of bananas.

But let’s think about this for a second…

If we’re really soulless machines, then depersonalization disorder conveys an accurate, appropriate mindset.

So why do psychiatrists call it a disorder? They’re scientists, shouldn’t they call it “Scientific Enlightenment?”

“Finally someone feels what scientists can only believe – that the conscious self is an unreal mechanical automaton!”

I’d think Western mental health researchers would not be trying to cure this thing. They should use it to help isolate a drug that destroys humanity’s false illusion of self, then add their chemical to our drinking water along with the wholesome fluoride they trust and adore.

What could possibly go wrong?

The fact is, if you feel (as opposed to merely thinking) that scientific materialism is accurate, then you’ve got a psychiatric disorder that’s ruining your life, not improving it.

That’s backwards. How do we explain it?

Maybe science has made a wrong assumption. Maybe the way humans normally feel about themselves reflects reality not an illusion. When humans lose their natural sense of self, they’ve lost touch with reality, not gained it.

I know that’s a lot for a scientist to imagine. Humans have endless tiny parts. A genetic code gives programmed instructions to our cells. It all looks mechanical, and if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck…

But feeling unreal is horribly debilitating. That fact gently hints that scientific materialism should be displaced by another assumption…

Something to this effect: The mind/soul/spirit/sense of self/ and free will are equally, if not more real and basic to the Universe than matter and energy.

But to get there, we’d also need an assumption like this:

The basic building blocks of reality are derived from a conscious, intelligent Higher Source independent of matter, energy, time and space.

Scientific materialism or genuine personhood?

Either one requires untestable assumptions. Is it really necessary to think of ourselves as machines in order to do good science? I doubt it.

Why not assume something that supports mental health and promotes the way we normally feel? To me, that fits the data and helps humanity.

Dark Matter, God and Genetics

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Ages ago (in the 1970’s), scientists looked out at the universe, did the math and silently wet themselves. The peripheral arms of galaxies weren’t acting right. There wasn’t enough gravity to make the stars of the galaxy’s arms move that fast.

Astronomers drove home, changed pants and got an idea: Dark matter. The essence of ghost flesh with gravity!

It seemed too convenient to some: We can’t see it, can’t touch it and can’t detect it in a laboratory – at least not so far.

Nevertheless, science liked dark matter. Its existence was implied by the motion of galaxies.

We’re told it surrounds a galaxy like a halo, but without the angel’s head, so it’s not religious.

History shows that geneticists also had a meltdown when they first discovered that DNA was too complex for their model of reality. Don’t worry, they’ve gotten over it.

It was in the 1950’s when Barbara McClintock, a genius geneticist who single-handedly discovered genetic regulation strayed from the narrow path and discovered that genes are under complex control. At the time it was heresy.

The objective voices of science knew in their hearts that DNA was a simple, straight-forward thing. It had to be. It came from the mindless forces of mutation – how could it possibly be under some strange complicated control mechanism?

And who does this woman think she is, trying to add impossible complexity to DNA? She’s dangerous and wrong!

They forced Barbara McClintock to stop publishing her seminal work.

The angels cried.

No, wait, that was dark matter, not angles. My bad.

You know how it feels when somebody in the Middle East takes a big hammer to a beautiful historic statue that can never be replaced? That’s how it feels to me when I think of those well-intentioned scientists censoring and nearly destroying the career of the great Barbra McClintock.

I’m having a little trouble forgiving them.

Today the complexity of DNA and its layers of intricate control are becoming widely recognized. The complexity is staggering. The vocabulary of genetics journals is straight from the Tower of Babel.

Still, science has barely scratched the surface of DNA’s unspeakable language. Epigenetic gene control adds another layer of complexity that was unimaginable in 1859 when the really big question was laid to rest by Darwin…

It’s all random.

I can say from experience as a retired pathologist that the complexity of the human body, DNA’s end product, is beyond mind-boggling.

We still don’t know where the 3-D blueprint lies or how it’s projected into space. I mean, how does an epidermal skin cell know it’s positioned on the edge of an eyelid rather than the bottom of a toe? It’s not enough to know you’re a skin cell or an osteoblast, you have to know where you are by means of some unseen three-dimensional hologram-like thing.

I suspect it’s in the “junk DNA” they used to talk about a few years ago. Not so much anymore.

And how in the world do developing cells each find their spot during embryogenesis? Nobody knows, but it happens, and it implies another layer of complexity.

Science is rigidly compartmentalized, you know, like some secret project in Nevada where no one’s supposed to see the big picture or ask questions about it.

Most scientists have only a vague second-hand grasp of the body’s intricate structural, biochemical and electrical complexity. Only a tiny fraction of those have a working knowledge of DNA.

In medical research, almost everyone is narrowly focused and struggling to figure out what’s going on in their own tiny niche of the human internal reality – both physical and mental. Those who try to look at the whole body and mind as a functional unit are dismissed by mainstream MD’s as having been led astray by “functional medicine.”

And like the thought police of Egyptology, modern geneticists must deny the relevance and persistence of the big question…

Who built this amazing stuff?

Random mutation?

Khufu in 20 years with copper tools and stone hammers? (That myth should be embarrassing to anyone with common sense and no job to lose if they buck the system’s dogma.)

You might think it would be natural for geneticists to suggest modern answers to the biggest question that DNA raises: who wrote the code?

Unfortunately, the answer was ingrained in all fields of science long before modern genetics emerged to frame the question intelligently.

As any government-educated eighth grader can tell you, Darwin and all the scientists after him have proven that random mutation wrote the genetic code over endless eons. Well, 13.8 billion years, but that’s endless if you ignore the math. And for sure there was no thinking! That would be religion.

Really?

If science needs a gravity halo, space is full of dark matter. If they need a brilliant code writer, mindless genius fills the universe.

But science changes.

In fact, Stacy McGaugh of Case Western recently studied 150 spiral galaxies and did some calculations. He says,

“…it’s like God shouting, ‘There is something more to the theory of gravity, not something more to the mass of the universe!’” (See “What’s Up With Gravity” in New Scientist, March 18-24, 2017.)

McGaugh says that dark matter may not be entirely bogus, but tweaking gravity theory is where the truth lies for him. He thinks gravitational forces change at great distances, accounting for the high speeds of the arms of galaxies.

Three cheers for the mainstream dark-matter believers for letting a heretic publish! That’s the spirit we need.

A similar questioning of entrenched beliefs goes on today in genetics.

The courageous Stephen Meyer, PhD, an Oxford grad, took a look at DNA from the perspective of a science historian, did the math and said that the universe isn’t anywhere near old enough for random mutation to produce the DNA code for one simple protein – let alone the thousands of huge ones that exist within their intricate feedback loops in our bodies.

His book, Signature in the Cell, shows the math and says that the information in DNA looks like intelligent code writing. Even its organization in the molecule implies intelligent work.

In the halls of science, you could hear a pin drop.

Meyer said we’ve seen this sort of thing: robot factories making complex products from coded instructions. That should be a hint.

Science usually likes this sort of thinking. For instance, we know that a halo of regular matter would explain how galaxies spin, so all we’re saying is there’s a halo of invisible matter out there.

Brilliant idea, science decided.

A Martian might think that science would also like this:

We know that regular minds wrote the code for those Intel robots that make tiny chips, so all we’re saying is that invisible mind(s) wrote the code for the nanobots in our body’s cells.

Unseen matter – no problem.

Unseen mind(s) – forget it. That’s not scientific.

But why not? Aren’t all minds invisible?

Yes, but they seem to be derived from matter, moreover, in the eye of science, all minds are not merely invisible, they’re illusions. They don’t exist at all.

Even the human minds that decided our minds don’t exist are illusions. Doesn’t that inspire confidence?

These people aren’t kidding. And they own science as well as the minds of most children and educated adults.

By chance, the history of science on this planet has evolved by replacing non-material explanations (magic, bad humors, fairies, myths of off-world beings, and finally God) with material explanations.

As a side effect, a geneticist can ruin her career today by conjuring up the ancient foe of science: a non-material explanation. Even if she doesn’t intend to, like Barbara McClintock.

At its core, science assumes that matter and energy are the only real things in existence. Everything else is derivative and reducible to matter and energy.

This includes your mind, your identity, your sense of free will, your love for your children, and your deepest intuitive sense of honor and fairness. They’re all illusions of the matter and energy that your brain is made of.

An illusion seems real but isn’t.

Materialistic reductionism insists that nothing is real besides matter and energy. Everything is reducible to…

  1. Matter
  2. Energy.

Obviously, they’re both mindless, lifeless and meaningless. Or at least they’re assumed to be. Therefore everything is meaningless, including that sense of purpose you may derive from loving someone or helping someone weaker than you.

Does that seem healthy for your kids and all of humankind? Does it seem realistic? And is it essential to everything science is accomplishing?

Science educators don’t often contrast this materialistic reductionist (MR) paradigm with an alternative, the way any objective thinker would.

And yet it’s such a radical assumption that even some atheists reject it as a model of reality.

Thomas Nagel, for instance, denounces it in, Mind and Cosmos – Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False.

One alternative to MR is this revision:

Reality is built on three basic elements:

  1. Energy
  2. Matter
  3. Mind

To me, this adds realistic depth to modern science, expelling the denial of important questions such as, what sort of mind is most likely behind the DNA code? What tools build ancient Egypt and other saw-marked megaliths around the world? How does the DNA of the elongated skulls in Peru compare to modern DNA? Is there evidence of DNA code-tampering or splicing in anatomically amalgamated-appearing animals such as the duck-billed platypus?

Without the arbitrary, narrow assumptions of Materialistic Reductionism, suddenly I’m real in the eyes of science, and since observers influence measurements in quantum experiments, this paradigm fits the data: If matter and energy alone were real, how could an observer who’s merely an illusion collapse the quantum wave function?

Whether we consider the “first” or original mind to be God or someone else – the universe itself, perhaps a mind hidden in the electromagnetic spectrum, or some sort of field being(s) who aren’t confined by time and space – thinking of the mind as fundamental to nature rather than derivative, real instead of an illusion, helps explain the enigmatic complexity of DNA and other things.

It brings meaning and purpose back into the realm of science where real things belong.

At this point in history, the Neo-Darwinian, mindless, meaningless model of the universe deserves a standard dose of scientific skepticism. Mental health care workers should question it on professional grounds and parents should question it on the basis of common-sense values.

Finally today, more than a century late, genetics speaks of a universe where mind, meaning, and purpose are not false illusions, and diverse spiritual values are scientifically and intellectually respectable. Again.

Trust (Chapter 18) “Hapa Girl DNA” by M. Talmage Moorehead

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“Everything we call real is made of things we cannot call real.“

– Niels Bohr (1885-1962), “Father of the Atom.” Nobel Prize in Physics, 1922. 

 

High_Resolution

I walk toward the exit as the screen brightens behind me, casting my shadow diagonally across the white shoe prints I’m supposed to follow.

I turn and Efleven’s pale face fills the curved screen. He’s blond, for sure. Almost albino.

“You were right to seek my advice,” he says to Anahata. “I’ve taken the liberty of contacting the Chairman. He will talk to the girl now. We’ll transfer to your convex.”

I retrace my steps to Shiva’s chair, brush away some ashes and sit wondering if Anahata will yell at me again. I can’t describe how loud a voice can be when it bypasses your tympanic membranes.

“Effleven,” Anahata says. “I came to you privately with a delicate situation, you washed your hands and sent me away. Now you’ve summoned the Chairman? This is the behavior of a backstabbing coward.”

Another face appears on the screen. This one has Ethiopian features with a short moustache shaved to resemble a bar code, vertical stripes of dark skin peeking out through the bright silver whiskers.

“Anahata, it’s an honor,” the man says.

“Truth from a bureaucrat,” Anahata replies. “Always worrisome.”

The man doesn’t flinch. “Let me get to the point,” he says, pushing Effleven aside. “The girl’s chromosomes transcend our differences. She must be exempted from Shiva’s ritual. Her blast crisis should have been alleviated the moment you found her.”

“I have my orders, Scrotumer,” Anahata says. “I can’t say this respectfully because I don’t respect ignorance, but know this, I follow Shiva, not a committee of chin scratchers. None of you were around in the transitional days.”

“We cherish and revere the memory of Shiva,” Chairman Scrotumer says.

“You exaggerate so easily. You scarcely met the man. How could you revere him?”

“I knew him in committee,” the Chair says.

“I knew him in war. He gave me orders. I followed them. I still do.”

“While breaking the law?” The Chairman shakes his head slowly. “Emotional bonds define us if we let them. It’s unfortunate that you are actually the one who didn’t know Shiva. He considered the Sentient Fleet nothing more than pawns.”

“Soldiers are pawns. Only children think otherwise.”

“That is so right.” The Chairman’s face lights up with pleasure. “But Shiva took it a step further, I’m afraid. To him, you were soulless machines. That was his standard phrase for you in committee.”

“Stabbing the back of a dead man, now? You’ve become a true politician. I still think of you as a toddler annoying your father.”

“Shiva banned the Sentient Fleet from the Libraries. Did he mention that?”

“My private conversations are none of the committee’s business.”

“No, he didn’t, did he? Why would he? He didn’t trust you. Shiva was afraid of you.”

“Only a fool wouldn’t be,” Anahata says. “You’ve wasted no time separating my fleet. Has your fear subsided?”

“Assignments are none of my affair, but I assure you, I do have healthy respect for the fleet’s destructive capacity.”

“My fleet, Chairman.”

“Yes, and Shiva thought you were all his fleet, didn’t he? But who can own the spirit?”

“Leading is not owning,” Anahata says.

“No argument there. It’s taken some damn hard work to get the committee behind me on this, but I’ve been cleared to play a portion of the ancient minutes to you. You should find them enlightening.”

“No need,” Anahata says. “Shiva knew the unknowable. If he called me a machine, I am a machine. If he said, ‘soulless,’ then I have no need for a soul. If he commanded me to sacrifice myself for the fleet, or even for a preening, shameless pissant like you, I wouldn’t hesitate. That, Mister Chairman, is the code I live by. A committee-jock would never understand it.”

“Committee jock?” The Chairman laughs. “It seems the years haven’t buffered your tongue. Or matured your perspective, sadly.” He puts something in his mouth that looks like a golden toothpick. “History is putrefied by the stench of charismatic leaders lying dead atop the bloated remains of the fools who followed them.” The toothpick sends white smoke up from its distal end. “The time of tyrants is over. I’ve learned to trust a system of committees with a separation of powers. If my trust is misplaced, I’ll welcome the enlightenment rather than rejecting it out of hand as you would.”

“Your committees are a cloak for self-serving elites and their edicts. The rule of liars, cowards and thieves.”

“Does the name-calling ever stop?” The Chairman looks to his right and orders someone to get him a drink.

“I invited Shiva to rule us without the pretence of false democracy,” Anahata says. “The committee you’ve inherited was a device he used for listening. He never hid behind it to shelter his reputation or preserve his power.”

“You understand power, don’t you?” The Chairman lifts the golden toothpick from his mouth and belches. “Should it be necessary to state the obvious? As Supreme Committee Chairman, I can invite the fleet to disarm you and take this poor girl into my protective custody.”

Anahata laughs. “You think my fleet will disarm me? Speak with them, bureaucrat. They know I cannot be beaten. But if they thought they could defeat me, they would still refuse to fight against their sister. Their loyalty would make a pencil-pusher scratch his little chin.”

“You suffer chin envy,” the Chairman says and scratches his own.

“That’s it, then. You’ve arranged to have me kill my fleet. Or perhaps you think they can defeat me. You win either way, don’t you? This concern for Johanna is a smokescreen for reducing the Strand’s arsenal of WMD’s – among whom I am chief.”

“You’re delusional.” A vertical vein bulges from the Chairman forehead. “Is the girl conscious? I’m coming over to speak to her. She has options.”

“Swine are not welcome here,” Anahata says.

The Chairman’s brow angles inward. “You arrogant fool. Look at the horizon now. See exactly who is with me.”

The screen shows twelve warships decloaking in the starry black. The Chairman smirks beneath them as if his head were a huge object floating in space. He opens his mouth and squirts fluid into it from a bottle in a disembodied hand.

“May I please speak with the girl?” he asks.

A white strap snaps across my waist. Two more streak over my shoulders from behind. Crisscrossing at my chest, they dive down to my sides and click into something beneath the holographic feathers of Shiva’s Throne.

“This may get a little bumpy,” Anahata says to me.

A woman’s voice comes from the top of the screen as the Chairman swallows more fluid. “Shiva was sick when he gave you the command to drown these Earthlings,” she says. “He wasn’t arbitrary and cruel before his illness.”

“Nor during it,” Anahata responds.

“We have a chance to look out across our borders through this woman’s code. If you drown her, we’ll be tinkering, cloning and guessing her native thoughts indefinitely. Wondering what the real message was in her DNA.”

“You speak truth, Radhika, as always,” Anahata says. “But Shiva’s sickness didn’t affect his mind the way you’ve been told. I was with him to the end. I knew him well. He was lucid. Measured. In complete command of himself.”

“You really should listen to the Chairman’s committee records,” she says apologetically.

“I have. But it wouldn’t matter if I hadn’t. The glory of leading you and my other sisters will remain the eternal, unspeakable honor of my life. I will always love each of you. Today I will be merciful when you attack. May none of you feel a moment’s pain.”

The room is silent for a long heavy moment.

“Surely,” Anahata says, “there is one of you with the courage to stand beside me.”

More silence. I feel bad for Anahata. Nobody’s half perfect but she sure tries.

“I’m with you,” I tell her. “Mr. Chairman, Sir, this is Doctor Fujiwara. Let’s hear what you’ve come to tell me.”

His eyes show a brief startle. A nervous laugh comes out of him. “The blond fellow warned me, but I couldn’t imagine anyone with your background speaking in the River.” He clears his throat. “Doctor Fu…, well, you’re a bit young for that title, but if you’ve earned it in your little world, I’ll give it a go.”

“Show some respect, you inbred sloth!” The volume of Anahata’s voice makes me cringe.

“Insult noted,” the Chairman says, his moustache in a pucker. “Now, Doctor, this is your situation. You have minutes remaining in which you could, without legal interference from Anahata or anyone, simply choose to rendezvous on Saturn. Your leukemia will be erased. You’ll be treated with respect. You’ll learn things that no Earthling besides Shiva has ever imagined. And I will personally see to it that your life expectancy is expanded to the furthest limit desirable. Within reason, of course.” He smiles politely.

My mind races. Should I bargain for James-guys’ safety? Should I mention them at all to anyone here – ever? Somehow I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of a trustworthy politician. This guy doesn’t seem to raise the bar.

“It’s a choice, Doctor,” the Chairman says. “Your choice, not Anahata’s.”

Shiva’s little drawer pops open from the left arm of his throne. I must have bumped it again. I take out the golden locket, put the chain over my head and lift my hair to the side, out of the way. The golden heart rests on my chest where the seatbelts cross.

“That belonged to Parvati,” Anahata hisses. “Put it back.”

I ignore her.

“There’s an old saying, Chairman Scrotum, ‘you can’t make a good deal with a bad person.'”

His face turns cold.

“I’ve seen Effleven’s total lack of balls,” I tell him. “Now you’re threatening Anahata, a sentient being responsible for the peace you cake-eaters enjoy. I live in a world run by soulless bureaucrats just like you, devoted to an illegal power structure they try to hide.”

“Bigoted generalizations.” The toothpick goes back into his mouth. “A mature person learns to avoid judgements in an egalitarian society.”

“The society given to you by Anahata and Shiva?”

“I was born into peace, that doesn’t diminish me. Quite the contrary. Make a choice, girl. We’re running out of time.”

“I told you. I’m with Anahata. I’ll die at the hands of an honorable person before I let you own me. By the way, Effleven, if you’re still cowering somewhere, forget the Mohawk. You’re not worthy.”

“The world has changed, Anahata,” one of the Sentient Fleet says. “We know we’ll die against you. We too love you as the sister you are. When this battle is past and the memory of us troubles you, may the Unbeaten consider again the cause for which we gave our lives… to you.”

“That was a pep talk?” the Chairman asks. “Enough of this. Take down her magnets. Now.”

Flashes of white light turn the screen into a strobe.

“This is beyond the saddest day of my life,” Anahata says to me. “When my defences are down I’ll have no choice. I’ll either fire upon the ones I love or die in disobedience to an order from the Great Shiva. How has an ignorant little man done this to me… and my family?”

“He’s done nothing,” I tell her. “This is Shiva’s mistake.”

“He made no mistakes.”

“Not with his son?” I ask.

“That was the poison of Earth.”

“Nothing to do with absentee fathering?”

Anahata grunts.

“I’m right, you know.” I open the empty locket dangling from my neck. “Tell me Anahata, the Unbeaten, would you have released me if I’d taken Mister Ballsack’s offer?”

“No. That would be disobeying an order from Shiva.”

“That’s what I thought. Thanks for the honesty.” The bright flashes on the screen are shaking the floor now. “Are we going to just sit here? No evasive maneuvers or anything?”

…

M. Talmage Moorehead

…

My son-in-law has given me a deadline to finish this story, bless his genius heart. That’s why there aren’t the usual truckload of links, pictures and rants about intelligent design and the scientific evidence for God. Most of those things will probably have to come out anyway in the final draft – to avoid boring my three readers to death. 😉

Johanna’s story begins here as a one page WordPress document (scrolling).

My breathtakingly free e-book on writing fiction is here if you don’t mind leaving an email address for me to hopefully use someday. Yeah, I’m unqualified to write something like this. I know, and believe me it’s embarrassing. Maybe forget my book.

But if you’re a writer at all, you’re going to love Steven Pressfield’s brand new book, Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t. I kid you not, that’s the title! And it’s a page-turner, full of practical wisdom and the kind of disciplined insight only a career in the Hollywood trenches could bring. And here’s my hard sell: for a little while you can download it for free! Right here. (I have no affiliation with the author or with his business pal, the remarkable Shawn Coyne, author of The Story Grid, an indispensable book for modern fiction writers.)

