Dead as a solitaire

 

The dodo, the passanger pigeon and the great auk are three almost iconic extinct birds. Inevitably, some people claim to have seen them after they officially traversed to the proverbial hunting grounds. 

Also as usual, some of the reports are more difficult to believe than others. For instance, a report of a living dodo in Zambia?! Hint: the dodo was a flightless bird living on the island of Mauritius. Zambia is a landlocked country in South-Central Africa. But even that pales when compared to an alleged video of a dodo in...Costa Rica. Yeaaah. 

My "favorite" is the Canadian whiskey distiller who tricked the media to a marketing event on the Orkney Islands, claiming to finance an expedition looking for surviving great auks. The runner up is the bizarre story of penguins on the run in Norway being mistaken for said auks. Is that even true, or an April Fool´s joke?

Interestingly, Teddy Roosevelt believed that he spotted passanger pigeons seven years after the species supposedly disappeared. So TR *did* have some kind of cryptid connection. The usually trigger happy rough rider decided not to shoot them. Later sightings are probably misidentified mourning doves or bizarre specimens of domestic pigeons on the run.

A very entertaining video, all in all.    

Theory of anything

 

Well, some people have interesting hobbies, I suppose...

The New Age has never been so boring

 

"The Celestine Prophecy" is a 2006 film, based on James Redfield´s blockbuster book of the same name from 1993. I haven´t read the novel and its sequels for decades, but I didn´t like them when I did. But then, I wasn´t particularly "spiritual" at the time, nor have I ever been attracted by the New Age. After watching the film, I have to say that the New Age has never been so boring! 

In contrast to Redfield´s novels, the film tanked at the box office. It has very little plot development or real suspense (despite the heroes being chased by the military half of the time!). Above all, it´s probably incomprehensible unless you alreday read the original novel, or is very immersed into a New Age worldview. The underlying concept (at least as presented in the film) doesn´t make any sense either: why would the Catholic Church, the Peruvian military and the US Deep State be chasing a bunch of naïve spiritual types who just want to "open up" and feel the "flow"? The New Age message doesn´t threaten the establishment, indeed it has *become* the establishment! 

Another peculiar feature of the message of the Celestine Prophecy is the way it blends trivial pop psychology about interpersonal relations with a grand perspective of spiritual evolution towards the Divine, an evolution which seems to include magic, the unification of all the world´s religions, and so on. The main insight is that the world is bad because of the inability of humans to "open up" to the "energy", which is available in super-abundance. And while the film doesn´t preach a simplistic prosperity gospel, I think it´s obvious that the New Age can (and have) been given this spin. This in turn is connected to the evolutionary perspective, with its constant progression upwards. This may have been easy to believe in 1993, less so in 2006, and absolutely not in 2022. 

Perhaps the real "insight" to be gained here, is that the Age of Aquarius have been cancelled, and that we can´t just all "open up"...  

The raptors are coming home to roost

So I just finished (re)watching "Jurassic Park", the original film from 1993. Surprisingly enough, it still works after all these years. In fact, I considered it more cringey the first few times I watched it! Not sure what changed. The nostalgia factor? Hormone levels, or what? 

The fabolous special effects (ahem, those raptors *are* fake, right?) are the main reason why the production still looks state-of-the-art. A funny detail is that the toys and other merch shown in "Jurassic Park" are real. Some angry reviewers even complained about it at the time! I assume this was the first time film-related merchandize was shown as part of the actual film? Perhaps it´s ironic that a commercial production has an anti-corporate message, but there you go. And speaking of that message...

While liberal Green anti-science/anti-capitalism is an old trope, it doesn´t feel *as* tired today as it may have done back in 1993 (when all of us, except maybe Dave Foreman, still believed in Progress, be it Capitalist or Real Socialism). Today, I must say that the quasi-philosophy of "Jurassic Park" suddenly felt more relevant than ever. No, we can´t control Nature, Life or a pack of de-extinct jumbo-sized Sauropsida. Heck, we can hardly control ourselves! The "Jurassic" theme park at Isla Nublar is a good metaphor for our megalomaniacal hopes and dreams that of course we can solve everything by gene manipulation, fusion power, "electrification", vaccines or what have you. The raptors are coming home to roost. 