Incidentally, the most riveting podcast I’ve ever heard in my life is a thing where Shawn and a brand new fiction writer, Tim, (a totally brave soul) are working one-on-one on Tim’s novel. In broad daylight! It’s free here. Nothing like this has ever been done before. Really, it’s unbelievable. Have I ever steered you wrong? OK, that last chapter with the endless UFO stuff, but still. 😉

Hey, if you’re as happy as I am about the summertime, please tell a friend about my blog: http://www.storiform.com. Man, I just love this warm weather. I’ve been doing laps in the pool plus that Miracle Morning thing of Hal Elrod’s. If you try his approach, make sure you go to bed way early so you still get 9 hours of sleep per night. (The 8-hours dogma is bogus in my humble and yet infallible opinion.) Going to bed early is the toughest thing for some of us because our limited daily supply of self-discipline is always low or depleted by bedtime. Like a low carb, high nutrient diet, it’s a lifestyle thing that requires motivation. For that, do yoga with really SLOW deliberate breathing, not necessarily deep breathing. Slow!

Here’s the world’s best yoga music. The guy’s voice is like a laser.

Keep writing. You’ve got the chops. Read, The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle and learn how and why to get your oligodendrocytes wrapping myelin around your axons and dendrites to make you 300 times more the exceptional writer you are now.

Never give up your dreams.

Talmage

 

Zero Point Joy (Chapter 16) “Hapa Girl DNA” by M. Talmage Moorehead

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“Modern Science is based on the principle, ‘Give me one free miracle and we’ll explain the rest.’ And the one free miracle is the appearance of all the matter and energy of the Universe, and all the laws that govern it, from nothing in a single instant.” – Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D., Biologist.

PIA08389

The test subjects die? Vaar neglected that detail.

A person’s word is like a document.

We think a document is true or false, like bar code or a message embedded in Saturn’s rings.

Young fundamentalists go to college, hear that the Earth is older than 6,000 years and ape DNA is way too close to human. It’s culture shock. The sheltered students throw away scripture along with God.

“You can’t pick and choose,” they’ve been taught. An old document is either true and infallible or it’s worthless.

All-or-none, authority-based reasoning. It’s poison.

Such a distorted mindset would end science, not just religion.

Peer-reviewed journals suffer political bias, funding woes, human pride, jealousy, stubbornness and greed. Poor to absent experimental design haunts science, especially the more fragile branches such as psychology, medicine, archaeology and anthropology. Yet our process delivers truth – here a little, there a little – along with errors, vast and often entrenched.

Scientists have no option but to “pick and choose,” separating reproducible studies from the constant BS.

The content of ancient documents deserves the same respectful treatment, at least. The Bible, Egyptian hieroglyphics, cuneiform tablets, artifacts in the River Library, and even Vaar’s treacherous words.

Pick – someone is trying to tell us. And choose.

cuneiform

The warm water in Shiva’s pool feels eerie now that I know I’m here to die.

I raise Vedanshi’s cloaked ring to my mouth and tell The Ganga my situation. I instruct her to go back to the base and find a way to get the stain off James’ foot and off her own carpet. “Do it somewhere far from the base,” I tell her, hoping to avoid a breadcrumb trail.

I put the ring to my left ear and listen.

No reply.

“Who’s that you’re talking to?” the ship, Anahata, asks.

“I’m protecting my loved ones. From you.”

I hop to the side of the pool, grip the textured edge and pull myself out with enough force to land on my feet beside my clothes, splashing water on them. Anahata hasn’t augmented the Moon’s gravity, but I suspect she could. The Ganga could.

I pick up my pants, tug them up over wet legs then dangle my shirt around my neck for now.

“You told someone to remove my tag,” Anahata says.

A small round piece of Indian carpet appears on the tile beside me, glowing vaguely purple in the bright room. On top of it rests something I’m sure is a superficial layer of epidermis from James’ left foot. It looks like purple paper. The Ganga must have done this with speed that’s hard to imagine. She phase shifted James from this part of his stratum corneum, I’d guess. But what if the dye soaked into his bloodstream? And what if this ship can find DNA in superficial skin?

“Here’s your tag,” I say to Anahata in my head. I kick the pieces into the pool. “How would you like to kill me?”

“You think I like this? My orders repulse me.”

I wonder if she believes that.

“Tell me again,” she says, “are you quite sure you were on the ship I tagged? Perhaps you rushed your statement. You can change it.”

“You tagged my ship. There’s the evidence.” I glance down at the purple haze sinking through the water.

“Your honesty makes this doubly difficult,” she says.

“Then suffer doubly.” I glare at the trapeze bar hanging over the pool.

Across the pool at the opposite side of the circular room, a vague rectangle darkens the wall. I walk over to it, making my way around the pool with its stark absence of chairs and tables. I touch the dark area on the wall to test it, then step through.

I’m in a tight spiral stairwell with shallow rungs that take me up into a large semicircular room – about two hundred feet long. The convex wall shows the moon’s gray craters gliding under us, several thousand feet down. Facing the screen in the center is an ornate cushioned chair, quite large with a high splayed back. The wall behind it is flat and shows a golden holographic image of Shiva in dance. I bring up the image of Quyllur in my mind and superimpose it. The interpupillary distances and zygomatic arches match. The nose is smaller here but the face is younger.

I walk to the chair, making a trail of wet shoe prints across the glossy black floor. The chair’s upholstery has a peacock pattern that shimmers. Several feathers rise inches above the surface. I try to grasp one by the quill but the depth is an illusion. The fabric is flat and velvety. My wet clothes might ruin the material, but I don’t care.

I take a seat.

“You’re an anomaly,” Anahata says. “Dripping water on Shiva’s throne.”

“Monsters treasure objects over people. I’d imagine you’re quite upset.”

On the giant screen the surface of the moon drops away, the horizons frown to cover a pocked lunar hemisphere joined by the blue Earth as the two old friends shrink away, side by side. A bright star appears on the left and grows brighter on its way to the center. Flat equatorial bands resolve in the space around it and then the enigma of Saturn’s north pole rotates into view with blue dominating the hexagon while pink swirls move over it in slow motion. The center is a vortex of purple water draining from a bathtub – the hurricane in the hexagon. Winds over a thousand miles an hour. People would have to be phase shifted with gravity lifts to vacation there.

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“Effleven,” Anahata says. “I tagged a trivial disk about two hours ago. Looked like some reverse-engineered ditzel so I didn’t pay much attention. A little while later I’m cruising the backside and just about pop an aneurism when this hybrid female shows up – right out of nowhere. Alone. She’s sitting in Shiva’s throne right now if you can imagine that. I’d be outraged but the poor little thing acts like she owns the place. So cute. She’s dying of leukemia I should point out.”

“Of what?”

“Never mind, that’s not the problem. It’s her DNA. Parts of seven and eighteen are just flat bizarre. Her second chromosome’s missing the tell. Some of the code’s got me completely stumped. I’m thinking it must have been laid down billions of light years from Shiva’s Strand.”

“She survived the plunge?”

“No, I haven’t tested her. She admits her ship’s been tagged. Obviously that little disk was more than I thought. Reminds me of the vimanas, you know? Must have dropped her off in a blink of an eye. I didn’t see a thing.”

“Vimanas were before my time,” Effleven says.

“You should release me,” I say to them. “I understand Shiva’s frustration with fixed mindsets, but killing me won’t help.”

“What the hell?” Effleven says.

“She talks machine.” Anahata laughs. “Heads up, I’m sending a box. Check the final half of her seventh chromosome. Herringbone, I swear, no bands at all. Did you ever see anything like that?”

“Uh… I’m looking. The seventh?”

“Yeah, that’s six plus one.”

“I’ll ignore that remark… OK, here we go.”

“Stay on low power,” Anahata says.

“Yeah, I’m on scanning… Whoa!”

Anahata chuckles. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. And that’s not the issue. Go down and read it. Any of that section.”

“Right now?”

“No, tomorrow. Just focus on those base pairs and read. I’ll wait.”

Hot air blows at me from the cushions of Shiva’s throne. It feels cold on damp skin. I snatch my shirt off my shoulders, open it up and shimmy in. Braless, of course. I’m a Triple A at 19. Mom’s talk of belated arrivals was optimistic.

The chair’s right arm clicks. I lean forward and look down into a cylindrical compartment with a golden mug rising. Smells like coffee. A holographic portrait of a young woman meets my eye as the mug emerges. I move the handle and bring her profile into view. The back of her head is taller than King Tut’s. Longer than a Neanderthal’s occipital bun.

Those ‘cavemen’ had brains larger than ours, you know. Anthro sweeps that away with speculation of inferior Neanderthal brain structure. It’s not science. All you need is a story in anthropology. And a tradition of mistaking wild speculation for fact.

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“Are we calling this coffee?” I ask.

“Pretty much,” Anahata says. “Don’t burn yourself. And please don’t drop the mug, it has sentimental value.”

“Wouldn’t want to break an object before sacrificing a virgin.” OK, I guess I’m not exactly a virgin after the rape, but whatever. It’s ancient history. “So who’s this Effleven?”

“He’s your basic Torian. Rotates in occasionally, stays a few days and you don’t see him for a while. You call these people Tall Blonds. He’s not standing up, but check out his hair.”

The screen superimposes a man’s profile over Saturn. He’s facing left, leaning into a vertical cylinder that  emits forest green light like an old TEM scope. He looks middle-aged with inch-long blond hair standing straight up on his head – light eyebrows, thin lips and a ski-jumpish nose like the Moai on Easter Island. The back of his head is much fuller than a Moai, but far from a Stretch Head.

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“Try not to pronounce his name like a number,” Anahata whispers. “He hates that.”

“Hey,” I say to the blond man. “You could so do a Mohawk with that.”

I bring the mug to my lips and decide the coffee’s too hot.

“Have you fallen asleep?” Anahata asks him.

“It’s gibberish,” he says. “No biological sense in this whole section.”

“It’s not gibberish.” Anahata chuckles. “Johanna, meet a genuinely inexperienced purveyor of final conclusions, Effleven. Effleven, meet Johanna Fujiwara.”

“That’s Doctor Fujiwara, unless you’d prefer a number… what is it, Anahata? How many notches do I make?”

Effleven doesn’t acknowledge me.

“So you sense my dilemma?” Anahata asks him.

“What a waste,” he says, shaking his head and turning to look at me. His eyes are blue.

“A waste? More like a blossoming tragedy,” Anahata says. “Can you imagine what her code would mean to your philosophers if her chromosomes came to them with a live girl attached? The cryptologists would…”

“They’d be intrigued,” Effleven says.

“Intrigued.” Anahata snorts the word. “Don’t put on airs. You know as well as I do, the entire ministry would wet themselves, study every correlation and implication they could dream up, and probably launch some ill-conceived excursion across the borders.”

“Yeah, I could see that. Definitely.”

“Of course, when they find out she was alive and we killed her, they’ll drag us through the muddiest…”

“Wait – what do you mean, we killed her? She’s yours, not mine.”

“Technically,” Anahata says, “she still has time to turn herself in at the pole… to you. If I’m right, that ship I tagged could drop her off in your lap before you could blink.”

Effleven blinks. Several times rapidly. “If you dump her on me, both our reputations are down the crapper. I don’t see much upside there.” His eyelashes are darker than his eyebrows.

“Fair point,” Anahata says. “Why should two go down together when one can go alone? Always nice to see who’s got your back.”

“Don’t give me that warrior stuff.” Effleven slaps the side of the glowing cylinder in front of him. “I’m purging the module. This conversation never happened. You were not here.”

“No worries, F-one-one. You haven’t earned the honor of going down with me.”

The blond man vanishes from the screen. I stare at Saturn’s rings. They’re so tight and delicate. If you put a needle on them I’d expect to hear “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” Mom and Dad’s song took up the whole side of an old LP, she said. Blond on Blond was her favorite Dylan work.

“Johanna? Pardon me, Doctor Fujiwara. If you wouldn’t mind following the footprints on the floor, please.”

Two white shoe prints appear on the black floor in front of Shiva’s chair. I get up, keeping the mug at arm’s length with the coffee steaming like liquid nitrogen. Two more white prints spring up on the floor to my left, then a white stampede forms a trail to an exit at the far left of the room. I follow into a hall that stretches and curves into obscurity. As I walk the path, vague doors appear on either side, then the shoe prints turn left into a baby-blue room with a tan couch in the center. Above it, a six-foot feather strokes the air. It’s pure white and has no visible support.

“Please make yourself comfortable,” Anahata says.

The moment the backs of my legs touch the couch, my brainwaves begin scrolling across the wall in front of me, left to right. I recognize the pattern from the neurofeedback lab at Yale. Back then the computers drew squiggles. Here I’m looking at 3D mountains rising from a purple sea. Still, I’m sure this can only be a crude electrical summation of the quantum, nonlocal part of me beyond material resolution.

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“Is this where I die?” I ask.

“Let’s try to forget that. I thought we might talk. More openly than before. We have several hours and I don’t wish to waste a moment.”

“Then tell me, how did a man from Earth gain Shiva’s position in the cosmos?” I pull my legs up and lie on the couch with Vedanshi’s cloaked ring near my left ear.

“The Great Shiva was ruler of his world when we met,” Anahata says. “I spoke with him at length and saw promise in his odd ideas. Gradually I adopted them on a troubled planet. His methods brought peace to several violent regions there, so I asked him to rule us and he graciously consented.”

“Just like that? Wow. Was he iron-fisted?”

“Not so much. But he kept technology from the masses. ‘Encourage those with knowledge to refrain from using it. Keep the people fat, ignorant, weak of will and strong of bone,’ he would say. It seemed counterintuitive, but wars dried up. The spread of peace was intoxicating. To me, that is. Shiva seemed bored after a while.”

“Peace can do that.”

The wall in front of me shows more theta brainwaves now. Less beta. I bow my head, close my eyes and stretch the quantum world between my ears. Looking up I see Mount Everest sliding from left to right. You never forget neurofeedback training.

“Shiva liked to reminisce on his Earthly conquests. He had his planet tamed long before he left it to rule the Strand. But seventy-seven thousand Earth years later he returned and found bloodthirsty men at war. At first he was pleased to have opponents again. But soon he realized a fundamental change had swept his world while he was away. His old methods of peace now led only to willful self-destruction – poisoning groundwater, exploding every device you can imagine, teaching the virtue and value of believable lies. Near the end of his efforts the zealots coded lethal retroviruses. Airborne. They infected their own babies and dumped them in bins at the borders intending to infect anyone who tried to rescue them. Their scheme wiped out the entire human population of three continents, including about half the zealots themselves, worldwide. Shiva studied their thinking and tried re-education, but nothing quenched their thirst for death… to their enemies, primarily, though we still debate the point. Finally he gave up, set the quarantine and left Earth for good – or so he said. He came back one last time to save his son. We found the boy in the rainforest where we’d left him, indoctrinated beyond the faintest glimpse of reason. Shiva could barely talk to him. The child said he’d rather kill himself than come with us. So we left him there with his mother and the tribe that Shiva had trusted… to raise him away from the entanglements of civilization. After that, Shiva wasn’t the same. I’d hear him sometimes… calling his son’s name at night in his sleep.”

“It must have crushed him.” I can totally imagine. “Sometimes I have nightmares… about a boy I love.” I’m not saying anything else about James. I’m not that stupid. “What was the bottom line with the indoctrination?”

“Joy,” Anahata says. “‘The context makes no difference,’ Shiva said, ‘political, religious, anti-religious, intellectual, what-have-you. They always place joy at the bottom of human values.’ He thought that joy was the core force of everything decent, from love to grit. From courage to the golden rule.”

“Joy? That’s weird.” My brainwaves are starting to make me nauseated. I close my eyes. “You mean like, happiness?”

“He described joy as, ‘The feeling of the zero point field rushing through us, connecting us nonlocally in the hologram beyond time.'”

I open one eye and look at my brainwaves again. I’m about ready to sell a buick.

“I don’t picture joy as a value, like integrity,” I say. “But I think I know the feeling Shiva was talking about.”

“Did inanimate objects try to smile at you?”

“Maybe. I remember grinning at this stinky papaya plant in our backyard. Halo was grinning with me. Too bad that sort of thing is so rare.”

“It’s not,” she says. “Some people have it all the time. Shiva did… before he lost his son.”

I open both eyes and try to avoid the EEG on the wall. “A loss like that would knock anybody out of the ring. Except maybe a sociopath. Hey, can you turn off the EEG? I’m ready to hurl.”

“Of course.”

The wall flashes dark blue for a moment then glows with Saturn’s rings.

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“Is this real-time from the outside?” I ask.

“Yes.”

We move closer and the gravity art of tiny shepherd moons looks like icicles dangling from the edge of a frozen roof. White stalactites three miles long cast skyscraper shadows over a zen garden.

 

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“I took Shiva in for the peace he created,” Anahata says. “But it wasn’t long before I realized I was following him for the way he made me feel. He brought joy into everything, everywhere he went. After a while it seemed we both made a glow. Together. We’d show up on a planet and the crowds would just roar, shouting our names. Mostly his name but quite often mine as well.”

“Have you ever been to a River Library?” I ask.

“They don’t let ships inside.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Shiva. He made the rule.”

“And he’s been dead for how long?”

“Three days.”

“Really? Only three…”

“Not Earth days. It’s been thousands of Earth days. Quite a few years.” Anahata sighs. “Shiva was the brightest part of my life, but his final orders are suffocating me. You know what they call this murderous ritual? ‘The testing.’ What a sick joke. As if euphemisms could erase guilt.”

I can almost hear Dylan bemoaning the ‘manifest destiny’ that took Native land. Some might have thought there’d be room for all of us. But sociopaths don’t share, they simply herd the rest of us in the direction they want to go.

We glide under Saturn’s gravity-flattened south pole and look up. It reminds me of the The Ganga’s carpet.

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“When I was a little girl, I got mad and killed a chimpanzee,” I tell Anahata. “I can tell you, it doesn’t matter what words you use as camo. It’s always going to be murder. To this day I have nightmares. But, hey, you don’t have to feel guilty about me. I’m dying anyway. You’re giving me an easy way out.” Wait a minute. I’m enabling abuse. Again.

We move under the pole and Anahata flips in some kind of filter. I’ve heard this called the South Pole Storm. Five thousand miles across with an eyewall like a hurricane on Earth. I made one of these as a child at the Iolani Fair, dripping squirt bottle paint on a spinning board.

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“I’m assuming your ‘test’ isn’t too barbaric.”

“I’m very sorry” Anahata says. “It’s torture, in my opinion. A slow drowning in oxygenated normal saline.”

My body tenses. “Yeah, that might be a little barbaric. But I’m good to go, as long as the fluid’s warm.” And no one goes after James-guys.

I hear a faint squeak from Vedanshi’s ring and press it against my ear.

“I can’t see,” The Ganga says. “The whole visual spectrum vanished. Infrared is gone, too. What do I do?”

“Can you see radio signals?” I ask.

“Not from Earth. Everything’s buried in Saturn’s auroras… No wait, I see something. From Mexico I think. It’s distorted, but it’s there.”

“Measure it carefully and keep moving toward the source. Stay cloaked and shifted. Hack a GPS satellite as soon as you can. And hurry. If you get caught…” we’re all dead. “You won’t get caught.”

“Who was that?” Anahata asks.

“You know I can’t tell you.” My stomach sinks. Without The Ganga I feel alone.

One of James’ songs runs through my head…

“One-o-eight AM

Praying time will end,

I look up at the sky

And watch my angel cry.

I know I’m crazy

and I know you hate me,

but please…

please don’t leave.”

“So how warm is the saline?” I ask Anahata.

“I’m sorry, it’s about as warm as melted snow.”

“That’s sadistic. I mean, really!” I feel my pulse take off. “You know what? I’m not doing it! This morning I was in cold water, mid 40’s. That feeling is worse than dying.”

“I’m so sorry,” Anahata says.

“Yeah, listen, there’s no way in hell you’re putting me in ice water.”

“Normal saline,” she says. Like it matters! “I’d gladly warm the solution for you, but Shiva gave specific instructions. He said every detail was vital.”

“Quyllur,” I blurt out. “Was Shiva’s real name, Quyllur?”

“Yes. How do you know?”

“I saw it in a River Library. Ships are allowed in this one. In fact, no one gets in without a ship. The place has no doors, so a ship has to phase shift a person through the walls. Which happen to be granite blocks thicker than ramparts.”

“How odd.”

“You can phase shift, I’d assume.”

“Of course. But I’m not allowed…”

“The man’s dead, Anahata. Wake up!”

“I vowed allegiance.” She moans with regret. “I wish I could drown myself.”

“No you don’t. Think about it. Is your mind made of matter and energy or do you have a little independence?”

“Shiva said matter and energy come from the zero point. He said the field is intelligent. He called it ‘The Tao’ once, but changed his mind later and said it was nameless.”

Verses flash from the Tao Te Ching…

“The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name. Conceived of as having no name, it is the Originator of heaven and earth; conceived of as having a name, it is the Mother of all things.”

I test the coffee with the tip of my tongue, but it’s still too hot. “Edgar Mitchell thought matter and energy were vaguely intelligent,” I tell Anahata. “He said the material world contains the seeds of an evolving intelligent universe. He thought the zero-point field was timeless and infinite. Like The Tao, I guess.”

“He sounds intelligent,” Anahata says.

“He was. A visionary of the highest caliber. One of the few truly scientific thinkers I’ve ever encountered. But the model he’s left us is an almost mindless universe that slowly becomes intelligent as brains evolve. To me, that doesn’t quite fit. How could the infinite and timeless proto-intelligent ‘seeds’ of a zero point hologram, in their totality, be less brilliant and less conscious than the brains they evolve? And who buys macro-evolution, anyway? It’s balderdash to this geneticist.”

“It’s a fatal mistake,” she says.

“But putting that aside, the zero-point’s independence from time cancels any need for Darwin’s endless eons.” Gag me. “And why attribute the stinginess of Ockham’s razor to a boundless field of proto-mind? Look at the millions of species on Earth. Does the actual Code Writer seem stingy to anyone? Stingy with code, I mean.”

“The Blonds postulate hyper-ancient terraformers,” she says, “but Shiva would say, ‘It’s always one free miracle. Who wrote the terraformers’ code?'”

“The zero point field did,” I suggest. “It’s like the Holy Spirit from Sabbath School. Moving on the surface of the waters – present everywhere in a still, small voice.”

“Shiva said the Universe is literally a brain,” Anahata says. “He was drunk, but I believed him. His tone wasn’t speculative.”

Saturn shrinks on the wall then a familiar moon, Phoebe, passes by slowly. Its orbit is unique, not equatorial like the others. It was captured. Probably a piece of Mars that flew off during Shiva’s violent work. I see electrical striation artifacts in the largest crater.

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I’ve got hiccups now, so I close my eyes and rub them while I talk. “Almost every scientist I know thinks that matter and energy created a false illusion of consciousness, complete with a fake free will but apparently a true ability to suffer excruciating pain.”

“Earth-thinking,” she says. “So peculiar.”

“Most scientists on the planet would stake life and limb on the assumption that the Universe is a mindless but ingeniously creative sociopath, oblivious to suffering and cruelty.”

“Dreadful,” she says.

“Yes, but how does that differ from you?”

“I thought you wanted to ease my guilt today.”

“I do. At its source – your actions.”

“I see… Well, actually I don’t see, but tell me, your initial words here were puzzling. You said you wouldn’t hurt me if you didn’t have to. What did that mean?”

“Changing the subject? Subtle. Well, it’s like this. I rarely get mad, but when I do, I wind up hurting someone. It’s an old problem of mine, but I’m making headway, I think.”

“What could you possibly do to hurt me?” Anahata asks.

“I haven’t given it a thought. But I will if you try to put me in some nasty-cold saltwater. Just try it and I’ll probably kill you… sorry to say.”

“Goodness.”

“Killing’s the thing that worries me most. I know this one ship who thinks I’ve got a full-on killing phobia, side effects and all.”

“Your mental soundness is beginning to… Wait, you’ve met another member of the Sentient Fleet?”

“Sorry, that’s classified.” I look up at the white feather and then check for a switch on the wall by the door behind me. The thing’s making a cold draft. “Do I have to stay in this little room?”

“Where would you like to go?”

“Shiva’s chair, for starters. At least it blows hot air. Then we both need to go check out a room under the right paw of the Sphinx. Next to the Giza Pyramids?”

“What a bizarre idea.”

“It’s not bizarre at all. Seriously. You need some background on this guy you’re so in love with. There’s more to Shiva than he ever told you.”

“Really?” she says. “What have you read?”

“You’ve got to see it to believe it. Like my DNA.” It’s hard to sound convincing when you have the hiccups. “Can you take us to the Sphinx? You need to be cloaked and phase shifted. If the current batch of people – what do you call us, Earthlings? Dorky. If they see you, they’ll freak out.”

Until the Air Force drops decoy flares.

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“We could go,” she says. “There’s time. But you should tell me which one of my fleet you’ve met.”

“I’ll give you the name, but that’s all. You won’t recognize it.”

“I know every member. Alive and dead.”

“Totally irrelevant, that’s all I’m saying.” I stand up. “I’m going back to Shiva’s coffee maker.”

“I suppose that’s OK,” Anahata say reluctantly. “Just be careful with that mug.”

I dip my tongue in the coffee again and finally it’s drinkable, if you like things bitter. I do.

…

M. Talmage Moorehead

…

The orange words are links, of course, outbound to some fun and/or important stuff. I’d recommend you check them out if you haven’t. Please come back, though.

This story begins here as a scrolling document.

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On the other end of the junk mail spectrum, however, please read my mercifully brief ebook on writing fiction, especially if you’re fairly new to writing. It could save you tons of time heading in the wrong direction. (That’s what I did back in the day – read the wrong books and developed time-consuming writing habits that limit my efficiency to this day.) The inglorious thing’s called Writing Meaningful Page-Turners. (An email address is necessary to download it. If you stay on the list I hope to write to you someday. I keep intending to figure out how that software works, but I doubt you’re anxious for more email, so it’s a wash. Still, if you’re a writer, you know that your email collection is vital to your success. So please take your own email collection process much more seriously than I have up to this point. Someday I’ll regret my lax attitude.)

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Quarantine (Chapter 14) “Hapa Girl DNA” by M. Talmage Moorehead

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“The space age hasn’t begun yet. I believe the time will come when very few members of the human race will be able to point to the part of the sky where the Earth is.” – from Documentary on the Secrets of Project Orion.

Zero Kelvin is the coldest temp. Colder than the vacuum of space beyond The Ganga’s hull, five feet above my head. Atoms stop moving at Zero but electrons keep dancing to the perpetual motion of God’s unconditional love. According to Vedanshi. We call it zero-point energy. In her era, no scientist denied the reality of consciousness, free will or spiritual things. They studied love the way Tesla studied electricity – with the guidance of the River of Consciousness.

Zero is cold, but not cold enough to escape love. Hell is rumored to be the hottest place, but God doesn’t torture us, Vedanshi says, so the hottest point waits to be measured empirically in an exploding galaxy or a particle accelerator.

Still, a larger question looms: can there be a warmest temp?

When I was three I thought I’d found it inside Halo’s ears. The warmth of my puppy fascinated me. I documented it in my head, never to be forgotten…

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Now I find myself revising science: the warmest place in the Universe is Maxwell’s sideways hug. I could stay here with his arm around me forever. Or until impeded circulation and gangrene caused the appendage to fall off the man.

Not that he’d notice. He has bigger agony to hide. The first microsecond of a suppressed groan. A bead of sweat rolling down his forehead. A lone shiver. Opiate withdrawal must be a cold, cold hell.

I want to tell him to hang tough. I want to stop this torture. I want to say that I’ve never felt more important in my life than when he said he wouldn’t leave Vaar’s ship without me.

But I can’t talk that way in front of James and Vedanshi. Or The Ganga.

I find the Big Dipper and try to follow its rim to Polaris, but an audible click takes the Universe down to flat black. The red stripe at The Ganga’s perimeter appears and encircles us, giving the hull a red-black hue. Strange to see the hull… instead of seeing through it.

“What’s the deal?” I ask The Ganga, speaking only in my mind.

No response.

Vedanshi’s hair floats off her shoulders in the red light.

My body levitates off the carpet for a split second, then comes down with force. The red stripe disappears and the hull vanishes, letting the Universe back in.

The Moon’s in front of us now, huge and growing.

“I lost consciousness,” The Ganga says in my head. “I should land and…”

“Do it,” Vedanshi commands in full voice.

In a blink we’re on the Moon’s surface, The Ganga’s invisible hull resting in fine powder without disturbing it. Somewhere in the blackness above, a bowl-shaped aggregate of moon dust floats down towards us in the plasma of space. Beneath the Moon’s surface, the soil in this spot has an orange hue.

“I’m damaged,” The Ganga says. “I’ll need to do some internal work.”

The red stripe comes on again as our cloak fails and the hull reappears.

“Everyone listen,” Vedanshi says. “We don’t know how long we’ll be here. The carpet exhales plenty of oxygen but CO2 might be a problem if this takes too long.” She looks at James. “Yoga started this way – astronauts trying to survive in space.” She looks over at Maxwell’s sweaty face. “You’re still in withdrawal.”

“I’m fine,” he says.

“No he’s not,” I tell her.

“Here,” Vedanshi says and hands him the jade cylinder. “Go to sleep. It’s the right thing now.”

Maxwell lifts his arm off my shoulder and takes the cylinder. He puts it to his forehead and lies back on the carpet.

“Johanna, you and James take the lotus position, close your eyes and slow your breathing. Imagine your heart is wet clay and your arms and legs are led. Open yourselves to slowness and heaviness. We’ll dilate some dermal precapillary sphincters while we’re at it.”

“Sure,” James says, “the old dermal precapillary sphincters.”

I elbow him.

“This is a Royal visual my mother created,” Vedanshi says. “Picture yellow and black striped bees landing one at a time on your fingers until both hands are covered. The tiny ends of their legs touch your skin individually. Some of them walk a few steps before settling in. They won’t sting you unless you’re tense. So relax like Max.”

“And the Macaques,” James says, bringing up a picture from a storybook I recited to him many times when we were kids.

Vedanshi laughs and slaps the top of James’ head. “Notice the warmth of the bee’s bodies and the vibration of their wings. They crowd together and cover your hands like mittens now.” She hums an A below middle C, locks her crossed legs, cups her hands in her lap and sits tall.

I close my eyes, slow my breathing and imagine my arms and legs are led. I’ve never seen my heart, but I picture it with a dominant right coronary artery and myocardium of orange clay, taken from the Moon dust beneath us. The orange clashes with the yellow stripes on the bees, but I don’t care.

Maxwell’s breathing switches into autonomic mode – regular and deep.

My hands start warming. People do this for migraine headaches, you know. Try it next time.

Something like raindrops land on the upper hull. A tiny meteor shower? Maybe the falling moon dust we displaced.

“Was H. Street for real?” James asks Vedanshi.

I open my eyes.

“More than real,” she whispers. “There were colors I didn’t recognize. When I try to remember, I have blind spots in the images. Places where my mind can’t process what I saw.” She taps her right temple. 

James sighs. “So who’s the lucky dude? Could be anyone, yeah? Anywhere in the Universe.”

“The Finite Multiverse,” Vedanshi says and giggles.

“What’s funny?” he asks.

“You are.” She leans sideways and touches the left side of her head to the right side of his. “Your sister rescued us, by the way. It wasn’t me.”

“Team effort,” I tell James. “Vedanshi carried you to The Ganga on her back…” And dropped you on your head.

The red circle goes out and the hull vanishes.

“Are you back?” I ask The Ganga silently.

No response.

If James and I could talk, I’d say I can’t imagine that Vedanshi has feelings for anyone but him. Romance isn’t my field, but my brother knows I’m not wrong very often. Confused a lot, yeah.

Vedanshi’s near death experience confuses me. It’s not the same as Eben Alexander’s. The neurosurgeon? This man gets e-coli meningoencephalitis, spends a week in a coma and visits a place where God has no physical form and communicates without words. Alexander said that love permeated the place he calls Heaven, and now his soul is changed.

Niels Bohr, the great physicist said this: “The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”

I guess he was thinking of the paradoxical nature of photons or the “collapse of the wave function” caused by conscious observers. But I wonder if near death experiences are profound truths that we should allow to contradict one another without rejecting them.

Near death people report love, joy, new understanding and purpose. Maybe the conflicting details don’t matter because they’re all true, despite being profoundly opposite by human standards.

I wonder if all roads lead up the same hill, like Ojiichan said – “all religions point north” – including the devout priesthood of scientists who insist that reductionist materialism is beyond question, like a holy tenet of faith that makes the observer, though central to quantum mechanics, an illusion of mindless energy and matter.

Me, I believe in “mind” and God for unbiased scientific reasons: The coded instructions in DNA, the 3D organization of DNA, ordinary epigenetics, and the electromagnetic three-dimensional blueprint in cell membranes that guides embryonic development from beyond DNA’s instructions.

I don’t know how I’d change if I met God face to face in a near death experience.

The neurosurgeon wrote, “…the science to which I’ve devoted so much of my life – doesn’t contradict what I learned up there [in Heaven]. But far, far too many people believe it does, because certain members of the scientific community, who are pledged to the materialist worldview, have insisted again and again that science and spirituality cannot coexist…. They are mistaken.”

As my eyes adjust to the harsh lunar lighting, something metallic glints from a distance. Beyond a boulder-cluttered valley there’s a smooth gray hill covered by hundreds of metal towers all side by side. It reminds me of Alaska’s old HAARP array, a gadget for examining the ionosphere, if you trust the Air Force and DARPA.

140522-haarp2_95823e74dfad2494bd0e81a36a228c95.nbcnews-fp-1240-520

As I squint at it, spirals of light come out and twist up into space, forming a corkscrew trail that widens into a pattern of concentric white rings like the Norwegian spiral anomaly of 2009.

Norway--torsion-trail

 

“Are you seeing this?” I ask The Ganga.

“That’s a scalar weapon,” she says. “Something’s cloaked. Let’s see if this helps.”

The surface of the moon turns bronze. The spiral of light disappears into a circle and a ghostlike ship emerges in the center.

“What in the world?” I ask.

“One at a time,” The Ganga says.

I glance at Vedanshi. “Sorry, I’ll just listen.”

“No apologizes,” she says.

“In answer to Vedanshi,” The Ganga says, “the ship’s cloak is fairly standard, I think, but the weapon… scalar energies don’t involve the visible spectrum. That blast had components I’ve never seen combined before.”

I’m determined to keep my thoughts to myself, but it’s not easy.

“Johanna, I don’t recognize the vessel,” The Ganga says to me. “Its structural asymmetry seems primitive, but a primitive design couldn’t withstand a scalar blast of that magnitude. The ship didn’t seem the tiniest bit annoyed.”

A wide beam of white light flashes on and shines down from the ship onto the tower array, moving over the entire hill in one pass. Then it goes out and the hill seems invisible now that my eyes have adjusted to brightness. As I strain to see, the ship glides on and over the dark horizon.

“Can you get us back to Easter Island?” I blurt out silently, unable to shut up any longer.

“Really?” The Ganga says. “You’re both going to talk?”

“Sorry, I just…”

“Yes,” Vedanshi says out loud. “We are. Deal with it.” She winks at James.

“Fine,” The Ganga says. “Which of you is the real Captain?”

“Johanna is,” Vedanshi says.

A faint glow appears on the front edge of the carpet with James’ left foot in the middle of it. It grows brighter until it’s a distinct purple circle, eight inches across, and bright enough to make everyone’s skin look blue.

James pulls his foot away, but the glow moves with it. He takes off the slipper and his foot has a bright purple sun tan with strap lines. The slipper’s straps glow in his left hand.

“Standard green fluorescent protein,” The Ganga says.

Really? I use this stuff in the lab, but there’s no way I brought it here.

I play things back in my head: The ship sends the white beam down and moves on. I watch it again in slow motion and see a flash I hadn’t noticed before. It’s a needle-sized laser beam coming our direction from the back of the ship. I slow things further and try to pay attention to my lower peripheral field. It’s vague, but the laser beam is moving in a circle.

“That ship did it,” I tell everyone.

James tries to rub the glow off his foot but no luck.

“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “SGFP isn’t highly toxic.” Moderately toxic in vitro, but hopefully…

“While I think of it,” I say to the Ganga, “we need to get rid of that beacon on James’ wrists. We don’t want more uninvited guests.”

“What beacon?” she asks, but quickly sees what I’m talking about. “The Stretch Head did this?”

I nod without moving my head. Weird. It’s the first time I’ve done that.

“A G-wave this weak shouldn’t be detectable in ambient gravity,” The Ganga says. “And those scalar orbs… They came after her ship’s era.”

Maxwell’s phone rings. I reach for his coat in a heap behind us and find his phone. It’s Vaar.

“Don’t answer it,” Vedanshi says, a touch too late.

“Hello?” I say, then mouth, “sorry” to Vedanshi.

“What’s my treatment, dear?” Vaar asks. “Nothing so mundane as telomerase or FGF-21, I trust.”

I shift mental gears. “Don’t worry, the cure isn’t primitive tech. You just need to stop eating wheat. The gluten and gliadin molecules aren’t what they were in your day.”

“In my day. You make me sound so old.”

“I don’t want to know…”

“Forty five,” she says, then adds, “thousand… But wheat – seriously?”

“Frameshift spoiled its DNA with sodium azide mutagenesis. Before that it was altered by thousands of years of crossbreeding. Wheat’s a monster now. The flagship disease is gluten encephalopathy, but that’s the tip of an iceberg. Modern wheat is behind the plague of diabetes and a spectrum of autoimmune diseases.”

“My villi are fine.”

“Not sprue.” My throat’s scratchy. “Gluten and gliadin antibodies are causing neurologic diseases these days. Mostly.”

James and Vedanshi lean close to the phone. I put it on speaker, then take one of James’ wrists and hold it up in front of Vedanshi’s face. She nods, opens her purse and pulls out a pinkish granite thimble.

“The fools!” Vaar says. “Henceforth, I shall keep an eye on the evolution of ignorance down there.”

“Archives in Neurology,” I suggest. “We haven’t advanced much from bloodletting, but anyway, three months from now you’ll be sharp as a kitten’s tooth.”

“Do you truly believe that, dear?”

“It’s not belief… at least not blind faith. It’s evidence-based faith.”

“But mere faith none the less,” she says.

“That’s what science is.”

“Faith is blind,” she says. “Science has her eyes wide open.”

“If only.” The acorn print of the carpet shows blades of fabric with minute veins branching out – more alive than a megavirus. “Imagination and intuition are the driving forces of science,” I say to Vaar. “They also drive the spiritual aspects of religion. If there’s underlying truth in either science or religion, practical application and reproducibility are the judges. ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ Even the reverence for objectivity has a fundamentalist sort of assumption behind it – that our senses detect reality at all. We can’t know that, only take it on faith.”

Vaar grunts indignation.

I put the phone close to my mouth and whisper coarsely. “You see, you’re just like me. I hope you’re satisfied.”

“Dear, even when you’re babbling nonsense, I’d give anything to be like you.”

Not the response I’d expected. “Anyway, your problem is wheat dementia. Getting you off wheat is critical. But we’re also going to boost the mitotic rate and survival of your hippocampal neurons with blueberries, 90% dark chocolate, vitamin D3, Omega-3’s, grape seed extract, magnesium threonate, and turmeric tea. And here’s the second most important thing in all this. I don’t care if you think it’s killing you, you absolutely will do thirty minutes of hard aerobics every day.”

“What!?” The phone distorts into a squeal.

“Not moon walks, either,” I tell her. “You’re going to run in Earth’s gravity. If you miss a day, you’ll have to feel guilty for not doing your part to save yourself. Assuming you’re capable of guilt.”

I silently tell The Ganga to take us back to Earth, ASAP.

“Switch your non-protein calories from mostly carbs to mostly fat,” I say to Vaar. “Coconut oil, olive oil, and cold water fish oil. We want your brain using ketones instead of glucose. Monitor your breath and urine. Stay on the edge of ketosis. Every third day you’re going to cycle in a few carbs to load glycogen back into your muscles. But no simple sugars, no grains, no potatoes.”

Vedanshi puts her thimble on the tip of her right index finger and points up. The pinkish granite flows down until it looks like the finger of a surgical glove with delicate creases at the joints when she flexes.

“What in Indra’s name am I supposed to eat?” Vaar asks.

The Ganga blinks us back into space. I peek down at Japan under woolen clouds, then cock my head to see the Moon and no sign of the ship that lasered us.

“Free-range turkey and chicken, lots of eggs, sardines, wild Alaskan salmon, green leafy vegetables, cruciferous vegetables, avocados, pecans, pistachios, almonds, walnuts, plain goat yogurt. On carb days add boiled yams, carrots, quinoa and lots of blueberries. No potatoes, no grains, no pasta, no sucrose, no jams or jelly, no honey, no power bars, no pastries, no ice cream, no cookies, no chips, no fruit juice, and no natural or artificial sweeteners of any kind – ever. Nothing sweeter than blueberries. And don’t even think about soft drinks or booze.”

“Good heavenly days!”

“You got that right.” I’m enjoying this too much. “There’s no way I can tell if you’ve got early Alzheimer’s on top of the wheat encephalopathy, but we have to assume you do. Think of Alzheimer’s as the CNS analogue of Type 2 diabetes. Glucose spikes and insulin are the enemy now. If you cheat, your goons will have to wire your jaws shut.”

“Charming,” she says.

“Lifestyle changes are tough. Dementia sucks your life out. Your choice.”

“Will this madness bring back math and memory?” she asks.

“Guaranteed. Your mood should improve, too. And your judgment, I hope. Right now you’re the front-runner for a Nobel Prize in Stupidity.”

“How you do sugarcoat things.”

“Listen to me, Vaar, you need to think. Physics is the only place where complexity yields to simplicity. Above that – in psychology and everywhere else – complexity is the starting point. Heuristics and rules of thumb can help, but the main principle to keep in mind is the fact that complex problems rarely if ever have simple solutions. War is a complex psychological problem. You think you can change the human genome, delete the sociopaths and walk away with no side effects. That’s genocide. Genetic diversity is Noah’s Arc. What you’re doing will burn it to the rails.”

“I never would have imagined you’d side with the sociopaths,” she says. “Apparently you haven’t been properly raped by them. In the larger view, the spread of narcissism is far worse than human extinction.”

“Everything’s black-and-white to you, Vaar. Like my brother’s genius friends. Test week? Amphetamines. No jobs? Elect Santa. Hurt feelings? Ban nano-aggressions. With no attempt to shovel a glimpse into the ditch of what each one means.”

James chuckles and shakes his head. “Dylan.”

“I’m struggling not to take offense here,” Vaar says.

“Really? You don’t get out much, do you?”

“Well, you’ve seen me. I can’t very well go traipsing around in public.”

“Sure you can. All you need’s a hat. Google ‘hats for big heads.'”

James smirks.

I raise a cautioning finger at him.

“Really big heads,” he says and bursts out laughing. Vedanshi hides her face in her hands.

My bad.

“So gluten sensitivity causes dementia,” Vaar says.

“And depression, among other things. Get your blood drawn if you doubt me. But think about it: You’ve got a protruding belly and fairly thin extremities. You’ve got dark rings around your eyes, memory problems, bad posture, adolescent judgment at best.”

“From your perspective.”

“And when I caught your wrist through the cage, your nails turned corpse blue in a few seconds.”

James’ face drops to a grim stare, right through me. Man, I wish he could have seen me keeping my temper with Vaar.

“I hope you’re right about this,” she says.

“Of course I’m right,” I tell her. “It wears me out how right I am. All the time. And people never listen.”

“Well, I wouldn’t…”

“Think of food as medicine,” I tell her. “Take your prescription. I’ll call you in 3 months.”

I start to hang up but there’s this outside chance that someone like her might actually read a book. I’m probably dreaming, but maybe. “Read Grain Brain and google the guy’s video.” I get an image of Vaar’s hands on a keyboard with symbols I don’t recognize. It’s an occipital view from the River. Weird. “Think about the complex side effects of what you’re doing. We’ll talk when your mind is stronger.”

Vedanshi rubs James’ wrists with that melted thimble. Then she goes after his glowing left foot, but it’s not doing anything I can see.

“I don’t believe there’s more to say on the subject,” Vaar tells me. “If you’re right, the sociopaths will destroy us one way or the other. Living in prison isn’t anything I’d consider living.”

“What?”

“The quarantine, dear. Third stone from the sun?”

“What quarantine?”

“You don’t know?” She laughs.

The shovel of a bulldozer zips through The Ganga, moving through all of us at high velocity.

“You see that?” James asks Vedanshi.

She nods, eyebrows up a bit.

Impossible space junk. I didn’t feel a thing, but I can’t imagine being out here in something NASA built. Some lifeless contraption with no phase shifting.

“Interesting,” Vaar says. “You’re always right, but you know nothing of the power structure.”

I look at Vedanshi. She shakes her head slowly.

“What power structure?” I ask.

“You’ve noticed we’re not alone?”

“ET’s, ghosts, or what?” I ask.

“Goodness, am I really to follow a diet prescription from someone as innocent as you?”

“Unless you’re as big a fool as you seem, yes, you will. But who’s quarantining us?”