That being said, "Jurassic Park" also has its problems. The most obvious is the typical Hollywood hypocrisy concerning gender issues. Sure, the film contains a few attacks on sexism, while actually being extremely sexist. Why does the female scientist show skin all the time? And why is the geeky girl hysterically screaming about as often? Right. 

And yes, the raptors are really Deinonychi, but you knew that already. 

It´s been an interesting 28 years... 

Waking up from dreamless sleep

Dharma Bodhi of TMY (a Tantric group led by himself) lectures on the differences between Advaita Vedanta and Tantrism. Or perhaps "classical" Advaita, since Dharma believes that the advaitin current has changed a lot over the centuries, certainly in modern times, for instance by incorporating more and more "Tantric" practices. Indeed, one Advaita ashram actually invited *him* to teach them Tantric yoga practices. 

In the classical version, everything is Brahman, and everything seemingly not Brahman is Maya or illusion. I suppose you *could* see it that way, but traditional Advaita went further and argued that Brahman is unconscious and inert. There is no "Shakti", no creative energy with which Brahman manifests the world...or the illusion! This raises a lot of awkward questions, covered in the YouTube clip above. One objection that came to my mind (or is it illusory non-mind) long ago is that Advaita suggests that the Divine is imperfect, since the only thing it can "create" (or dream up?) is samsara with all its death and suffering. That´s imperfect even if we assume that it´s only an illusion. Why can´t Brahman dream about a perfect world? 

Dharma points out that although Advaita is "non-dual" (monist), there is nevertheless a tacit dualism in the system between Brahman and Maya, since the former seems to be in a permanent state of unconsciousness, while Maya is busy creating the illusion (including the illusion of consciousness). Doesn´t this in effect make Maya into a second "divine" principle? Meditation is difficult explaining using these metaphysics, since the human mind meditating is also part of Maya, yet advaitins are supposed to meditate (at least in some versions of the teaching). More commonsensically, Dharma just points out that it´s patently absurd to assume that there is no reality to what we see and experience around us: it´s almost a sociopathology. He believes that many Advaita groups are really cults, since nobody can really check whether or not the guru (or the students) have "attained" anything, the whole thing quickly devolving into taking his word for it, giving the teacher unlimited power over his acolytes. The idea that nothing is real can also lead to spiritual seekers dropping out, refusing to engage with the "illusory" world in any meaningful fashion. 

More benign Advaita groups try to reach sudden and instant enlightenment by studying Shankara´s scriptures and various commentaries, giving the groups a "bookish" and intellectual feel. Still others give detailed instructions on how to meditate, the goal being to reach a state identical to dreamless sleep, during which you are conscious of nothing at all (there actually is such a teacher elsewhere on YouTube, Swami Tadatmananda). In Dharma´s opinion, this isn´t an accomplishment or realization at all. It´s not even particularly difficult to do. Animals do it all the time. 

Dharma´s alternative view sounds like a mixture of Vajrayana and Shaivism, but then, some scholars argue that Vajrayana *is* a form of non-dual Shaivism in Tibeto-Buddhist garbs. The manifested world isn´t absolutely real, but it has a relative reality, like a mirror image. We are deluded as to our true nature (Shiva-Shakti), but a delusion isn´t the same thing as an outright illusion. When we realize our basic identity with Shiva-Shakti, we dissolve into rainbow light ("the rainbow body"). Maya is a creatrix, not a negative power - I get the impression that in TMY´s system, "Maya" is really the Shakti.

Another interesting piece of information is that Shankara was cast as a Tantrika by later generations, and that there are even Tantric texts attributed to him! 

One thing that struck me when listening to Dharma´s presentations on this channel is that TMY claims to be a non-theist or a-theist system, yet there conception of Base (the ground of reality) sounds theist. The ground is said to be a *sentient* open spatiousness. It´s also consciousness conscious of itself through itself. But if this is the most basic nature of the cosmos, how on earth can it *not* be God? In some other clips, Base is said to have two characteristics, Compassion and Freedom. But only a personal god can feel compassion or understand freedom. Perhaps TMY has a very narrow definition of theism? As in: God is a 8-year old cowherd playing on a flute for a girlfriend too old for him? (Yes, that would be Krishna and Radha. And no, I don´t believe that either, although I suppose it would make the universe even more "Tantric" than it already is!)