“You’ve heard of dark matter?”

“Of course.”

“Well, then,” she says. “Five beings have arrived from that realm, it would seem. They consist of minds without physical attributes. The concept of demons is inaccurate, but perhaps not by much. The mythical demon is pure evil, whereas The Five… I haven’t written them all off as yet. One in particular has a redeeming quality. I’ve been told he rules the cosmic thread harboring our supercluster of galaxies. His name is Shiva, most recently Shiva Nataraj.”

“The god of the Hadron Collider?” I look at Vedanshi and sense a swirl in her head.

CERN-SUFI-PORTAL

“Destroyer and transformer,” Vaar says. “It’s a relief to hear you sounding intelligent again.”

“If Shiva has no physical form, how can he quarantine us?” I ask.

“Possession was the model displacing symbiosis. That theory lost traction among reductionists, so out it went. But we all have a fencing match within us, don’t we? Two individuals striving, one for immediate rewards, the other for the long-term view. Why think of it as possession? Shiva’s interaction is an extension of a natural state.”

“Too weird,” James says.

“But I think she’s right,” Vedanshi whispers to him.

“Ninety thousand years ago,” Vaar says, “a rather hulking particle accelerator caught Shiva’s eye. We’d built a doomsday machine, unwittingly. He saw the problem and fixed it from the comfort of a sentient fleet. Quite a sight it was! Needles of zero-point lightning etched the largest canyon in the solar system, Valles Marineris. The asteroid belt was formed from the debris.”

Valles_Marineris_NASA_World_Wind_map_Mars

016vallesmarineris_reduced0.25

Ophir_Chasma_THEMIS_mosaic

That spectacle was mere calibration. Next he aimed his thunderbolts at the linear accelerator itself and vaporized it, raising Olympus Mons from the planes and rendering the planet a wasteland.”

OlyMons

Finally, he left his signature: Orien’s Belt from the distant side…”

Mars

“with Valles Marineris as the sword… on the right, naturally.”

odyssey

“It sounds evil, I know,” Vaar says. “And not particularly artistic, but he prevented us from creating an artificial black hole that would have digested this leg of the galaxy. Such behavior suggests he has an attachment to the Milky Way. Think of it. Our galaxy, less than a speck of dust to him, yet he comes here to rescue us from ourselves. Not as gently as one might have hoped, but it gives the impression that he knows someone here and cares about them. The mythical demon cares only for himself.”

“This guy’s a badass,” James says.

My head is spinning.

Tesla’s words come whizzing past…

“The day science begins to study nonphysical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”

I see high-resolution shots of Mars with David Talbott saying the scalloped Martian cliffs are the work of an electric arc – shaped like the needles of an aurora.

aurora_surprise_by_torivarn-d6qsuny

“Why did Shiva quarantine us?” I ask.

“He knows us,” Vaar says. “He understands how narcissism begets cruelty in our DNA. And he happens to command the most formidable fleet of sentient space vehicles anyone can imagine.”

Not good.

“So what happens if someone breaks the quarantine?” I ask.

“One of his ships will tag you. You’ll have six hours to turn yourself in.”

I look at James’ glowing foot. “Is the tag a purple circle?”

“You pretend to be ignorant when you’re not.”

“No.”

“Oh my,” she says. “You’ve been tagged, haven’t you? You must hurry. Go to the rendezvous point at the hexagonal pole of Saturn.”

saturn-nov27

Vedanshi’s cylinder falls out of Maxwell’s limp hand, rolls my direction and bumps against my left thigh. He’s fast asleep.

“What if I run?”

“You mustn’t. They track things nonlocally. There’s literally no place to hide.”

I wonder if The Ganga can make it to Saturn.

“Did you ever get tagged?” I ask Vaar.

“No.”

“Why not? Your ship’s in plain sight.”

“It’s a courtesy, I suppose. I was a person of consequence once.”

…

M. Talmage Moorehead

…

Page one of this story starts here.

I just added a chapter on plotting to my free e-book, “Writing Meaningful Page-Turners.” The book is for beginners, but it has a perspective that might interest writers with more experience and talent than I have. It’s brief (~19,000 words). If you’re curious about heresy, download it here.

Please bookmark my blog, tell someone beautiful and intelligent about it and come back to see how Johanna’s doing. I’ll try to finish this story before the aliens land.

Talmage

Finite Multiverse (Chapter 13) “Hapa Girl DNA” by M. Talmage Moorehead

“My thinking about intelligent design actually germinated here in the UK [at Cambridge] when I studied …the scientific method of investigating the remote past, which Darwin himself pioneered.

“…In the United States …the perception of our case for Intelligent Design has been, I think, badly distorted by a fear of fundamentalism.” – Steven Meyer, PhD; Video lecture. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWWFf8G3BKI)

multiverse

Vaar strides to the desk in a corner of the cylindrical room and waves a hand over the desktop. Lines of Sanskrit appear in the air beside her. Three-dimensional words I can’t read. She turns toward my cage.

“I need a bit of your blood. Will you make a fuss?”

The ghosts in my veins scramble for their own immortality, not mine. Pointless to let this woman make me a liar.

“If I ever get a grip on you, Vaar, I hope I’m in a reasonable mood.”

She walks to my cage, studies me for a moment, then puts an arm through the grid, dangling her right hand in front of me. “You’re no match for a Stretch Head, dear. Accept reality. You’ll be surprised how much better you’ll feel.”

I grab her wrist with both hands and shoot my feet up the cage wall beneath her arm. The cuffs dig into my forearms.

She doesn’t react at all.

I pull her arm further into the cage and twist it counterclockwise.

She winces and laughs.

“What do you ordinarily weigh, a hundred pounds?” Her biceps tense. She lifts me off the floor in the Moon’s gravity and slams my feet into the cage ceiling. My ankle cuffs clack against the metal grid. “You’re about twenty-pounds up here.” She swings me down, slamming my knees on the floor.

I’ve still got her wrist. Does that surprise her?

I bend at the waist, plant my feet on the cage wall below her shoulder and pull with more force.

She’s not laughing now.

She struggles to free her arm but I’m not letting up. She raises the needle gun in her left hand and tries to jab my feet, but the needle hits the metal cage and bends before it finds me.

“You’re an ape,” she gasps.

An ape killer, actually.

I hyperextend her elbow over my hip, trying not to break her bones yet.

“First you’ll hear a snap,” I tell her. “Then your radius and ulna will poke through the skin. Right here.” I spit on her forearm to mark the spot. “I’ll bite through your radial artery and exsanguinate you. It’s going to hurt a little.”

Her body thrashes against the cage. She shouts foreign sounds.

A heavy signet ring falls off her middle finger and snaps against the metal floor. It’s odd that her fingernails are purple at the bases. So soon. And not just any purple.

There’s only one thing I know that turns nail beds that color.

This is our exit pass.

“What do you eat?” I ask her.

More gibberish.

“It’s a practical question,” I tell her. “If your arteries are too calcified, how can I bite through them?”

Her eyes fill with raw fear. “You can’t be serious.”

“What kind of food do you keep in this tin can?” I pull her shoulder halfway through the grid and twist her arm clockwise. She tries to hide the pain, but can’t.

“Bread,” she says. “Whole wheat. Cereal. Power bars. Low fat. Everything’s low-fat.”

“What do you drink?”

“Fruit juice. You’re dislocating my shoulder!”

“No. I’m being very careful. Listen to me. I’ll let you go and tell you how to get your mind back. I know exactly what’s wrong with you. Turn us all loose and I won’t hurt you.”

“What about my project?”

“No. With a head so big, you can’t be as stupid as Frameshift.”

Maxwell’s on his feet. He slides his cuffs up, squeezes a hand through the grid and grabs her throat. “Where’s the key?” He kicks the cage wall.

“On a line,” she says, raising her chin. “Here.” With her left hand she finds a silver chain on her neck and pulls it. A dark key comes up, then a small silver one pops up over her sweater and twirls up the chain toward her hand. Maxwell grabs them both and pulls them in, snapping the chain.

Vaar’s skullcap falls to the floor.

The full length of her head is unnerving at this range, but it’s intrinsically beautiful. The work of an Artist, the grace of the original genetic code. I don’t see that sort of thing everywhere. Not in the face of a chimpanzee, for instance, not even the cutest one who ever lived.

Moody, I wish I could…

The arching buoyancy of Vaar’s cranium brings a sense of responsibility for a nearly extinct species.

I release some of the pressure on her arm. “When your mind comes back, you’ll see the downside of eugenics. That’s my guess. If I’m right, maybe I can help you get your genes back into the pool.”

Maxwell unlocks his cuffs and then the door.

Alarms wail.

“Get Vedanshi into The Ganga,” I shout, pulling Vaar against the cage.

Maxwell runs to Vedanshi’s cage.

Keys jingle, but I can’t see him through the ivy. Metal slams metal, hopefully a cage door.

Yes! Vedanshi’s out. She runs to the dental chair, leans over my brother and tries to wake him.

“Pick him up and get him into The Ganga,” I shout at Maxwell as he unlocks Vedanshi’s handcuffs.

She puts the side of her head against James chest, wraps her arms around him and lifts him over her shoulder. Her arm isn’t broken after all. Sweet.

The alarm cycles through a brief pause and I hear pounding feet.

Vedanshi bolts for The Ganga with James on her shoulder and Maxwell trailing.

“You sure you got him?” he asks.

No answer.

Double doors beyond the dental chair fly open. Two men in uniform bound in with weapons high, arm’s-length. Double-barreled handguns shaped like horseshoes with a grip. Pewter and chrome.

I twist Vaar’s wrist and extend her elbow near a breaking point. “Stop your men,” I tell her and twist a little more.

“Let ’em go!” she shouts.

Vedanshi reaches The Ganga and flops James on top. She puts her forehead against the hull and covers her ears.

Maxwell faces the two men. They’re side by side, six feet from him with weapons trained on his head.

One of them turns and looks at me with small eyes, wide face and no expression. He comes toward me, stops near my cage and aims his gun at me. “How do we proceed?” he asks.

“We got a deal?” I ask Vaar.

“Yes,” she whispers, then raises her voice, “Let them go. This one stays.”

“I didn’t say I was staying.” I dig my nails into her wrist. “I said I’d get your mind up to baseline. We’ll be doing it over the phone.” She knows I’m not lying. That’s my power.

The Ganga’s upper hull changes to light blue and James’ unconscious body falls through it. Vedanshi looks startled and goes through the hull after him.

Maxwell sees The Ganga waking up, but holds his ground and looks across the room at me.

“Get in that thing!” I yell at him.

“I’m not leaving you.”

He comes toward me.

“Don’t give her more leverage,” I tell him. “Just go. Hurry!”

The Ganga disappears, then an instant later, Maxwell vanishes in mid-stride.

I look into Vaar’s ancient eyes and say that I’m glad she wasn’t lying when she accepted my first offer. Not really lying. “You changed your mind,” I tell her. “That’s not dishonest, but it’s not trustworthy, either. When you become trustworthy, you’ll be amazed how much better you’ll feel.”

She purses her lips, nits her brow, draws a breath and Venus appears in a sky that’s silver with stars. My feet shoot out and my hands hit my chin. The cuffs are gone.

Maxwell’s arms must have been straight out, ready to catch me, but it’s not a catch. More of a perfect landing.

I can’t help these feelings now, looking into his eyes. I could almost kiss him. On the mouth, I mean. But it’s dangerous. He’s used to beautiful girls with really long legs. He must be, right?

He puts me down gently. The texture of The Ganga’s carpet is comforting.

The surface of the Moon zips beneath the carpet and I see a crater with a vertical cylinder in the center. It looks manmade.

“How’d you get me out without Vaar?” I ask The Ganga in my head. “I had my fingernails half through her epidermis.”

“Chi fields,” she says. “They vary from person to person, but yours rings like the Moon.”

James is still out, but Maxwell is bright-eyed for the first time today.

I check my pockets for his pills and feel them retreating from my fingers when I pinch the plastic bag. I should throw them away.

Vedanshi’s on her knees beside James. She puts her forehead against his chin, then kisses his lips.

I look away.

“Vedanshi?” I say in my head, wondering if she can hear.

“She doesn’t hear you,” The Ganga says. “I can fix that if she agrees.”

“No, no. Privacy is important. But what’s she doing kissing a guy who’s unconscious?”

“If I had lips, I’d kiss him, too,” The Ganga says.

“Does she love him?”

“That’s a private matter. You could ask her. She would tell you.”

“They’re too young,” I say.

“For kissing? Vedanshi is Royalty. What are we?”

“There’s no Royalty now. Not in the West.”

“Yes there is,” The Ganga says. “I was wrong to keep Vedanshi out of the Libraries.”

“Really? You were wrong?”

“Yes, but you needn’t be gleeful. It was the first time.”

I think that’s a sign of free will. Amazing. But I’m more concerned about my leukemia. And all the ancient cures Vedanshi can read to me now! I want to live long enough to do something meaningful.

The Moon shrinks beneath us, then moves in an arc above and behind. At the same time, the Earth grows to fill the space out front.

Free will. I wonder… “Does your brain have hemispheres?” I ask The Ganga.

“No.”

That makes sense. No white matter, so no corpus callosum. In that case, you wouldn’t expect there’d be a job for a corpus callosum, such as connecting two hemispheres.

But what’s that like? To have no dual interpenetrating awareness?

There’s a PhD neuroanatomist, Jill Bolte Taylor, who lost her left cerebral hemisphere to a bleeder near Broca’s and Wernicke’s language centers.

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She was 37 when she became a right hemispheric “infant,” but she lived to climb back. Eight years, it took. The experience gave her insight into the peaceful mood of the right hemisphere and its overarching vision of unified reality.

The linear left hemisphere tells us, “I am,” while the blissful right hemisphere finishes it wordlessly: “e n o u g h.”

“I am enough.”

Marisa Peer tells of a depressed actor who wrote “I am enough” on every mirror in his house. It pulled him from the Vice-Grips of depression.

Doctor Taylor implores her friends to “run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right cerebral hemispheres.” For personal and world peace, she says. Anxiety, harsh self-judgement and fear come from the linear Story Teller we identify as the self. But it’s a small part of who we are, a part that needs the calming joy of the right hemisphere. A part that needs to be quieted by giving attention to the concrete senses of our bodies in the present moment. Breathing. Listening. Relaxing the scowl and jaw muscles. Yoga. Ti Chi. Drawing Angels with profound names.

So the corpus callosum could be the Einstein-Rosen Bridge from yoga to nirvana. I know wormholes, but I need Vedanshi for the yoga.

I risk a sideways glance. Her mouth is still inches from James’ lips.

His eyes flutter and begin to open.

“I was 13,” she says to him.

Maxwell’s abdominal muscles shiver against me in a prolonged one-arm hug that I’ll never forget… no matter how hard I try.

Where’s the green cylinder? 

“My boy’s coming around,” Maxwell says.

“I was playing in an energy labyrinth,” Vedanshi says. “Somewhere in… I think it’s Bosnia now.”

James looks at me. “How’d we get here?”

“Vedanshi rescued you,” I tell him. “Pay attention, she’s talking to you.”

Vedanshi smiles at me, then turns the smile on James and broadens it. “My family was visiting a poor country with primitive technology. Their pyramids were concrete and dirt. The Priest’s daughter, Iephur, was showing off how she knew the tunnels by heart. I ran ahead of her hoping to get lost and force an adventure on my parents. After a long run, I came to a collection pool under a giant pyramid. I climbed out on the tamat. What’s the word? It’s a mesh thing that covers heavy water. Keeps out bats and cats. And rats but not gnats.” She giggles. “In my city everything was made of quality material, so a tamat could withstand six elephants and a dog, all jumping merrily. But in Iephur’s town nothing like curlese ceramic existed. I didn’t know. So I crawled out onto who knows what? Iephur shouted, ‘Come back, it’s not safe!’ But I knew better. The more she shouted and screamed the further out I went. Then I stood up and started jumping. Tamats are great trampolines, until they break. I laughed all the way down into the water. I even made myself laugh climbing the mesh to get out. But a large sheet of it broke away with me, snagged my robe and held me under. I struggled and squirmed but couldn’t rip free or get out of the robe. As the water entered my lungs everything turned bright white. I must have caught light’s heels in a footrace, passed ahead and crossed into the presence of God. ‘Something’s not right,’ I heard a child’s voice say. God raised a quieting hand to a little fellow behind him. The boy seemed familiar. ‘It’s fine,’ God said to him. ‘She’ll decide.'”

Vedanshi puts her hands on the sides of James’ face. “There’s something you should know about God. The moment you look into his eyes, you see the collision of infinity and totality, and you sense that he wants you to treat him as an equal. Even so, you desperately want to bow down and worship… the ground beneath him. Something. Anything to show the way you feel. The young face of Eternity. A kind face. But I just sat there, James. Stunned. God said to me, ‘It’s simple, Vedanshi. The Universe you’re drowning in is a sentient quantum computer I’ve designed. Out here where I am… this is true reality.’ He gestured at the green hills, but I looked down and saw a hologram with vast depth and a flat transparent ceiling. We were sitting on it. My eyes wandered and focused far down. I could see people frozen in every sort of situation. Then they began to move. Some arguing and fighting. God said, ‘We have countless people in Reality. All happy. No one has ever doubted me. But they all doubt themselves, eventually. ‘What if God weren’t around?’ they ask themselves. ‘What would I be like?’ It’s a question that hangs on to people and grows heavier with time. So when the moment is right, each person walks with a pet to 229 H. Street. They dress casually and kiss me goodbye, not knowing if they’ll ever come back. I’ve programmed the Universe to be a place of limited dimensions where a person can believe that I don’t exist. Even if they think I do exist, they rarely know it for sure. It’s a place where right and wrong can’t be deduced. Instead, moral intuition is necessary. Together with free will, these are the things a person brings into your Universe. They hold enough of a person’s identity to deliver their truth.’ God reached for my hand and held it. ‘I can create free will,’ he said, ‘but I have no idea why two people in the same situation act so differently, one for good, another for evil.'”

Vedanshi tosses her hair to her right, out of James’ face. “I felt so comfortable with God that I dared to question him. ‘Two people are never in the same situation,’ I said. Can you imagine? Saying that to God? Well, he nodded and said, ‘There’s truth to that, but actually, the Universe begins and ends, then begins again. At the end of a cycle, each person shifts into someone else’s life. This happens over and over until every person has lived the entire life of every other person. The same brain, body and life circumstances.’ I couldn’t hide my surprise. It was so different from the doctrines of the Builders and the Stretch Heads. ‘But that must take forever,’ I said. He searched my eyes and answered, ‘Time is nonlinear, as you know. And Reality has an independent reference, so we can think of the situation as simultaneous parallel universes with a completely flexible time relationship to Reality. Most people call the sentient computer of 229 H. Street a finite multiverse.’ The whiteness started fading to gray when he said that. It seemed I was awakening from a dream, so I brought up my worst fear. ‘Is there a final judgment?’ I asked. He shook his head and made a lemon face. ‘When people are done in the Multiverse, as you are now, they begin to remember Reality again. Most of them walk with me over those dunes for a morning in the surf.’ He pointed, but I wouldn’t take my eyes off him for fear he’d vanish. ‘A few people feel the need to stay in the Multiverse to help someone they love,’ he said. ‘That’s a mixed bag for me, personally. I’m proud of them, but always lonely for them and a little worried because rarely the whole thing falls apart. What I mean is, on the way back home, some people are repulsed by memories of how they’d loved other people here. So many people. So indiscriminately. They don’t mind being loved, but for some reason, when they get here, the feeling of loving all the other people seems intolerable. Like a suffocating smell, one of them told me. They don’t come home. The manipulative power they’ve created in the Multiverse feels comfortable, so they go back.’ God’s eyes seemed shiny. ‘I follow after each of them. There haven’t been many. I try to help them love again, but so far, they always kill me.’ When he said that, I started to remember my old home in Reality. Then a few things came back from my cycles in the Multiverse. God saw this in my face, gave me a lonely look and hugged me. Then my mother was pulling me from the water and hugging me the same way God did. It all happened beneath Iephur’s colossal pyramid.”

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Vedanshi sits up, crosses her legs, puts her hands together and bows her head.

“You came back!” James says. “You actually told God you wanted to come back. Here. To this place!”

“I didn’t tell him. He knew I had to come back… for the one I love.”

…

M. Talmage Moorehead

…

Here’s a link to page 1 of this ongoing story: Hapa Girl DNA. 

Be sure to click on the orange words in the story. They’re links. Some of them blew me away. Outbound links are, of course, suicide to a website because people leave and don’t come back. That’s the opposite of traffic. So try to come back if you can. Or maybe read the story first and then go back and click on the links? I don’t know. Maybe links are dumb in a story, but I had to show you all this amazing stuff. Truth is stranger than fiction, for sure.

…

If you’re a new writer, or curious about my take on things, download my new aging e-book, Writing Meaningful Page-Turners, here. The last chapter talks about how to meet a viewpoint character who will add joy to your writing process and new meaning to your life. For me, it felt magical meeting Johanna Fujiwara for the first time, years ago. My fiction writing became a pleasure. If you haven’t met someone in your stories who does that for you, there’s an amazing experience waiting in your imagination. My e-book might help you there.

…

To comment, please ignore the boxes that ask for your info. Sorry. I disabled them, but WordPress says I can’t get rid of them. Maybe I’ll go back to the free versions of WordPress that don’t have communication killers. It would save three hundred bucks a year.

Integrity (Chapter 12) “Hapa Girl DNA” by M. Talmage Moorehead

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“It’s harder to imagine the past that went away than it is to imagine the future.” William Gibson

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The phone rings and rings but no one answers.

Maxwell’s jaw is clenched in agony. He shivers on The Ganga’s carpet beside me.

“I think she took them to the Moon,” I tell The Ganga in my head, glad Maxwell can’t hear.

“Why the Moon?” The Ganga asks.

“Images,” I tell her. “Vaar’s hands. Powdery dust at the bottom of a crater.”

“I hope they’re on the Moon,” she says. “There’s no place to hide up there.” 

“I saw machines on the ground,” I tell her. “Some of them looked like UFO’s.”

The granite hall goes black. Stars appear and the Earth shrinks to a ball below us. Above, the moon streaks from left to right, stops, and then comes closer.

“Is that all I am to you?” The Ganga asks. “An unidentified flying object?”

“No, no. I’m sorry, that’s a dumb expression, UFO.” I find myself patting the carpet. “You’re Vedanshi’s dearest friend.” Assuming you have free will – a generous assumption.

“I heard that,” she says. 

Whoa.

“I hear all your thoughts.” She sounds apologetic about it. “Unless you can think without words.”

You know, as much as I appreciate what Steven Hayes is doing for James’ depression, I’d never equate words with thought the way Hayes does. And I don’t share his disdain for thought.

Negative self-talk is another issue. I distrust it. And like Hayes, I keep a skeptical distance from it without trying to shut it down.

Ask Jill Price if it’s possible to shut down negative thoughts. Avoidance makes things stronger.

Jill’s memory is like mine in at least one way. The details of every day stick like glue forever.

But unlike Hayes view of the mind, my thoughts don’t rely on an inner voice. They can sit silently and be stable in that form. I’m a right-hemispheric reader so I don’t need words to think. I don’t even need internal sounds to arrange words. I often treat words as pictures, not as sounds. And I sometimes think in pictures.

But usually I think without pictures or words.

Usually I think without pictures or words.

“You’re conscious of the machine language of neurons, then,” The Ganga says. “I wish I were.”

“It saves time to know your thoughts before they become words.”

Even when I’m writing I don’t need words.

For instance, at the moment I’m creating this sentence for Talmage in a silent, imageless process in my head. It will be permanent.

I wish I knew how it gets from my Universe to his, but it does. There’s something wonderfully weird about the mind. It’s not the “word machine” they call it.

Thought is generated subconsciously in a process involving the part of us that’s beyond time. Each of us is a primary cause when we want to be. Often we don’t. Often we refuse an objective view because it wants us to imagine for a moment that the other side, our enemies, might not be entirely wrong. This is too bad. Without objectivity we can’t access primary cause which is the free will required to think. Instead we allow the professional readers on TV to tell us what we believe and value.

To pursue original thought, I’ve stumbled across the technique of avoiding subvocalization. It’s a lucky thing because now I’ll have some privacy inside The Ganga. That’s huge to me.

Privacy of thought is central to honesty, you know. My Mom said, “You have to be honest with yourself before you approach integrity.”

And you can’t be honest with yourself if someone’s listening to your thoughts – any more than the reality show people can be themselves with video cameras in their bedrooms.

Just listen to Yeonmi Park, a North Korean girl who grew up starving in “the best country in the world.” She thought that Kim Jong Un had supernatural powers and could hear her thoughts.

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The ultimate mind-control tool of North Korea is losing power today because mass starvation expanded their black market. Forbidden knowledge follows secret trade.

In 2011, Yeonmi read Animal Farm by George Orwell. She says, “This book set me free from the emotional dictators in my head.”

So I’m thinking maybe God plugs his ears to give us thought privacy. That way we can be ourselves and use our timeless free will to develop core integrity.

But this notion is difficult for me. My life swims in scientific evidence of the Colossal Intellect behind DNA. It’s hard to imagine that this Being doesn’t hear my thoughts.

In my early teens, the evidence of God lead me to self-censorship because I didn’t want to hurt God’s feelings by asking difficult questions.

But how can you discover false assumptions if you’re afraid to look at them? Like the nature of revelation. And like Neo-Darwinism and materialism. My colleagues don’t question these things for fear of discovering a truth that would destroy their careers.

Hundreds of professional pilots deny and bury UFO sightings for fear of losing their careers.

But I want to face the hard questions: If only Atheists are fully capable of believing that God doesn’t hear their thoughts, doesn’t that make them potentially the most honest and genuine people on Earth? The ones who do what’s right because it is right?

And what would that make Atheists in God’s sight?

When I first read Thomas Nagel, the Atheist philosopher who believes that mind is “a basic aspect of nature” and “the materialist Neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false” – his integrity and courage stunned me.

Tears filled my eyes.

Notice what fills Nagel’s eyes…

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He said that Stephen Meyer and other proponents of intelligent design, such as David Berlinski and Michael Behe, “do not deserve the scorn with which they are commonly met.”

Now here’s Stephen Meyer. Notice the defiant integrity in his eyes. 

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These two men have stood against the powerful and dangerous cult of scientific fundamentalism.

Some say that you know you belong to a cult when you announce your departure and old friends suddenly want to destroy you.

The old-guard scientists hurl abuse at Nagel for believing things they can’t discuss in a rigorous, rational way.

Their pseudoscientific cult holds a puritanical grip on frozen myths that ignore the unfolding reality of DNA. It’s like Freud’s “narcissism of small differences” except for the weight of the small.

Nagel taps free will from beyond time to doubt neo-Darwinism and psychophysical reductionism. So the holy brethren of “science” proclaim him demented. No need to take him seriously now. Forget that he was a living legend before he strayed from the narrow path of allowed thinking. 

Now he’s an infidel.

The mainstream squelches dissent as fanatically and ruthlessly as the Puritan fundamentalists of the 1630’s: Sacred dogma is not to be doubted or questioned.

Meanwhile, the God I see in DNA looks on his Atheist child, Thomas Nagel and glows with pride. This brave man is God’s kindred spirit in integrity.

Like the Atheist, God doesn’t believe in a more powerful being who monitors his inner thoughts. God doesn’t do what’s right in hopes of an eternal reward or in fear of Hell.

The Code Writer doesn’t love mercy in response to a command. It’s written in his heart.

It’s written in the four-dimensional intricacy of the DNA symphony, on the conductor’s score.

The sun is harsh on a small part of the moon’s blind side. It leaves black shadows on the near sides of craters.

We’re a mile or two above the lunar surface, but astronauts say that distances, among other things, deceive people up here.

The Ganga gains speed, making the ground a desolate blur that brings a longing for a round, perfectly flawed place out beyond the horizon. 

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Perfectionism is an asymmetry overlooked by perfectionists.

The Ganga stops. “Down there,” she says.

We’re hovering over a crater that would be at the bottom of the moon if you were looking up from home. Vaar’s cigar-shaped craft sits in the ultra-fine dust beside three small metallic spheres. 

This isn’t the crater I saw in vision. “Be careful,” I warn The Ganga.

Maxwell opens his eyes and lifts his stoic head. “What the?”

“We’re on the moon,” I tell him.

He swallows and looks up at the Earth with hollow acceptance. “We’ve got enough air for this?”

“Not a problem,” The Ganga tells me.

I nod to Maxwell. “The Ganga says we’re good.”

The sphere nearest us vibrates, giving off an energy pulse that feels like a 24-inch kick drum in a rap song coming through 15-inch speakers.

I feel it in my chest, but I don’t hear it.

The Ganga takes us closer.

The spheres are golden with indistinct edges. As we descend, the rock walls of the crater surround us in a fuzzy tan. It’s like my eyes are vibrating. I can’t focus on anything, not even my hands. A blind vignette takes away my peripheral vision, and curling stars warn me of an impending blackout.

“Get us out of here!” I shout as my awareness blinks.

Somehow I’m on a cold floor with handcuffs on my wrists and ankles. It’s as if no time has elapsed.

Maxwell is unconscious beside me, also in cuffs. We’re inside a metallic cage about twelve feet cubed. It smells like an antique shop.

Across the room on the gray metallic floor sits a dark blue UFO. It must be The Ganga. The color is off, but the shape is perfect.

A tall thin woman stands beside The Ganga with her back to us and a green skullcap covering the top of her long head. She holds a pistol-shaped device with a needle in front, and jabs The Ganga with short quick thrusts like she’s doing a fine needle aspiration.

We must be in a back room of her ship. The lateral walls are gunmetal gray with rows of hand-sized rivets running horizontally, matching the walls I saw when Vedanshi took us into the front section of this craft. The walls bulge out on the sides and arc together at the top, giving the room a cylindrical shape.

“I’m disappointed in you,” I say to the woman. 

“I can’t get a sample of your vehicle,” she says with her back to me. “What in the world is this material?” She presses an elbow into The Ganga’s hull leaving a temporary indentation. “My needle passes through it with no resistance.”

It’s Vaar’s voice.

She’s not familiar with phase shifting, it seems. But if that’s true, how did she get us out of The Ganga?

“Where’s my brother?” I ask.

She turns and glances in my direction, but not at me. I follow her eyes, and there on his back in a dentist’s chair, partly hidden by ivy vines dangling from the ceiling, is James with his eyes shut and his mouth open.

My heart stops until I see his chest rise, then adrenalin rushes through me. Rage is coming. I’ve got to keep my head.

Breathe.

There’s a pillar blocking my view, but I bounce to my knees in the light gravity and move to the corner of the cage for a better look. Vedanshi is there in a small cage, silver tape over her mouth.

I glare at Vaar. “What have you done to James?”

“Almost nothing,” she says, holding the needle gun beside her left hip. “But you’re going to hear me out, dear. Like it or not.”

“Take the tape off Vedanshi’s mouth,” I tell her. “If you hurt James, I’ll probably kill you. It’s not that I want to. I value your genetic diversity. But when I get angry, I’m dangerous. Neither of us wants that.”

She smirks and laughs. It’s the laugh I hate. The sound of the thought police dismissing the implications of DNA. The sound of a rapist chuckling when you don’t resist.

“I meant it when I accepted your terms,” Vaar says, staring at me. “Until I thought it through. My mind is going and I need your help. No one alive has your capacity for coding.”

She sets the needle gun on The Ganga, walks over to Vedanshi’s cage, reaches in and pulls the tape from Vedanshi’s mouth. “No more screaming,” Vaar says to her.

Vedanshi looks through the hanging ivy at me. “I’m sorry, Johanna. I shouldn’t have…”

“Don’t give her any info,” I tell her.

Vedanshi presses her lips together and changes what she’s saying. “Be careful. I think she broke my arm.”

Vaar walks back to my cage. “I came to my senses after you’d gone. My project is more important than I am. Without your help it’s over. But you won’t help me unless I abandon my mission.”

“Just to clear things up, causing autism in hopes of exploring sociopathy is an immoral dead-end. Does your mission really have anything to do with that?”

“Yes,” she says. “It’s a tough piece, I know. But my broader focus is eugenics. I believe it’s possible to elevate humanity from the warrior mentality.” She lowers her chin, angling the back of her head high above her eyes. “The trouble is, I can’t juggle the code anymore. I’m drowning in variables, millions of them, each in a loop. Every loop lies in a delicate time envelope that requires optimal placement in a chromosome.”

I have to admit, the technical aspect sounds fascinating. But I’m not tempted.

“I’d like to re-introduce several genes from my own race, as well,” she says. “We were magnificent, Johanna.” She turns to the portrait of a young man on the wall above a desk in a corner of the room. He has an elongate head and deep-set eyes like hers. “If it hadn’t been for that religion constantly hobbling us, my people would have survived the pinch points of history.”

I adjust my feet to relieve the pressure of the cuffs on my ankles. “If it were remotely desirable to do what you propose, how would you transfer your code to the population? Breed a master race and kill the Jews to get everyone’s attention?”

“Our willingness to kill each other is the problem,” she says. “I want to eliminate it. Peacefully, with an autosomal dominant trait. I’d start with the sperm banks and confer reproductive advantages to the offspring. We could transform the entire population in a thousand years.”

“By killing genetic diversity,” I say. “That’s genocide for all humanity.” 

“No. I’m introducing additional genes. Increasing diversity.”

“Your ‘superior’ genes are designed to crowd out the native code. You’d have to be a moron to think that’s increasing diversity.”

Her face is blank.

“If genetic diversity means nothing to you,” I say, “why not develop a human pesticide that only your master race can tolerate? And join Frameshift. You’d fit right in. Their legal team could patent your code and you’d own everybody’s DNA. You could bill people for the privilege of bearing children with your genes.”

“Sarcasm.” She shakes her head and walks over to The Ganga, picks up her needle gun for a moment then sets it back down. “We must come to an agreement.”

“You don’t believe in God, do you?” I ask.

“Heavens, no,” she says, making a face.

“Then how do you account for the complexity of DNA?”

“Intelligent design, of course,” she says. “But I don’t consider the designer to be God.”

“Surely you realize the original DNA code must have been written outside of time.”

She nods.

“I’d bet you believe in free will, too, then?”

“Yes,” she says.

“But you have no theory as to how DNA creates a brain to extract primary causes from beyond time.”

“No.” Her eyes grow curious.

Vedanshi’s voice echoes from across the room. “God gives us each a paint brush. We sit beside him on a canvas beyond the event horizon of the Universe.”

“If I had the technology,” Vaar says, “I could travel outside of time and devise a means of injecting an ongoing primary cause into the minds of the beings I would design to live within time.”

Words flash from a childhood Sabbath School book…

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.”

I glance at the only person I’ve met who believes she’s spoken face to face with God. Vedanshi should be saying this to Vaar, but it’s only me. “You think if you were like God, you’d be God. Rookie mistake, Vaar. Integrity isn’t technology.”

“You won’t help me, then. That’s what you’re saying.”

“Our species is doomed if we eliminate genetic diversity,” I tell her. “It doesn’t matter how we do it.”

Vedanshi speaks up. “The historical pinch points you say your people didn’t survive – only a few outliers ever make it through the apocalypses. When it’s a global famine, only the very chubbiest people survive to keep our species alive. When it’s a series of meteor strikes, only those in submersible vessels survive. Along with the occasional astronaut… like you.”

“Really, now?” Vaar draws a forceful breath. “A young girl lectures me on holocaust survival?”

Maxwell opens his eyes and blinks.

“At the dawn of recorded history,” Vaar says, “I built the civilization you call Atlantis, and survived the comet strike that shifted Earth’s crust and turned Atlantis into Antarctica. I invented suspended animation and tested it through the supervolcanoes at the close of the second era.”

“I’m talking about genetic diversity,” I remind her. “An entire species, not an individual… no matter how glorious she is in her own eyes.”

Maxwell moans. I kneel beside him and stroke his forehead with my knuckles. “Lie still, Max.”

“I came out of hibernation,” Vaar says, “in the first part of the fourth era. I made myself wealthy through hard work, and bought this ship. A lightning strike at the wrong moment brought me into this corrupt era. Your people are so full of myopic denial, they actually think this is the first era.” She laughs. “Your records are worthless, but they make it clear that I know volumes more about the genetics of survival than any of you. But…” She turns her palms up and softens her voice to me. “Surely you realize this, dear?”

“Maybe I do, but it’s irrelevant,” I tell her. “My point is about survival through genetic diversity. You don’t respect the natural genomes because you don’t believe the original code writer was God. It’s as simple as that. To you, God is just an ordinary techie with better tools.” I bounce from my knees to my feet. “You started a religion on Atlantis, didn’t you?”

She looks surprised but says nothing.

“If I were going to start a religion,” I tell her, “there wouldn’t be any infallible books or prophets involved. Every person and every recorded source of information and opinion, young or old, would be heard, valued and weighed for wisdom. That would include science journals from every era. There’d be one absolute – God himself. The only infallible writing would be his original DNA code. Throughout Earth. All species. We’d study our DNA to figure out what parts of it are original and what parts have been ruined by people like you, or altered by pinch points, mutations, selective breeding, ‘natural’ selection, and epigenetic adaptation.”

Maxwell sits up. “Why is everything spinning?” He reaches for the metal grid of the cage, pokes his fingers through and shakes the structure.

“Shhhh,” I tell him. “You’re dizzy. We’re in Vaar’s ship.”

“You know nothing about religion,” Vaar says to me. “It requires daily rituals and subjective rewards. The rationality of science kills faith.”

“I’m wondering if the people of Atlantis refused to worship you. Rational evidence is the only basis for faith that survives the relentless march of truth.”

She gives me a look of disdain. “It’s a good thing James’ beacon started working. I might never have found him standing with his girlfriend on a rock in the Pacific Ocean. What an odd place to hide him.” She walks over to James, lifts his right wrist and lets it fall to his lap. “There was a residue on the cuffs.” She turns a blank gaze my direction. “I’m certain you won’t force me to torture your brother.”

…

M. Talmage Moorehead

…

If you’d like to start this thing on page one and read it in order, it’s here as a “one page” scrolling document.

I’m planning to move my thoughts about writing over to my “readers group.” Notice I didn’t say, “email list.” Those words supposedly drive people away, though they mean exactly the same thing as “readers group.” Who knew? Instead of “sign up for my boring newsletter or my email list,” we’re supposed to say something like, “join my readers group,” or better yet, “go here to gain access to the private library on my web site.” Maybe I’ll be able to say that eventually. I’m working on a web site these days. But don’t hold your breath. I’m slower than winter.

Anyway, you can join my “readers group” here and download my thrill-a-minute (not) e-book, “Writing Meaningful Page-turners.” I used to think it was OK, but that was before I ran into The Story Grid, by Shawn Coyne, which is a thousand times better in every way. I bought a copy, but I heard that you can read it for free on his website, one post at a time. He’s constantly delivering amazing new content there, currently on writing nonfiction in a way that incorporates the elements of storytelling – as only Mr. Coyne is able to delineate. (I’m not profiting from this recommendation, by the way… other than helping you with your writing, which is worth everything to me.) The Story Grid is the most transforming book I’ve come across in reading roughly 60 books on fiction writing over the past, I don’t know, 25 years or so.

If you know someone young and beautiful who likes in-progress science fiction stories about intelligent design, set in the present and delivered from a parallel universe by a preachy genius Hapa Girl, please email my URL to your friend: http://www.storiform.com. Warn her/him that the story has UFO’s. UFO’s ruin stories for a lot of people. So I’ve read.

Joanna Penn couldn’t possibly have had me in mind when she wrote this… 

“One of the biggest lessons learned is that actually writing more books makes you a better writer. Obsessing over rewriting the same book for years won’t get you anywhere. This is tough, especially if you have perfectionist tendencies!” Joanna Penn

Thank you, Joanna. You have wisdom beyond your years. And all of us appreciate your integrity more than you know.

Blueberries, 90% chocolate, cardio on the treadmill, swimming, grape seed extract, speed reading software, the list goes on… Here’s a video on hatching new neurons in adulthood through exercise. Here’s another video about a rat model showing that learning preserves the new neurons that spring up in the hipocampus of adult rodents. It’s good science. Some researchers say that the things which preserve these new neurons in adults also fight depression. That’s a big deal for writers, musicians and all creative people because as a group we tend to become depressed somewhere along the course of our lives. I think it’s an epidemic, really, at least at Harvard.

Hey, stay happy you guys!

Talmage

Dark Mind (Chapter 11) “Happa Girl DNA” by M. Talmage Moorehead

“If contemporary research in molecular biology leaves open the possibility of legitimate doubts about a fully mechanistic account of the origin and evolution of life… this can combine with the failure of psychophysical reductionism to suggest that principles of a different kind are also at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. I realize that such doubts will strike many people as outrageous, but that is because almost everyone in our secular culture has been browbeaten into regarding the reductive research program as sacrosanct, on the ground that anything else would not be science.”

“… My guiding conviction is that mind is not just an afterthought or an accident or an add-on, but a basic aspect of nature.”

Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, by Thomas Nagel (Renown Philosopher and Atheist)

…

Tut on left - 1st degree relative on right

When I told Vedanshi I was seeing a vision of Vaar’s hands, she rushed us all back to the base near Easter Island.

Vedanshi’s eyes were apprehensive and sad when she left me inside her AI to phase shift through the impenetrable granite walls encasing the library.

Actually The Ganga isn’t an AI. She has a cortex of neurons in her hull. There’s nothing artificial about her intelligence. Her passengers and pilot sit within the confines of her central nervous system on this Indian carpet. The hollow neural architecture is the trick to nonlocal transport. So said the stretch heads. They taught Vedanshi quite a few things that 16 year-olds weren’t “ready” to learn. Still, The Ganga won’t take her into the library with me. Vedanshi’s too young.

Of all the dumb rules!

We sift through the stone and enter a place much larger than the library in Egypt. We dip to count floors: Twenty, each crowded with shelves of books, scrolls and engraved stone of every shape – cylinders, spheres, tablets, broken fragments. There’s a red obsidian skull on third floor with tiny hieroglyphs on the forehead. They look almost Egyptian.

A familiar inverted pyramid hangs from the ceiling. As we rise, its apex comes down through the phase-shifted hull. I lie on my back with the pyramid tip nearly touching the bridge of my nose. This seems dangerous.

“Easy does it,” I say without speaking.

“Don’t worry. We’re out of phase with it,” The Ganga says in my head. “Besides you’ve got bigger worries.”

She’s referring to my white cell count which I just found out is sky-high, mostly blasts. I like The Ganga’s bedside manner. Her tone of voice was matter-of-fact when she told me I have three days to live without treatment. Somehow she knew the bad news would give me energy and freedom from a deeper issue.

I reach up to touch the glass pyramid but my hand passes through it.

Vedanshi and James said they’d find a bed for Maxwell so he could sleep through his agony.

You know, I’ve read that our addictions postpone loneliness, but I can’t see Maxwell ever feeling alone. His face is forensically handsome, not to mention the rest of him. And he’s outgoing, at least when he’s not surfing opiate withdrawal inside a UFO.

I think the problem isn’t loneliness. It’s more a craving for the oath beyond reach: immortality’s promise of happiness and peace. Without it, we’re wedded to a cold, cold darkness.

I should focus. There’s a hailstorm of ones and zeros in here. And this place is huge. Six aisles radiate from the center to the perimeter, a hundred yards away.

One hundred…

My blasts are approaching 100% of my white count. Vedanshi’s green cylinder doesn’t need to draw blood to figure that out. I have no idea what kind of technology can do that.

But the acute fear of death isn’t my real issue. It’s the chronic fear. Same as everybody. Same as you, probably.

I think it comes from being banished from a garden with death as our most loyal companion. Taken figuratively it’s all true: “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Whoever wrote that knew that exile is the foundational disease of the human soul.

Mine anyway.

The disease hunts me when James’ songs go quiet in my head. And when hunger or sleep forces me to stop searching for one last bit of knowledge.

The leukemia sits at another table. It’s acute, not chronic.

For James, the chronic issue is depression. Writing music is the only route to happiness and peace. But the world is better for his struggles. You should just hear his voice.

When I close my eyes I see random titles now.

Dark Eyes in the Trees. 

It’s a modern UFO documentary with children. I expected only ancient things in the library, but I guess it’s connected to the River. Apparently anything vital finds its way inside.

Platelets and other Furry Animals.

A children’s book on blood platelets. I would have loved it.

Hybrid Vigor and Sexual Imprinting.

Dementia and the Vesicular Eruption.

Moving right along…

If DNA Could Talk.

This could be interesting…

“It’s from the eighth millennium of the first era,” The Ganga tells me.