With that little comment, I close this presentation.

Under the yew tree

 

Dharma Bodhi (Kol Martens) from Trika Mahasiddha Yoga (TMY) explains the place of drugs (as in narcotics) on the spiritual path. I previously linked to a longer discussion on the same topic by Dharma. 

The short form is that TMY doesn´t generally recommend psychedelic drugs to spiritual practitioners. Today, they often lead seekers astray and make them permanently stuck in "the god realm", by which Dharma means the world of the devas, here interpreted in Buddhist fashion as vain demi-gods who don´t realize their own mortality. I assume he means that they are metaphorically stuck in this realm already in this life. Or as Dharma puts it: "You are just high"!

However, drugs can be of some use if somebody has gotten completely stuck on the spiritual path for years. They don´t help the practitioner to become enlightened, but strong experiences of a supernatural dimension can motivate him to continue his sadhana (day to day yogic practice). 

Dharma Bodhi also discusses various related topics, such as how to achieve shaktipata, by which I assume he means enlightenment through divine grace. In this system, it seems that you can´t get the grace through an electric-like transmission from a guru, but only by your own efforts until one day the shaktipata hits you like a thunderbolt. Gurus who claim to be able to transmit shaktipata person to person are just cult leaders, and the ultimate cultist of them all was Franklin Jones who claimed that you could get the grace simply by being present at his satsangs. I think Dharma sees a similarity between this electric stuff and the idea that really potent psychedelics can be a substitute for sadhana. 

On a lesser note, he mentions how to prepare drugs for consumption. I´m not sure of this stuff, so please don´t try it at home, but supposedly you can give poisonous mushrooms to dogs, and then drink their urine! Sitting underneath a yew tree also produces quite some effect, apparently, so you don´t actually have to consume any part of it directly. The idea of a buddha achieving enlightenment under a yew tree does have a certain intrinsic appeal, so please remember that you can´t! Completely in passing, Dharma also claims that he trained with the Aghori...

Ahem, come again?

The most funny proposal in the clip is the claim that all world leaders should get together and take psychotropic drugs, and then this planet would actually become much better! This reminded me of the Taliban trolling Joe Biden with ice cream, but OK, maybe I just have a bad sense of humor.

Nothing in this blog post should be taken as medical advice, or indeed any kind of advice whatsoever. 

Eat more mushrooms

Dharma Bodhi is an American spiritual teacher living in Costa Rica. His group is called Trika Mahasiddha Yoga (TMY). It seems to combine ideas from several different traditions, but Vajrayana is definitely an important part of the mix. The goal of TMY practices is the attainment of a "light body" or "rainbow body".

The clip above is a three-hour long Q & A session with Bodhi. It covers a wide variety of more or less peculiar topics. Here is a sample... 

Ayurveda has been "transcendentalized" and its modern form is too influenced by Buddhism. It´s too obsessed with veganism or vegetarianism. In reality, there is nothing wrong with hunting or meat-eating. Indeed, vegetables are frequently toxic! Nor is there anything bad about mushrooms. Daoist sages eat them all the time. More physical exercise is also necessary. Dalai Lama is a meat-eater. Bodhi knows this because a "Vedic ritual master" he befriended once saw Dalai Lama eating a huge steak during an official visit to Australia!  

There is no "evolution" á la Aurobindo. This world or level of existence will always look like is does right now. Spiritual development is possible, but not the Messianic-millenarian progressive evolution of the New Age (Age of Aquarius), Aurobindo or Theosophy. The latter is just an interesting fairy tale and doesn´t leed to liberation.

Yogi Bhajan´s version of kundalini hatha yoga is crazy. Most of Bhajan´s devotees were former drug addicts from LA or Phoenix, which may have led Bhajan to over-emphasize a rather heavy handed form of "purification". Prana disease is a real thing, often makes you completely spaced out, cultish and kookish.

In order to know your "nadi" (life goal), you have to consult a competent Hindu astrologer. You can´t become "anything you want" (or think you want). Self-help teacher Tony Robbins is a jerk. 