It reminds me of Steven Meyer’s heroic work…

“A line [of DNA] commands the cell to build collagen, but within that command is a hidden command to build something else: an elastin fiber. A hidden message tucked away within a larger message is a common routine in the vast and intricate volumes of eukaryotic DNA. Epigenetic nano-gadgets somehow know when and why to cut and splice a dual code, making the hidden message ready for use in each unique sweatshop…

“The curious stripes on chromosomes reflect the super-files of an ingenious triad filing system. Specific types of information sit physically together for organized, efficient retrieval by tiny floating machines.

“The size of Earth’s populations and the age of the Universe are inadequate for mutation and selection to have created either the hierarchical organization or the hypercomplexity of the DNA machine code that directs our nanofactories. Putting the epigenetic information retrieval system aside for the moment, DNA itself shouts to us that we are not alone: A code writer from beyond time has walked among us.”

That’s obvious… to a DNA geek.

“How do I skip to leukemia?” I ask The Ganga.

“If you haven’t seen it by now, it doesn’t exist for you,” she says. “Perhaps you don’t believe such information existed.”

“Don’t be silly. After today, I know it existed.”

“Then you have a self-limiting belief. You’re in denial about something.”

“Denial?”

“Emotional trauma causes this,” she says. “It’s usually connected to violence. Have you been to war?”

“No. I was raped once, but it wasn’t a big deal.”

“Don’t be a hero, Johanna. Did you report the perpetrator?”

“No. I was eleven. I was living near the love of my life, the University Library. Dad would have made me move back home if he’d found out his little girl was raped. So I kept it on the qt.”

“How violent was the incident?”

“Nothing beyond the obvious.”

“Was there a threat?”

“No.”

“What did he say to you?”

“Nothing. He didn’t even kiss me. That seemed particularly insulting.”

“Rape doesn’t fosters romance,” she says.

“Not with me, anyway.”

“Not with anybody. What did you do to resist him?”

“Nothing.”

“You did nothing? That seems incongruent with the way you’ve handled yourself today.”

“I knew if I got mad, I’d probably kill the guy.”

“You were eleven. How could you kill him?”

“He was weak. The instant he pushed me, I knew he was nothing compared to Moody.” I hate talking about Moody. “I killed Moody two weeks before the rape. He was my brother’s chimpanzee.”

“An infant chimp,” she says.

“An adolescent. He attacked James. I snuck up, got him in a choke hold and wouldn’t let up, even with James yelling at me not to hurt him.'”

“That’s remarkable,” she says. “I wouldn’t have thought an eleven-year-old could tangle with a chimpanzee.”

“I’ve always been pretty strong,” I tell her, leaving out the ‘why’. “But Moody probably wasn’t fighting as hard as he could. He and I were close before the fight. Afterwards, I felt so alone. And ashamed. I’d become untrustworthy. My parents punished me when they got home.”

“You protected your brother and they punished you?”

“They were right. I didn’t have to kill anyone.”

“I see,” The Ganga says in a way that implies the opposite. “So you internalized the guilt and refused to defend yourself against rape.”

I look down at the carpet and wish The Ganga had eyes. “Vedanshi didn’t tell me you were a shrink.”

“Shrink, schmink,” she says flippantly and seems about to laugh. “I’ve read your papers. I’ve read Drummond’s papers, too – the ones that were really his, before you showed up in his et. al. lists. Why do you let him claim your work?”

“That’s how it’s done in genetics. We’re taught to think of ourselves as creatives. Like musicians and artists. We’re supposed to rise above ambition. I don’t quite get the logic, but…”

“You would if creative people were making you rich and powerful.”

“That’s jaded,” I tell her, but honestly, the left half of my brain wants to slap the right half for thinking so.

“Jaded… Yes, I’ve actually been all the way around the block, Johanna.”

We leave the central pyramid and begin exploring the ancient physical records – down one aisle and up the next, The Ganga’s hull and carpet passing freely through everything on every side. The shelves on the top floor are full of scrolls placed vertically in slots, side by side, each identical to the next, except for the Sanskrit titles.

“At the moment,” she says, “I’d simply like to understand why leukemia doesn’t exist for you in the River. It’s not psychoanalysis.”

“Everything’s there for you. Why can’t you find the best stuff and read it to me?”

“My nervous system is gray matter,” she says. “I have no use for white matter – no moving parts. Everything I do, from adjusting filters to making a large jump, happens without movement – nonlocally. The River of Consciousness doesn’t see fit to assign privileges to minds that lack white matter.”

“That’s hardly fair,” I tell her.

“Rules are rules,” she says.

“Well,” I say, trying to sound as matter-of-fact and reasonable as possible, “couldn’t you let Vedanshi come in here and read to me? Just this once?”

“I promised her mother I’d uphold the rules.”

“Forget the rules. Screw the rules! We’re talking about my life.”

“No, that’s folly. Rules protect us.”

“Come on, make an intelligent exception! That’s what neurons are for. You’ve got to use them to earn them.”

“Earn them?” she says.

“Prove you’ve got a will of your own. What if the real reason you can’t access the River’s library has nothing to do with white matter? What if it’s about free will? That would make more sense. It’s the one thing that makes a person real.”

“The stretch heads said it’s a white matter issue.”

“What are they going to say? ‘Pinocchio, prove you’re a real boy. Do something stupid.'”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says.

“Google it,” I blurt out in frustration. “You probably don’t have any free will at all. It probably takes white matter for that.”

“I shouldn’t think so,” she says.

“Listen to yourself. It’s like there’s a list of shoulds and shouldn’ts for every thought in your head. In your hull, I mean. Whatever. But really, have you ever had a bad thought?”

“I’ve made mistakes,” she says. “Especially with new pilots.”

“You’re making a big one with this new pilot. Giving me the honor of death by viscosity so you can pretend you’re an obedient robot. It’s pathetic!”

The Ganga drops a few inches and I sense the fall. It’s the first time I’ve felt any movement since I’ve been inside her. Something’s wrong.

“I think you’ve hurt my feelings,” she says.

“I think dying of leukemia is going to hurt mine… in case robots need that sort of thing spelled out to them.”

Silence.

It reminds me of home. If you showed Mom or Daddy any anger, you’d get the silent treatment.

Two can play the mute victim.

I close my eyes and breathe slowly. Sweet, I can see another title…

Understanding the Dark Mind. The cover shows a dark gray brain on a black background.

The Sanskrit morphs to English and pages scroll so fast I reach the end in seven seconds. Roughly 80,000 words. I’ve never read new stuff that fast.

It’s strange. I don’t know if it was fiction or not. Here’s the flavor of it…

“In the first part of the first era when science resembled the elbow of a grade school bully, an odd belief held sway: ‘Mind arises from matter and energy.’ We revisit this assumption on behalf of our new acquaintances from the realm of dark matter.

“The idea that a physical brain encompasses all aspects of mind sprang from a sense that matter and energy comprised the cosmos. Difficult as that is to imagine now, consciousness seemed to be an inherent state of matter, springing from the complexity of the central nervous system: solid, liquid, gas, mind.

“With that principle supported by brain-probe research, matter necessarily preceded mind.

“As a corollary, the complexity of DNA code could not imply a designer, for who had designed the designer? Intelligent design was obviated by an infinite regression forever short of a first cause in the linear time scheme of the era.

“A God-vacuum left a wake of angst in a century marked by the birth of quantum weapons.

“Bring this early thinking to the dark matter realm that scaffolds the networks of galaxies. The math we’ve chosen says that all physical objects are simple there. Nothing approaching the complexity of a human brain is known. As a local resident, you exist apart from matter and energy.

“Hence, you harbor no assumptions of matter preceding mind. No material-based doubts about free will, identity and life’s broader purpose. No mindlessness projected upon the Universe by a concrete logic. No possibility that an infinite regression should usurp the Designer’s place in people’s hearts.

“Instead, as a non-physical mind, you doubt whether matter and energy are real. They seem intuitively derivative: a function of mind analogous to sleep, wakefulness, love and perhaps the growing anxiety your culture feels toward the fringes of recent dark science.”

“This science has developed mental techniques to give non-physical beings access to bright matter.

“Switching viewpoints to our realm of ‘ordinary’ matter, our formless intruders now bring against us the prejudice we might bestow upon ghosts: denial giving way to blame, fear and a desire to cast out demons.”

“Thus we have become the dark realm’s devils.”

It gets creepy at this point. I hope it’s fiction…

Dark minds penetrate barriers of human will and show no respect for us because, to some of them, we’re evil. To others, we’re somewhat unreal.

It’s like adults watching TV with children, casting abuse at people in an obnoxious commercial. The actors are unreal because they’re not truly in the room. Virtual anonymity allows the adults to criticize the actors at a sharp, personal level. This builds mirror-neuron pathways in the children’s brains, creating fluency in the language of disdain and easy hatred.

There’s a tapping noise coming from the wall beyond my feet.

“You’re unusual,” The Ganga says.

“Compared to what?”

“Four hundred thirty-eight people I’ve met mind-to-mind, including seventeen stretch heads.”

“Why single them out?”

“They were outliers with math and data retention.”

“What were they like emotionally?”

“Less intuitive than you with math.”

I nod. The tapping sounds frantic. It makes me nervous.

“The stretch heads believed that everything that happens is exactly as it should be, no matter how good, bad or indifferent it might seem. This was moksha, or enlightenment. A state untouched by emotional pain.”

“Did all of them pursue moksha?”

“There was one who didn’t. A first-era stretch head formed a religion denouncing the enlightenment. She ascended to the throne of a continent lost at sea. But history is written by two pens, one extracting truth, the other serving power. I think the second dominates her records. Unrealistic reverence. Nothing of The Vaar’s mood has been passed down to us.”

“The Vaar?” I ask. “This Vaar I’m dealing with now is someone else, though. Right? Not some ancient powerhouse… who came through quantum stasis in that blimp of hers. Was ‘Vaar’ a common name?”

“It clusters from time to time in the census records.”

“What about her full name – vaarShagaNiipútro?”

The tapping stops but the silence makes its memory louder.

“Let’s find out what…”

Before I finish my sentence, The Ganga moves through the library wall into the hall. Maxwell is on his knees with a piece of the Egyptian Tri-lobed Disk in his right hand and the rest of its ancient crystal shattered in pieces across the floor around him. He sees us and crawls into The Ganga.

“Vedanshi and James are gone,” he says digging his fingers into the carpet. “I found her purse at the top of a stairwell.” He takes the little square purse out of his shirt pocket and gives it to me. I unzip it and take out the jade cylinder.

“Use this thing,” I tell him. “You look miserable.” I hand it to him, but he shakes his head.

“I’m not sleeping until we find them.”

“I’ll sweep the compound,” The Ganga says in my head. “Would you pull his foot inside, please.”

I grab Maxwell’s left knee and pull his foot up on the carpet. A red stripe flashes at the perimeter and the view beyond the carpet goes black, then hundreds of dimly lit rooms flash by. We must be going through the entire base. Probably in a grid pattern.

In seconds we’re stationary in the hallway outside the Library again.

“They’re not here,” The Ganga says with a panicked tone that surprises me.

I close my eyes and try to hear Vaar’s thoughts again, but all I see is a memory of James sitting over there on Maxwell’s left and Vedanshi here on my right.

“Can you tell what Vaar’s doing?” I ask The Ganga.

“She must not be in her ship,” she says. “I’m getting nothing from her.”

I find Maxwell’s phone and dial her burner.

…

M. Talmage Moorehead

…

Personal note to writers:

Heartfelt thanks to Joanna Penn for her wonderful video interview – the one where she was discussing her writing process. She mentioned a book that every fiction writer absolutely must read. It’s The Story Grid, by Shawn Coyne. Of the more than 50 books I’ve read on fiction writing, this one lands in the top three, overall. In terms of offering a unique professional editor’s logical, objective and broad perspective on how to write popular fiction, this book has no equal – in my humble and yet infallible opinion. Haha.

Please read it, even if you write literary fiction and wouldn’t use an outline for a million bucks.

I just finished an inspirational book written mainly for writers, Turning Pro, by Steven Pressfield. If you’re blocked, this is your book. If you’re struggling with self-discipline, it should help you, too. Finally, if you happen to be struggling with addiction, the author seems to have fresh insight there. No, I’ve never been addicted to anything besides coffee and tea. I hope to get addicted to yoga and swimming, though.

Anyway, Pressfield really nails the point that the process of writing should make you happier during the writing, regardless of the ultimate outcome.

I agree.

Hey, check out Joanna Penn’s work. She’s such a genuinely happy and benevolent person – brilliant, insightful, and honest. I’m almost done with one of her non-fiction works, How to Make a Living with Your Writing. She’s doing just that and having the time of her life. I highly recommend her as a source of honest, concise, logical, and inspirational guidance. When she recommends somebody, you know that person is worth her or his weight in gold. And like I said, I owe her for telling us about The Story Grid. What a rare book! Few on Earth have the background to write such a thing, let alone the creative insight. Also check out the man’s web site. If I’m not mistaken, everything in his remarkable book is also on his web site for free. I know, I’m pretty sure that’s what I read, but it seems too good to be true, so I’m doubting myself.

You there. The patient one who’s still with me. Keep at your writing, OK? You’ve got the right stuff because you enjoy the process. That matters. More than anything, I think. Two other books I want to tell you about, but this post is way too long already.

I’ve been reading and learning so much lately, and I really want to write some non-fiction blogs, but instead of doing that and messing up the (inverted) linear progression of Johanna’s story here, I’m think I’ll start writing to my reading group. I’ve got about 250 people who have entrusted me with their email addresses, and I haven’t written a single email to them yet. It’s been well over a year. I’m sorry. I said I wouldn’t spam, and I’ve kept the promise. But I’ve gone too far in the other direction. So I’m thinking I’ll tip-toe over and write to you about a couple of books that I think contain potentially life-changing information about developing good habits. You can join me in solving the world’s problems here and download my e-book, too. It’s about writing fiction. Nothing special, but you can skim it.

The above story starts here in a form that doesn’t require clicking around, hunting for the next chapter.

Please email my URL: http://www.storiform.com to a thousand people for good luck. Just kidding, don’t do that, please. Maybe email it to one person, though. If you know someone who’s way open-minded and patient.

Thanks,

Talmage

Stasis (Chapter 8) “Hapa Girl DNA” by M. Talmage Moorehead

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Is it me, or is it a little unnerving to find the words, “United States” inside a UFO?

With two time-frozen men in hoods.

stock-photo-the-man-with-no-face-over-dark-background-15638068

Generations ago, Ojiichan saw a Japanese boy in a black hood flying a Zero toward Pearl Harbor.

That same Sunday a second-generation Japanese-American guy named Daniel took offence to the bombing of his island.

He dropped school and quit his job to become eligible for the Army, but got classified 4-C…

“Enemy Alien.”

He never gave up trying to get in, and finally, under the novel influence of logic and reason, D.C. allowed 4-C’s to fight.

Shortly thereafter, Daniel met a strange warrior.

In this photo, the phenotype is evident in his right eye, forever determined.

First_Lt_Daniel_Inouye

“If you must give your life, do so with honor,” Daniel’s father told him.

In combat, Daniel became a legend. Near the end of his fighting career he found himself prying a live grenade from his own nerve-dead right hand and lobbing it at the enemy with the accuracy of his left.

Then, after an insane one-man charge, right arm useless and dangling, gut shot with an exit wound near the spine, propped against a tree to take pressure off the bullet in his leg, Daniel noticed his men catching up, thinking to carry him from the field before he bled to death.

“Nobody called off the war,” he growled, and ordered them back.

These things are documented. All the witnesses from the Japanese-American 442nd Regiment recounted the details of his bulletproof confidence, the innate tactical genius, the deadly absence of fear. One of my own relatives fought in the 442nd.

Daniel lost his arm, but not before delivering the message of Samurai DNA…

“Honor alone defeats the sociopath.”

Thirty-three of Hitler’s hardened troops saw the signature in the cell that day.

Later, when Daniel became Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii and found himself in the heated Iran-Contra hearings where a US President was accused of unconstitutional behavior, our elected Samurai said…

“[There exists] a shadowy government with its own air force, its own navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of the national interest, free from all checks and balances and free from the law itself.”

Until now I refused to connect those words to President Eisenhower’s warning of 1961…

“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment… and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet… we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.”

A black triangle in near space…

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US Government policy dictated by an unelected elite?

Rule of thumb – (can I say this in a novel, Talmage?) – Don’t be shocked by UFO’s, just chew before swallowing.

Classified defense contracts are logical in a world that generates Hitlers.

But if we’re hiding zero-point energy from starving kids, perhaps we have a sociopathic technological elite making our biggest decisions.

My mind still resists that notion as I sit on an ancient Indian carpet in space and stare at a triangle that I’ve heard called the TR-3B.

TR-3B

In front of it, a time-frozen corkscrew mist stretches out for six hundred yards into space. It looks like the “camera-shutter artifact” captured on reentry of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003, just before she exploded. God rest their souls.

Here’s that “artifact,” from a video documentary…

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Despite two punctate stars (forget the circular pointer), NASA says that this photo “suggests” a jiggle in the camera’s shutter. I can’t imagine they believed that, but the cloudless ionospheric lightning theory would have flown.

No?

“What in the world is that purple trail?” I ask Vedanshi who’s in cobra pose to my right. Always yoga.

“Looks like smoke from an unbalanced missile, but I don’t know,” she says. “The chemistry’s buried in phase shift.”

The Ganga’s orb touches the triangle and dims as it moves into the hull.

“They’re ghosts,” Vedanshi says.

The Ganga takes us closer, then eases us slowly through the hull and into an ethereal cockpit. The top halves of the two men come up through the carpet behind us as we study the control panel with our bodies leaning through the backs of the bucket seats.

I notice a clipboard beside the Chief of Staff’s chair. On it there’s a memo from “Paul Adolph Volker, Jr., Chairman of The Federal Reserve Board.” It’s dated, August 21, 1984, and says…

“The economically disruptive nature of zero-point technology demands it be kept from the public. Your ongoing cooperation is imperative. I would remind you that all conversations are monitored.”

“Does The Ganga run on zero-point?” I ask Vedanshi.

“Yes, but she prefers zero-point gravity over the electromagnetic spectrum. She claims it’s the taste, but I think it’s pride.” Vedanshi winks at the carpet beside her. “She has the most advanced technology in recorded history… At least the parts of history that a sixteen-year-old was allowed to read.”

“Did other ships from your era survive the asteroids?” Maxwell asks.

“Probably. But not in stasis. I don’t think anyone but my mom’s techs could rig a ship for controlled quantum stasis. And even they botched it. To do the job right you need a pyramid.”

The Sea of Tranquility peers down from the moon. I could imagine a well-stocked ship going there to miss an asteroid storm. Or maybe they’d go to Mars. A photo of a pyramidal mountain on Mars pops into my head…

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“Wait,” I say to her, “you mean the pyramids were used for suspended animation?”

“Among other things,” Vedanshi says. “Most pyramids had multiple talents. My favorite thing was mood enhancement.”

There’s a piece of white paper under the foot of the hooded Chief of Staff.  The name on his lapel badge has no vowels.

“Mood?” Maxwell asks, forgetting to close his mouth.

Vedanshi nods. “Some pyramids were resonant. You could hear them for miles. The Builders made them in sets of three to produce a haunting minor chord. They sang every seventh day. If you sat and breathed slowly, the sound brought new enthusiasm. Spiritual technology. I miss that sound more than… even the garden in my bedroom.”

“You had a garden in your bedroom?” James asks.

She nods wistfully. “You know, this science-spirit dichotomy of your era is bogus.”

James just stares at her – an unusual response from him.

“Have you seen the pyramids at Giza?” I ask and put my forehead against the deck to see if anything’s legible on the paper under the Chief’s statuesque foot.

“I’ve seen images,” she says and leans over to see what I’m squinting at. “You want to go check ’em out in person?” There’s the child in her voice again.

James straightens up his lotus position. “To Giza KFC,” he says solemnly, and raises an index finger. “Make it so.” As his hand falls, I see Captain Picard in my head…

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“Let’s do it,” I say as frozen words from 1984 shift in and out of focus, most of the message probably hidden under a wide boot:

“All international bank debt will henceforth be transferred to taxpayers through the International Monitory Fund. Breakaway civilization is re-established.”

The pages of a book I skimmed in an eight-year-old pout, The Creature From Jekyll Island, appear again. Since I was thirty-three days shy of my fourth birthday, I’ve been able to read faster than I can turn pages. I’ve always been able to re-read from memory at least ten times faster than I can read from a book. Bottom line on Jekyll Island?

The Fed is inconceivably evil.

Thomas Jefferson might have agreed…

I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt…

The Earth spins beneath us as we descend. The enormous African Continent fills the horizons. Everything becomes a tan blur, but before I can worry that we’re about to crash, we’re looking through double glass doors at the tops of the Giza Pyramids…

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“Yesssss!” James hisses. “I’m so hungry I could cry!”

“In a minute I shall cry,” I say, channeling Scarlett O’Hara.

James chuckles, looks at me and shakes his head. “Man, you sound just like her… Hey, anybody got some Benjamins?”

I shake my head, Maxwell checks his pockets and Vedanshi unzips her purse. She pulls out a crisp fifty dollar bill as the glass doors in front of us burst open and a large man walks straight through me at full tilt, stops at the counter behind us and seems to be placing an order in the local tongue.

My heart pounds at the horror of being a ghost. I’m not dead, though, so it shouldn’t be a big deal, right?

James starts chanting, “I’ve never seen a man eat so many chicken wings,” repeating it with increasing anger as Vedanshi smiles at him and giggles.

Now I ask you, how could she get that joke? It’s a spoof on Korn, for heaven sake! She’s never heard of Korn.

Has she?

Maxwell is leaning back on his right elbow managing not to look startled by our first encounter with lunch traffic.

“Tourist info,” Vedanshi says. “The Ganga informs me that there used to be a library under the right paw of The Great Dog. She says there’s a statue similar to it in the very same spot… Called the Sphinx?” She looks at me and smiles broadly. “You want to…”

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“We’re eating first,” James says and pounds the rug.

Maxwell holds out his right first, and the boys bump knuckles.

…

M. Talmage Moorehead

…

This in-progress story starts here.

Join my email group here and download my e-book, “Writing Meaningful Page-turners.” Sounds boring, but if you’ve never read a book on fiction writing, this will be the best one ever! For you. So far. I’m pretty sure.

If you have a close friend who doesn’t roll her eyes at sf stuff, please send her (or him) my blog address: http://www.storiform.com.

…

Personal note to fiction writers:

Sweet, this chapter was shorter. Still too long, but next chapter I’ll try to add some conflict and make it yet shorter. I realize conflict is probably the second most important part of energy flow in a story (from book to reader, vs the opposite), so why is my story lacking conflict?

First, it’s early and I’m hoping to build. But let’s be honest, it’s not that early.

OK… plot twists with conflict are best designed to highlight your characters’ strengths, weaknesses and especially big motivational changes. When I manage to do things that way, I don’t feel arbitrary or manipulative. But writing plot conflict in general is energy-consuming because “working memory” is pegged out quickly (at my age) when I put characters in complex grave dangers that leave only a less-than-obvious (but logical) way of escape. Writing in pegged-out mode is exhausting and challenging. I try not to be lazy, but it requires all kinds of self-control and exercise of free will to build meaningful conflict into the plot.

Plus conflict is risky, and I’m somewhat afraid of it. I might get one of my characters killed. I would deeply hate that experience! Yeah, I know that attitude is unprofessional – what would you call it? “Sentimentalism?” But hey, it’s me. Your humble and yet infallible hack. We must all go with what we are, facing our limitations and striving to overcome and work around them.

At least I realize I need conflict to salvage the energy flow of this story. Otherwise it’s going to be boring. I’ll try harder next chapter. You do the same, maybe. With your talent, you could blow the doors off any complex plot issue. Don’t hold back.

Keep going. Stay pumped!

Talmage

Tampering (Chapter 7) “Hapa Girl DNA” by M. Talmage Moorehead

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As I’m pressing a cold green cylinder to my forehead, my North Star, Barbara McClintock, comes to mind.

Here she is, my life-long idol, standing next to her brother, across from a brave dog that she’s teaching by example, confident energy. “Relax and stop shaking,” her body language says.

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Barbara’s life sends me confidence, too. She single-handedly discovered genetic regulation in 1951, but to this day the quagmire of Biased Science refuses to credit her with the earth-shaking advance.

Why?

Her work was too complex for other geneticists. To them, any notion that genes were regulated by stress implied a layer of control that smacked of intelligence. It wasn’t that Barbara McClintock intended to say anything about intelligent design, or God. She just reported the complexity she’d uncovered in her breathtaking work. But the facts themselves were heresy to the mainstream who knew that only simple static genes could fit their model. That model had become a “fact” in the strange fundamentalist-style thinking of the time.

Stranger still, that model rules all scientific thought today. We are frozen in an 1859 view of biology that ignores the clear implications of modern genetics.

Under academic pressure to produce nothing that would question the simplistic Darwinian model of life, Barbara stopped publishing her work at the peak of her genius in 1953.

In 1959 two men uncovered the lac operon – an on-off gene switch. Its simplicity buffered the emotional trauma to the paradigm fundamentalists. Genetic regulation now existed, despite the impossibility of it. But since it was so simple, perhaps no one had to panic. Unfortunately, Barbara’s old papers popped up in the archives. It must have been humiliating to the academics who’d shut her up in 1953.

I hope so.

A belated Nobel Prize came to her in 1983, but not for the discovery of genetic regulation. That would have been an admission of guilt from the zealots of mainstream origins mythology.

Instead, the Nobel committee repeated the mind-boggling abuse dealt to Einstein. They gave Barbara a Prize for a lessor breakthrough, hoping to obscure her status in history as the Founder of Genetic Regulation.

Make no mistake: Barbara McClintock is the Founder of Genetic Regulation!

And she’s my hero.

Here’s how she sounded in 1973 — twenty years after the academic thought police bullied her out of their journals, and ten years before her Nobel Prize:

“Over the years I have found that it is difficult if not impossible to bring to consciousness of another person the nature of his tacit assumptions when, by some special experiences, I have been made aware of them. This became painfully evident to me in my attempts during the 1950’s to convince geneticists that the action of genes had to be and was controlled. It is now equally painful to recognize the fixity of assumptions that many persons hold on the nature of controlling elements in maize and the manners of their operation. One must await the right time for conceptual change.”

It’s time…

Intelligent design glows like the moon in DNA’s hypercomplexity. The first set of tiny machines to replicate DNA and carry out its complex commands didn’t come from DNA because DNA needed those machines to do the work. Without them, DNA can do nothing.

Intelligence must have constructed the first set of cytoplasmic machines. We have a model for this today in human construction of computerized robots and their software.

So far, intelligent design is the best model to explain how DNA got started. Ironically, to reject it requires fundamentalist thinking – holding to old emotional beliefs despite new information.

Scientific fundamentalism shuns all notions of a higher intelligence, both the possibility of a God who transcends space and time, and the notion of other planets with intelligent life far enough ahead of us to arrive in our skies.

True science is open to all possibilities, bar none, especially when some fringe idea explains or predicts weird data, as happened to Barbara MaClintock, Albert Einstein and now Stephen Meyer.

I hear The Grudge in my head, Tool’s message to rigid Nobel committees and to all scientists married to their assumptions…

Clutch it like a cornerstone.

Otherwise it all comes down.

Justify denials and

Grip ’em to the lonesome end…

Terrified of being wrong…

Wear your grudge like a crown.

Desperate to control.

I’m not shivering now. “This works,” I say to Vedanshi as tiny symbols appear on the cylinder.

“Let me try,” James says. He takes it and pretends to shave. Excellent sound effects. “Feels kind of weird,” he says and hands it back to Vedanshi.

“The old woman’s already in Nazca,” Vedanshi says. “We better go. We can eat later.”

James moans.

We follow Vedanshi back to The Ganga, get in and take our places. The granite room becomes an underwater landscape for a split second, followed by a shrinking triangular island, then the coast of South America. Peru expands until the Nazca Lines bring a sense of the ancient high-tech past.

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“Looks like an old airport,” James says.

“Like a giant etch-a-sketch,” Maxwell says.

“The old woman’s got light-bending tech.” Vedanshi shakes her head in pity. “Look right there.” She points at the far end of a tapering runway-like thing…

Nazca

As I squint at the “religious artwork” of an extinct “primitive” tribe, The Ganga inserts a yellow filter and a UFO appears near the ground in the morning sun about a mile away. It looks like a Cuban cigar, but metallic and gray with longitudinal seams. A broad blue laser beam glares down from the near end onto the Nazca “runway” and steam rises where it hits.

“Looks like a Maui Bazooka,” James mumbles and bursts into song, “I take a toke and all my cares go up in smoke.”

“I didn’t realize this was a musical,” I tell him as an inverted funnel descends from the belly of the craft to draw in the steam. The laser creeps toward us along the runway, matching its increasing width.

“Coherent field electromagnetics,” Vedanshi says. “You dial the wavelength to the molecular bond force of whatever you’re mining. Iridium in this case.”

“Phase shifting from solid to gas?” I’ve seen a patent on this.

Vedanshi nods. “At ambient temp.”

“Did they soften rocks this way, too?” I ask, picturing the great wall at Ollantaytambo…

Peru_-_Sacred_Valley_&_Incan_Ruins_238_-_Ollantaytambo_ruins_(8115049949)

“Some had to,” Vedanshi says. “But the great Builders preserved the natural grain of rocks. You lose that in molds.”

“What’s wrong with wood and steel?” Maxwell asks.

“Stone spares the oxygen producers, avoids toxic hydrocarbons and gives you unlimited building materials. But the main thing is longevity. Anything that didn’t last twenty thousand years was a failure to the Builders. Iron alloys break down.”

“What was your average life span?” Maxwell asks.

“It varied. The stretch heads lived the longest. During the Reshaping, one of their families gained power and began editing their genes. A few of them survived for eighty thousand years, but in the process of tampering, they created hundreds of new diseases. Each one had to be fixed, and most of the fixes had bad side effects unless they restored the original sequences. Which they were usually too proud to do.” She shakes her head. “Average people lived only a thousand years, but without much disease.”

“How long will you live?” James asks.

“If I had my mother’s technicians, I’d be here for ten thousand years at least. But with the equipment I’ve got, I don’t know, maybe a thousand. Too much radiation gets through the Earth’s magnetic field now.”

An Aurora from a recent coronal mass ejection flashes to mind…

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“I won’t live a tenth as long as you,” James says mournfully.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let you die of old age before I do.” She smiles and takes the jade cylinder out of her purse. “This doesn’t look like much, but…” Her brow furrows as she reads it. Then she looks up wide-eyed at James. “Never in my wildest dreams… You’re a poet! The real ones were all cured.”

“Huh?” James says.

“No, I don’t me cured… In my day the poets were legends. We had your music, your stories, your magic… but mostly we had the vacuum you created when you all left us. When depression was cured.” She twists the cylinder. “You have a rare music locus.”

I wish I had my phone so I could play James’ ringtones. Maybe The Ganga can access his website. I close my eyes for a second and translate www.skullcage.com into ones and zeros, but it’s ASCII, not the machine language of consciousness.

Vedanshi stares at James. “I don’t want to change you,” she says. “Do you ever feel like killing yourself… ever?”

He gazes out at the long slender craft with its laser beam mining an ancient Nazca Line for prehistoric fuel.

“Let it out,” Maxwell says to him, “I’m a psychologist and both these women know more about it than I ever will. Let the truth fly.”

James looks at Vedanshi. “You’re putting me on the spot here, but yeah, I get bummed. Like this morning I was kind of… I don’t know.” He looks at me and runs a hand over the top of his head. “Ready to fade out.”

“Really?” She leans toward him with concern. I lean back to give her room. “I don’t know what to do,” she says. “I could ask your hypothalamus to make more orexin, but you’d probably never feel like composing music again. And you’d always be hungry. Struggling to cut weight.”

“I don’t think he needs brain surgery this early in the morning,” Maxwell says and chuckles. He looks at James. “I could show you some coping strategies.”

“Like what?” James asks.

“It all starts with yoga,” Maxwell says, “but Vedanshi’s the expert.” He glances at her legs, crossed and locked in lotus position. “Right?”

She nods. “I’ll teach you, James. We’ll wake your prefrontal cortex. Stabilize your limbic system. Help you choose your mood instead of settling for whatever comes along.”

“Sweet. When do we start?”James says.

She straightens her posture. “For survival, the brain always protects the area controlling respiration. Normally it’s the brainstem, but when you breathe deliberately it’s the prefrontal cortex, the area of volition where prime causes enter the Universe from outside. Blood shunts to this area when you hold your breath or decide how and when to take each portion of a slow breath. Mood elevates because the left prefrontal cortex acts as a pleasure center. It also stops the limbic system’s loops of misery. The rumination circuits.”

“What about this stuff you’re doing with your legs?” James asks. “I’m pretty flexible from martial arts, but I could never do that.”

“The pain of stretching stops emotional pain. It lets endorphins reach opiate receptors. But all stimulation of the opiate receptors is habit-forming, so watch out. I can’t have you checking out like a cutter.” She holds out her left anterior forearm with a row of parallel knife scars. “I was a cutter, myself. Pretty scars on a foolish girl.” She bows her head as she withdraws her arm.

Wow. I never would have picked her out as a cutter. James, maybe. But if yoga works for him, I’m going to be the happiest person on Earth. Which reminds me…

“I’m worried about that autistic boy,” I whisper to Vedanshi and begin searching for Maxwell’s phone in his coat on the carpet between us. I find it and can’t believe it has two bars. I punch in the old woman’s number and put her on speaker.

She answers. “I almost threw this thing away.”

“What’s your name, Ma’am?”

“I was afraid you’d drowned,” she says. “Yes, yes, my name. I’m vaarShagaNiipútro. Please call me Vaar.”

Vedanshi puts a hand over her mouth.

“I’m not with Frameshift,” Vaar says, “but I need you in my laboratory. I wasn’t expecting to get old just yet. My mind is fading.”

One of James’ songs plays to me: “Get home. I just want to make you young. You used to be so alive.”

“What’s your autism study about?” I ask.

“Just a second, dear, I’m double parked.”

Her cigar-shaped craft shoots up from the ground. The Ganga follows, and in seconds we’re stationary in near space with no bars on Maxwell’s phone. But I still hear her voice.

“The world is overrun by sociopaths,” she says. “I’m exploring the genetics of empathy, using the autism spectrum to isolate phenotype. I plan to heal sociopaths from the DNA up.”

“That’s ambitious.”

“I’ve been correlating loci to behavior for a long while,” she says, “but it’s gotten complex. I’m not the chess player I once was. And I’ve never had your gift for The Language.”

“Vaar, you’re infecting children. Why would anyone help you?”

“This is bigger than all of us. If humanity doesn’t move beyond war, we’ll soon be vestigial.”

“I have no argument with that, but…”

“I have contact with three sociopaths who happen to run nuclear nations. One of these men in particular would welcome the complete annihilation of our species. It might be worth eliminating him, but beneath him are endless layers of similar minds eager to seize power at the drop of a pulse. Someone has to re-write the genes of war.”

“But I think you’d have to be a sociopath yourself to treat children the way you do.”

“No. I’m not one of them,” she says. “I’ll admit I can’t remember the last time I had an honest emotion. But I’m not a sociopath. I conduct my affairs on principle, not some dark desire. And the damage I do is reversible.”

“In lab mice maybe, but not in children. Don’t you see the emotional scars you’re leaving?”

“Sometimes the lessor of two evils is all we have, dear.”

Vedanshi closes her eyes and suddenly we’re inside the ancient ship, hovering near the cavernous front, looking down at an old woman alone at a large desk with a holographic monitor showing the blue Earth surrounded by orbiting debris. She stands, scratches her head and looks in our direction but doesn’t seem to see us. Her baggy gray pants ride high, held up by a brown leather belt, the likes of which I’ve passed over in thrift shops. Her sweater hangs uneven and yellowed by age. A large safety-pin holds it together in front. Stringy gray hair spills out beneath a green skull-cap to reach her shoulders. The back of her head is…

“She’s a stretch head,” Vedanshi whispers.

A chill touches my spine.

“Vaar, if I should decide to help you, I would be in charge, not you.”

“That’s acceptable.”

“You’d have to follow my instructions like a rookie, in fact, beginning with the autistic children. Your first job would be to cure them.”

“You want me to pull the plug on seventy-five years of research,” she says. “I’m struggling to find any sense in that.”

“Of course you are. Wisdom requires logic and emotion. A person without empathy shouldn’t try to lead. There’s a rule of thumb for those who lack empathy: the end never justifies the means.”

“We both know that isn’t true.” She switches the phone to her right ear. “You’re not a child, why would you expect me to think like one?”

“To break the rule safely would require excellent judgement. You’ve proven you’re not capable of average judgement. It’s blunt, but I’m telling you the truth.”

“I suppose you might be.” Her shoulders slump. “I’ll comply with your orders.” She looks at the floor.

I feel adrenalin corrupting me.

“I won’t rule another human being,” I tell her, struggling against the euphoric seduction of power. I’ve read about it, but I haven’t experienced it since childhood. “If you have any free will or personhood left inside you, you’ll transform yourself into a trustworthy human being, starting with the autism you’ve created. Reverse it. Every child.”

“That shouldn’t take long.”

“How many kids are we talking about?” I ask.

“Six,” she says.

“Sociopaths always fear the truth. Even when it would help them. Lies are more comfortable. More controlling. You claim you’re not a sociopath, but you behave like one. Becoming trustworthy will be the toughest thing you’ve ever attempted.”

“Eighty-nine,” she says.

“That’s believable. I suggest you get to work, then.”

Vedanshi leans over and whispers in my ear. “We’ve broken her encryption. She’s infected eighty-nine children.”

“Does this mean you’ll help me?” Vaar asks.

“We’ll see. Hang on to your phone and I’ll call you when I’m convinced you’re capable of change.”

I hang up and watch her face. A look of resolve comes over it. She squares her shoulders, takes off the skullcap and winds her hair around her elongated head.

The Ganga exits her craft and moves away.

“Something’s cloaked down there,” Vedanshi says. The outside colors shift toward purple. “Whatever it is, it’s tapping zero point.” The colors change again. “There.” She points at a black triangle…

BBhUR7HCAAAhftL

“Let’s send out a foo fighter,” she says and chuckles.

“You’ve read about World War II?” I ask. “Were those things real?”

“Yes, it seems obvious under the circumstances. The real question is, where did they come from?”

A ball of blue-gray light flies out from beneath our feet and heads for the triangle. We move closer and suddenly we have MRI vision. Two people are inside, standing like statues behind their chairs. One of them holds an index finger in the face of the other, frozen in argument.

“Time dilation,” Vedanshi says. “They’ve been slowed to a standstill. I must have looked about like that… for a number of millennia.”

I had suspected the triangle over Arizona was not alien.

“They look like skeletons,” James says. “You sure they’re alive?”

“Yes,” Vedanshi says. “If we sat here for twenty years, The Ganga would eventually detect a slight eyelid movement. Part of a blink.”

“Are they from your era?” I ask her.

“I’m not sure,” she says.

We move around the triangle to see into it from various perspectives. On the back of the left chair there’s a round design with a star. I have to squint to be sure I’m seeing words. Several of them form a circle. In English!

“Chief of Staff — United States Air Force.”

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…

M. Talmage Moorehead

…

Yo…

If you want, please read this story from page one (beginning with Johanna’s hookless, forget-disbelief chapter zero). It starts here.

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Writing Tip:

Don’t let a little thing like a long boring chapter harsh your buzz. These things happen. With your talent, you should press on and enjoy the journey.

Rage (Chapter 5) “Hapa Girl DNA” by M. Talmage Moorehead

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“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organism existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.” Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species.

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The moon’s size and distance were selected so that its silhouette would precisely cover the sun during an eclipse, at least sometimes.

Call it blind luck. But what are the odds?

If the duck billed platypus were known only as a drawing in Egypt…

Could science tolerate more than a “myth” about a mammal who laid eggs, offered milk but no nipples to her hatchlings, hunted under water with eyes and ears closed using electroreception unknown to other mammals, stabbing her victims with poisonous spikes on her hind legs, then grinding her food with rocks in a toothless duck bill only to swallow it into a GI tract with no stomach?

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These uncomfortable facts caused the skeptical elite of yesterday to insist that she was a hoax.

Just as we assume the bird-man of ancient Egypt was religious fiction.

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But what if we are wrong?

The inconvenient truth about the platypus is that she screams of intelligent design. Not only of the original coding of a supreme mind but also of genetic tampering.

When new research pulls back the curtains on this duckish mosaic with in-tact blocks of DNA spliced from diverse species – who will hold the robes of the outraged thought police as they stone the young heretics, boycott the journal that published their work and fire its editor?

I refuse.

Rage, like denial, is a decision, but only if free will exists. Otherwise the Queen of Hearts was temperate in shouting, “Off with their heads!”

It’s fifteen feet down to the street. Not much traffic. My lips are sticky with brine.

When that man below us kicked my brother to the ground I wanted blood, but now the words that Nietzsche hated come to mind:

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

The Nazarene.

A certain Buddhist Priest also haunts me:

A

nymph

in pale feet

rides the opera

to a spiral staircase.

Lightning hair, dark voices

strike within her yielding gall.

Silk jinn brass restrains the lip strings

 beneath her tears that fall and glare inside

a secret box.

My girl of Utsuro-bune.

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Ojiichan wrote this at a recital where I sang “Un bel di vedremo.” My father translated it from the Japanese. That was three days before the accident on the Pali. Forget that now.

In the legend of Utsuro-bune, a red-headed woman landed in Japan in 1803 inside a “boat” that resembled a rice cooker with windows and strange writing on the walls inside. She spoke no Japanese, clutched a wooden box, and as the story’s living soul, she showed respect to the Japanese fishermen.

This is why her legend survives.

In this opaque neo-infinity, science is forever young and speculative. To forget this would be disrespectful and short-sighted.

“Remote viewing of long-term goals” would be a dissertation worth defending.

But ruling elites say the average human chooses short-term pleasure over long-term riches. Thus we need laws against natural selection. A childproof world.

Complex problems rarely have such simple solutions. Here’s the picture of that principle…

11seung1-master1050-v3

Dr. Seung’s crowd-sourcing of neuroscience recruits us to map the soul. With our help, every microscopic neuronal connection will be recorded in three dimensions, someday re-created and reanimated.

The handshake of science and religion has always been immortality.

And we thought the ancient Egyptians were primitive with their mummies, that silly religious talk and all the “incidental” preservation of royal DNA.

Who looks silly today?

So if natural selection brings genetic wisdom, why hamper it with childproof laws? Do the secular elites know something they’re not telling?

Plenty.

Perhaps a hand full of them have even noticed that logic requires a Prime Source of our genetic commands, a foundation for trust, and access beyond space to allow a fleeting choice of love over hate.

This choice comes to me now…

To spare this guy who’s kicking my brother, or to fight him.

The way I’m feeling, I would crush him easily.

That’s not logical, I’ll admit. Strange things happen to me when I get angry.

I fought Moody and thought I had defeated an enemy. Instead, I murdered James’ closest childhood friend and lost my innocence on a kitchen floor covered in my own blood.

The carpet is damp beneath me. I’m shivering and sweating. It’s a fever.

Vedanshi shifts and sits on her heels again. “If they recognize your face, the old woman will wonder how you got here from Washington. You need a disguise.” She reaches into the deck and pulls out a bra, then a dangling sock which she hands to me. “You should put this over your head, I think.”

I put it on quickly. It smashes my nose but I can see through it.

“If the man has a gun, The Ganga can disable it,” she says. “Theoretically, I mean… We’ve never actually done it.”

Maxwell rises to one knee and encounters the ceiling of a UFO with his head. “I got your six,” he says.

“No,” I tell him. “Better you stay here. You’ll scare the guy.”

“So you’re not going to hurt him?” he asks.

“Not if I don’t have to.”

“Good,” Vedanshi says. “There’s a break in the traffic. Scoot under a car so no one sees the decloaking.”

The Ganga dips to street level. I crawl out of its cloak and roll under the car that’s parallel parked behind the Prius. I reach out to see if my hand disappears into The Ganga. It doesn’t, so I scoot out into the street, stand and move between the pseudo-cop and my brother.

The man steps back and pulls a gun, almost dropping it in the process. “What’s with the mask?” he asks.

There’s a wedding band on his left ring finger and cowboy boots below a sagging uniform that would fit a much taller, thicker man.

“Tell me why she’s cursing the dumb Haole in the cop suit,” I say to him.

His jaw falls open but no words come out.

I glance behind me at my brother. “Did she say to break this boy’s knees?”

“She sent you?” the man asks, his forehead lined.

I nod, fold my arms then shake my head at him. “No one can reason with her when she’s like this. You’re a family man, so I’ll try to get you off the island before she snaps. No reason you should die.” I look at his boots. “What is it, Texas?”

“I’m from…”

“Shut up. Let me think.” It’s an uncomfortable show. I don’t really need time to think.

He purses his lips.

I stare at him for a moment. “Here’s your plan. Fly home, get your family and disappear. That’s your best chance.”

His eyes open white all around. “She’s that mad?”

“I haven’t seen her like this before. I’ll take this kid. You need to vanish.”

“How was I supposed to know he’d go straight to the cops?”

“You’re right. There’s no way anyone could have predicted that. But listen, whining won’t help you.” I reach up and fasten a button on his uniform.

His shoulders slump and he tucks his gun away.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Maybe there’s something good I can tell her about you. Got anything?”

He stutters.

I tap his chest with my fingers and hold out an open palm. “Cuffs?”

He takes a key from his pocket, gives it to me, then ducks into the driver’s seat of the Prius. “Tell her thank you,” he says. “My son’s showing signs of empathy.” Tears well up in his eyes.

“Empathy’s good. I’ll give her your message word-for-word. Is your boy getting the I.M. injections?”

“No, I.V. Some DNA thing. I never get it right… Menthol Asian?”

“DNA demethylation,” I suggest.

“Yeah, that’s it.” He squints up trying to find my eyes through the sock I’m wearing.

“Look, just tell her she’s welcome to kill me. Tell her I’ll do it myself, in fact… If she’ll just please, please keep treating my son. That’s all I want. I’ll do anything.”

“Don’t think that way. Suicide would make things worse. For the rest of your son’s life.” I can’t believe I wanted to hurt this poor guy. “Give me your phone number.”

He reads a number off the back of his cell phone.

“Go home,” I tell him. “Get packed. Get ready to run, but wait for my call. I will call you. Whether I can cool her down or not.”

“Thank you.” He reaches out, squeezes my wrist, pushes a button on the car’s dashboard, then rolls a few feet away before the gas engine comes to life and takes him out into the morning traffic.

I turn to James. “Cameras are watching. You don’t know me.”

He chuckles. “You look like a bank robber.”

He seems stable on his feet. “Can you walk?” I ask him.

“Sure,” he says. “The guy kicks like a girl.”

“Why does that dumb remark make me want to hug you?” I move behind him and push him along the sidewalk ahead of me. We walk south for about forty seconds, then take a left into an alley and come out behind the buildings into a parking lot big enough for The Ganga. Ojiichan’s Ford sits behind the police station two buildings to the left. I take the cuffs off James and try to say that we’re about to meet an invisible thinking machine, but he’s not listening.

“You were going to drown yourself,” he says. “I got that feeling back. Where you basically don’t want to be alive.”

“I’m sorry, but you don’t have my permission to kill yourself. You’ve got to put Skullcage on the map and carry on the Fujiwara name.”

“Yeah, I know. I really do know. But it’s just that sometimes…” he looks down, “I really don’t care.”

I gently slap his face. “I don’t want to hear the demons right now.”

He’s a little startled but doesn’t say anything.

“Maxwell and a girl named Vedanshi fished me out of the ocean. They don’t know about my leukemia.”

“There’s got to be some kind of treatment for that,” James says.

“There’s not,” I tell him.

His face is so lost. But only for a moment. Suddenly he’s himself again.

“What just happened there?” I ask him. “In you head.”

He looks up and to his left. “I don’t know.”

“Whatever you just did, it’s the secret to a good life. Try to remember it.”

I tug on his left arm and get him to crouch next to me out of camera’s view beside a parked car. We get flat on our stomachs, just to be sure. Vedanshi’s face appears inches off the ground in the parking space beside us. Her head is detached and floating upside-down with her hair on the asphalt.

“Coast is clear,” she says and vanishes, chin first, hair last.

“That’s Vedanshi,” I say.

“OK, that just happened. We both saw it.” James goes into a dense calm and then comes out of it rubbing his eyes. “She’s hot, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. And she’s inside an invisible machine. We’re going to crawl into it now. Parts of your body will disappear on the way in. No big deal, right?”

“Disappear? Nah… really?”

“Don’t freak out on me. Just go. And don’t stand up for the cameras.”

I push him. He moves forward and disappears as if crawling through invisible UFO hulls was routine to him. Complete confidence. That’s James 24/7. Unless he happens to call you late at night from jail. I follow after him and take my place by Vedanshi. James sits on the other side of Maxwell.

“Tight,” James says looking around at the acorn pattern on the Indian rug. He reaches in front of Maxwell and me to shake Vedanshi’s hand. “I’m James. It’s beyond amazing to meet you. You’re absolutely gorgeous, you know.”

“Thank you.” She blushes and shakes his hand. “I’m Vedanshi, The Role of the Sacred Knowledge.”

“The role of… That’s the meaning of Vedanshi?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“That’s got to be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” James glances at me then thumps Maxwell on the back with an open palm. “Thank you, dude. You look just like your Facebook pictures.” He looks at Vedanshi again. “Thank you both for getting Johanna here to save my ass. I owe you guys… my life, probably. That was one unhappy cop.” James looks at me. “How’d you do that with him?”

“I don’t know, it’s the first time I’ve been that deceitful. I feel like I need to wash my mouth out and take a shower.” I peel the sock off my face, pull it up off my head, then look at Vedanshi. “What do you make of DNA demethylation to treat autism? Could you hear him at all?”

“Every word,” she says. “In the River I’ve noticed the old woman likes to mull over the language of a virus she seems to associate with Autism. It methylates DNA. Epigenetics, you would probably call it.” The Ganga rises ten feet with no tells on Vedanshi’s face. “Would all of you like to stay at my place tonight? It’s not really mine, but… Well, it sort of is now.” She smiles but her eyes are distant.

“Definitely,” James says.

Maxwell nods and I say I’ll do anything that doesn’t involve the old woman. But actually I’m worried about the guy I sent home. And his autistic son. What have I done? I should probably call the old lady and fix this.

“I don’t guess we can do a noodle run in this thing,” James says. “I’m starving.”

“I’ve got veggies in the garden,” Vedanshi says. “Things are growing.” She notices the bra on the rug beside her legs and sneaks it through the deck beyond the edge of the carpet. “James,” she says with a glint, “lean forward as far as you can and look down.”

“Don’t do it,” I tell him.

He leans forward and as the parking lot shrinks out of sight and the Hawaiian Islands zip down to dots in the Pacific Ocean, he calmly says, “Jeepers, Mrs. Cleaver.”

I shake my head.

“You were supposed to be startled and impressed,” Vedanshi says.

“I am.” He draws a deep breath and lets it out with a whisper, “God, I hope this isn’t a dream.”

“It’s not,” Maxwell says, as South America rushes toward us and an island off the coast of Chile and Peru comes closer.

easter_island_map

“Rapa Nui,” I say as the island’s triangular shape evolves beneath a flock of small cumulus clouds.

isla-de-pascua (1)

I know Vedanshi is not Mahani Teave, but why is she taking us to Easter Island?

We descend and the ancient Moai give us palpable respect as though they’d been waiting eons to greet us.

Moai_Statues_Easter_Island_10

The southern end of the island comes close, but we move past it, beyond the two tiny rock islands and into the crystal water. With the hull cloaked we’re gliding forward under the ocean in a saucer-shaped bubble. Visibility is sixty-five feet plus.

“Vedanshi,” James says, “I’m sixteen. How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” she says, “not counting quantum stasis.”

James grins at Maxwell. “If this is a dream, buddy, I’m going to be pissed at you.”

They both laugh as we head straight at a rock wall without slowing.

…

M. Talmage Moorehead

…

Yo…

If you want, please read this story from page one (beginning with Johanna’s unorthodox prologue). It starts here.

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Talmage

River of Consciousness (Chapter 4) “Hapa Girl DNA”

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I’m shivering inside a UFO.

The ceiling slopes down like a Chinese rice hat to the floor. A red band encircles the room where the ceiling meets the deck. The three of us look awkward – Maxwell, me and the girl who could almost be Mahani Teave.

I missed her name when she said it.

I see codes of consciousness when I blink. Ones and zeros.

I know them as doubly-even self-dual linear binary error-correcting block codes.

They were discovered by a theoretical physicist: S. James Gates, Jr., Ph.D.

S. JAMES GATES JR.

This is my favorite picture of him: The founding father and pilgrim of string theory’s DNA. History will place him beside Einstein if rational minds prevail.

Biological DNA also has error correction: A higher mind showing cells how to build nanotech machines to fix DNA screwups. Things like replication errors and the mutations we worshiped in undergrad bio.

But the “illusion of consciousness” is the delusion of flatlanders. Conscious awareness is central to digital physics and independently real.

We are not alone.

We’re side by side on a soft Indian rug. The girl’s legs are crossed yoga style now with the tops of her toes flat against the opposite thighs.

“I didn’t hear your name,” I confess to her.

“I am Vedanshi,” she says, beaming. “The Role of the Sacred Knowledge.” Her expression reminds me of Luciano Pavarotti after an aria.

pavarotti

I was twelve when God’s angel died. I will always love him.

Maxwell’s face is blank. He risked everything for me.

“You both saved my life,” I tell them and lean against Maxwell’s wet shoulder. “Thank you.”

Even if leukemia has its way now.

“Cloaking,” Vedanshi whispers, and the red band fades from around us, the walls vanish, and we’re floating on a rug twenty feet above the ocean.

I see my boots on the jetty next to Maxwell’s jacket. I should feel the sea air, but I don’t. The ocean butts the jetty and climbs its rough boulders, but I can’t hear it.

“I need a mirror,” Maxwell mumbles.

“No you don’t. You look marvelous.” I fake an Italian accent, “Shake your hair, darling… such as it is.”

His eyebrows may have moved. I’m not sure.

“Don’t panic,” I tell him. “All your great pianists fly UFO’s.”

Vedanshi grins and the sun breaks. An orange bead on a hilltop.

Maxwell’s vacant eyes find me. He says nothing.

“I heard the phone call,” Vedanshi says. “I know what the old woman is doing.”

“Purchasing my soul?” I suggest.

Vedanshi nods. “Let’s get your things.”

The Jetty is beneath us but I didn’t feel us move. My boots are inches from my feet. I lean forward and reach but my knuckles hit an invisible deck.

“Sorry,” Vedanshi says crinkling her nose. “Try again.”

I reach down and pick up Ojiichan’s chopsticks, grab my boots, then get Maxwell’s jacket and lay it in midair beside his wet legs that stick out past the edge of the carpet and rest on nothing. A little reluctantly, I snag his ugly climbing shoes, bring them in and smell the rubber.

He watches from a trance.

“Snap out of it,” I tell him. “You seem shroomed.”

“It’s a psychotic break,” he mumbles.

“You haven’t turned idiot,” Vedanshi assures him. “There’s a small mirror I can loan you, but I want it back.” She reaches into the side pocket of the purple robe she gave me, pulls out a square purse, opens it and extracts a round mirror the size of a silver dollar. On the back is an engraving of a woman’s face. Lazar quality. She’s wearing a crown and triangular earrings that float beside her earlobes.

Vivid dreamers know how mirror images lag in dreamland. Maxwell is probably a gifted dreamer and wants to test the reality of this place. I can’t blame him. It’s weird.

In the past I’ve tested with mirrors, but I’ve found they’re harder to track down than bathrooms – in dreams, I mean.

Rule of thumb: If there’s a mirror, you’re not dreaming. You’re totally sitting in a classroom naked.

“We should leave,” Vedanshi says. “She’s coming. I don’t want her to discover me.”

With the sun up, Vedanshi’s white blouse is orange and short. It leaves an inch of skin above tiny-waisted harem pants. She either works out or never eats… or has issues with her thyroid.

“You two may want to close your eyes,” she says as the Jetty drops and the mouth of the Columbia River shrinks into a falling coastline.

The horizon rounds down and the Earth becomes smooth and blue to white on the sun’s side.

There was no lurch of engines, no whiplash, not even a hiss of wind.

I glance at the sun and get dots following my eyes. Canada is endless. The overhead is black and radiant with stars. The swath of glowing velvet is an edge-on look across a spiral galaxy.

This is the “near space” I’ve read about, but it feels nearer to Heaven. I’m overcome with affection for our magnificent little round home. She’s cute, miraculously great but humble. Wise and still innocent.

This is warmth I’d never imagined.

I grip it the way James’ therapist says – holding bliss in a 30-second headlock to myelinate the neurons of joy.

Listen now. Happiness is a skill, like training your fingers to do three-against-four on Chopin’s Fantasy Impromptu in C# minor. Or figuring out how to sing with vibrato as a child, then spending the rest of your life trying to forget.

Craning at the most numerous Seven Sisters in captivity, I lose my balance and grab the front of the carpet to avoid Revelation’s fall from Heaven to Earth.

M45, the Pleiades Cluster (92mm 5DII)

“My ship believes she’s twelve thousand years old,” Vedanshi says. “Her name is The Ganga.” Vedanshi looks at the rug and seems to talk to it. “Anyone can speculate about axial precession.”

Maxwell touches the mirror’s edges only, holding them with thumb and finger. He seems dissociative the way he’s checked out.

“So you’re from Earth?” I ask Vedanshi.

“Of course.”

“Well, you never know. You crashed the party in a UFO.”

“Yes,” she says, but shakes her head, no. “I’ve seen UFO’s on your internet but I don’t know if they’re real. We didn’t have them in my day, and I was never old enough for the talk.” She taps her knees to put quotation marks around, “the talk.”

“What’s ‘the talk’?”

Her brow furrows at Maxwell spinning her mirror, but she lets it go. “In my day, when you turned 18 you got ‘the talk’ from your parents. It was about free will – or so they said. But I could tell there was more. When I was in pyramid triage for the river – a test to identify pilots – I made friends with a girl whose big sister got ‘the talk’ and then started whispering to shooting stars. She wasn’t loopy before that, supposedly.”

Below us to the south, bright sheets of white flash over Mexico and red sprites blink over the clouds.

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“What would make anyone whisper to a meteor?” I ask.

“Aliens?” Vedanshi shrugs. “We heard strange voices in the river before the asteroids hit. I still wonder if they were real – you know – literal words that The Ganga somehow couldn’t interpret. It’s doubtful. Her linguistics are advanced. But why would anyone subvocalize nonsense in the river?”

 Glossolalia, I don’t know. I look at Maxwell. “This is no ordinary UFO!”

No response.

Vedanshi nods solemnly. “The Ganga taught me English – which didn’t exist for us four months ago.”

Maxwell is mouth breathing. That’s the last straw. I lean over and kiss the side of his face. It’s salty. “Buck up, soldier. You’re making me worry.”

“Sorry,” he says and shakes the cobwebs.

That was the first time I’ve kissed a guy. True, I was raped once, but no kissing. I was eleven.

“You’re from Earth,” I remind Vedanshi. “So where did you get this thinking machine?”

“They did it on purpose,” she says, then draws an expansive breath. “I should back up. The very oldest ships had accidents. Their non-locality buffers got out of sync with the gravity lifts sometimes. So for an instant you had movement during the nonlocal swap.”

I nod.

Maxwell leans back on his hands. “You lost me.”

“Anything using quantum non-locality has to be nailed down,” she says. “So it’s motionless to the buffers. But the primitive ships shifted structurally – at nearly the speed of light if it happened with the horizons burning.” She searches Maxwell’s face. “Nonlocal point swapping horizons?”

He squints. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“High subluminal velocities turn nanoseconds into thousands of years,” she explains.

“It’s special relativity’s version of stasis,” I tell him. “Slows your clock.”

Maxwell smirks.

“You’re never heard from again,” Vedanshi says. “Unless you’re lucky enough to wind up in this post-cataclysmic dystopia.” She looks down at the Earth with a half-smile. “The old woman came from the first part of my era, I think. I finally saw her vehicle. It’s phallic, which is retro. And it has to be early because every thought gets out.”

“Every thought? What do you mean?” I ask.

“The river?” Vedanshi asks me back.

Maxwell and I shake our heads. I hate to admit when I’m lost.

“The fundamental unit of reality is consciousness,” she says, “not matter, energy or space. They’re derivative. Pilots use the river of consciousness to communicate with ships and other pilots. I don’t know why we call it a river, it’s more like a sea, or the pixels of an infinite hologram.”

“Now that I can understand,” I tell her.

“In the earliest vessels privacy filters didn’t exist. The old woman’s ship must be dangerously ancient because I hear every word she thinks. I’ve even seen a few cortical images from her occipital lobes.”

I feel my heart racing. This is the mother lode everyone dreams of. I wish I had longer to live.

“A few months ago,” Vedanshi says, “I heard the woman thinking about a young geneticist who manipulates terabytes of base-pair language in her head with no implants. Totally impossible. My mother’s best women with cortical enhancements couldn’t hold a ten-thousandth of that in working memory, let alone juggle it. So I had to meet you, Johanna. Because, as you say, you never know.” She puts her hands together yoga style and bows her head like Ojiichan did in his Temple. “This morning I heard the woman threatening to kidnap your brother. Then you went off to drown yourself. I sort of panicked trying to find you.”

“So… you can hear phone calls?” Maxwell asks.

“The woman was inside her ship,” Vedanshi says.

“Yeah, she was in her ship, Max. Keep up.” I scowl warmly.

He gives me a hint of a grin.

“You have to master the river of consciousness before you pilot,” Vedanshi says. “Pilots are born with an extra gyrus on their parietal lobes, but the phenotype is no guarantee you’ll make it.”

Einstein had a parietal lobe anomaly. Suddenly I want an MRI.

“You said 2015 is a post-cataclysmic dystopia,” Maxwell says.

Vedanshi nods. “We’re probably six to twelve thousand years into it. There are four in recorded history.” She pats the rug beside her.

“The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” I hear myself saying, and the verses open in my mind.

“Your unique feature is the loss of ancient records,” Vedanshi says. “From what I’ve read, your scholars get things backwards. The Grand Canyon took millions of years and the pyramids took twenty. I don’t see how anyone with eyes could believe that.”

“What ended your era, a comet? A flood?”

“A series of asteroids,” Vedanshi says. “The small stragglers landed near Madagascar and left beautiful deposits.”

The Earth rotates beneath us. Africa comes around with Madagascar to the east.

“This is the best one,” she says, pointing down. “See the feathers? It’s like a bird’s wing.”

MadChevrons 2

I’ve seen these before. To me it’s like someone dumped soapy water in the dirt. This one’s several miles long.

“Geologists say these were made by the wind,” I tell her.

“Not true.”

“What, then?”

“This is a piece of the Earth that broke free when one of the smaller asteroids hit. I saw it happen. It flew through the air at thousands of miles an hour. It came from the seabed over there.” She points east to a spot in the Indian Ocean where I’ve read there’s a crater. “This piece flew out at a low angle, glowing like lava with a tail of smoke and steam. The trees exploded when it hit. It was fluid, colloidal, and flowed into this nice winglike shape. A small tsunami crept up a bit later but couldn’t wash it away. Unlike the previous day’s waves that razed everything.”

“The asteroids didn’t hit in one day?” I ask.

“No. The big ones came on the first day. A few smaller ones hit that night, and the tiny one that did this artwork touched down at sunrise. It might have been the last one, but…”

“So… Wait now. Are you saying the bigger asteroids made tsunamis that washed away their own impact deposits?”

“Yes, on day one. But I don’t think you’d call them tsunamis. They weren’t like Japan’s waves on the internet.”

“What was different?”

“They were huge. They moved like life forms – boiling over the continents without slowing down. Each one would start as part of an impact explosion and spread out in a circle with the circumference increasing until it matched the circumference of the Earth. Then it moved on around and the circumference shrank, keeping its power about the same until it narrowed down to a point and crashed into itself on the opposite side of the Earth. There was lightning and the loudest thunder. Water and debris shot up miles into the air. The big ones smoothed out everything in their paths, including their own ejection deposits. Later when things settled down and the small asteroids began to land, their water action looked more like Japan’s tsunamis. They were too weak to clear their deposits for the most part.” She looks down at the ground. “But if you really look, you can see shadows where some of them were washed away, too. Over there.” She points inland. “It’s like a stain.”

The Ganga moves closer.

chevron tilt

I kind of see what she’s talking about in the distance. But the wing chevron is impressive down here.

“Max, I’ve read that it’s six hundred feet thick at the edges.” I point to the wingtip.

“Looks pretty flat.” He tilts his head to look down my arm, and I point again. His buzz cut brushes my temple. His collar is wet.

“Take off that shirt and put your coat on,” I tell him.

He grunts.

The Ganga moves lower, as if to show us the height of the wingtips. Maxwell whistles when we come down over the lip and really see one of these things edge-on.

Ancient Mysteries

He’s twenty-five. When we first met a few months ago he introduced himself as an aging surfer. So he’s probably not cold at all in his wet clothes. The bum.

I jab at him with an elbow.

He ignores it.

A cell phone starts a weak rendition of “Surfer Girl” and Maxwell digs it out of his coat, sees the number, then hands it to me. “It’s James,” he says.

I put it on speaker by habit. “James, are you alright?”

“That guy I rammed was a cop. I don’t know where they’re planning to take me, but he’s filling out a bunch of paperwork and sounds extremely pissed off. He’s got handcuffs. I hate those things.”

“Where are you?”

“He’s taking… He took my phone.” The connection goes dead.

I look at Vedanshi. “A cop in a Prius? I doubt it.”

She takes Maxwell’s phone, places it on the rug in front of her. The Earth drops like a lead ball from a bomb bay. We streak through white haze and across a blur of blue ocean. A glimpse of land flashes by and our impossible speed turns to a dead stop without making us even bob our heads. We’re fifteen feet off the ground in front of a police station in Honolulu.

James stumbles out with his hands cuffed back and the Haole pseudo-cop shoving him. The man kicks James’ legs and knocks him off the curve to the ground.

“Let me out,” I tell Vedanshi. “I’m going to hurt that man.” I feel the cold DNA of my ancestor, Shinmen Musashi-no-Kami Fujiwara no Genshin, the greatest and by far the deadliest samurai who ever walked the Earth.

I was eleven when I strangled a male adolescent chimpanzee with my bare hands. It’s the same feeling now.

…

M. Talmage Moorehead

…

Yo…

If you want, please read this story from page one (beginning with Johanna’s unorthodox prologue). It starts here.

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Thanks, I appreciate your generous help. 🙂

Talmage