"Tantric meditation" is mostly prostitution at this point. Neo-Tantrists are only in it for the sex. Their practices can also trigger trance states and visions, but these are not the same thing as real enlightenment. Before you develop the first three chakras, you have to develop the Ajna Chakra (the sixth chakra) and train your physical body. 

How do you transform lust? Yes, here comes some really weird Tantrika stuff. Apparently, you can do it while masturbating or orgasming with a partner, whoa!

Should you buy a cat to kill mice in your kitchen? (Yes.) Is it OK to sleep in the same bed as your pets? (No.) 

SJWs are hell-realm beings screwing up their spiritual development.

Reicarnation. Where you are now, you were in a previous life! You were more or less the same person, hanging out with more or less the same crowd as now (your "spiritual haplogroup"). You had pretty much the same problems, too. That´s karma for you, buddy. TMY don´t work with previous lives, since it´s pointless anyway. 

TMY´s teachings have already been stolen by unauthorized teachers, so Bodhi isn´t revealing everything in his public broadcasts. Especially not his take on kundalini.

Most shamans don´t know how to attain the "light body". The sole exception might be the East Coast Cherokee, but they are keeping very quiet about it. Bodhi knows that the Hawaiian shamans no longer know the secret, since he trained with them. 

Eat more mushrooms. 

 

Tantric psychedelics

Above I link to two YouTube clips featuring Dharma Bodhi from Trika Mahasiddha Yoga, a Tantric group based in the jungles of Costa Rica (sic). Mr Bodhi seems to be American, however. The practices of this particular group are said to be inspired by Vajrayana, Bön and Trika (Kashmir Shaivism), but perhaps with their own twists and turns. Dharma Bodhi is planning to write a book about his system. Meanwhile, we can follow him on this channel and on Facebook. And no, he doesn´t like Franklin Jones! 

The two clips linked to above are about psychedelic drugs and their uses in spirituality. What I found interesting is that Mahasiddha Yoga doesn´t completely reject the use of psilocybin, soma and other hallucinogenic drugs. They *can* play a positive role: as an eye-opener to spiritual realities for atheists, or a reminder of their existence for true believers. Indeed, the narrator believes that the taking of such drugs played an important role in the ancient community rituals of many cultures. Psychedelics can also play a therapeutic role. Finally, they can even be used in Tantric meditation - some of the examples given sound, frankly, crazy! Imagine meditating in a closed room filled with hash smoke, hash leaves, hash, hash, hash...not even a hippie would do this... 

Ultimately, however, psychotropic drugs cannot lead to enlightenment, or non-dual consciousness of the Base ("Base" seems to be the name used for the Divine in this system). If you really want to reach the Base and abide in it, more "regular" methods of meditation are needed. That answer was unsurprising, but on the web, it´s usually an either-or proposition. You either think everything you see during a DMT trip is literally true (and literally Divine), or you reject psychedelics completely. It´s a bit ironic that it takes a Tantrika group to stake out the middle ground on an issue like this one! 

Swallows of Costa Brava

A review of "The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide" by Garrigues & Dean

This is a field guide to the birds of Costa Rica, a Central American nation. It's intended to as a complement to an older book by two different authors, “A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica” by Gary Stiles and Alexander Skutch. That book is apparently too heavy to bring out on the field, hence this volume. However, Garrigues & Dean still recommend Styles & Skutch for more in-depth information on the Costa Rican birds.

Note that this book exists in two slightly different editions. The second edition is more complete. It illustrates more bird species, and also includes the avifauna of Cocos Island, a Pacific island controlled by the Costa Rican government. The field guide is unusual in the sense that it doesn't follow the standard systematic order, but instead places similar-looking birds in the same section. Thus, swallows and swifts (which are not closely related) are placed together. I'm not sure if this is good or bad…

I never visited Costa Rica, instead spending some hours at a Nicaraguan airport only months after the Sandinista revolution. But that's another story, even besides from the fact that I didn't see any swallows. Or swifts, for that matter.

Shepherding the sharks

"Sharkwater" is a fascinating Canadian documentary featuring the scuba diver Rob Stewart and the controversial environmentalist activist Paul Watson, the leader of the Sea Shepherd organization. Together, Stewart and Watson want to save - wait for it - the sharks!

I've heard of people who want to save whales or dolphins, but this is the first time I encounter people who actually want to save sharks. I didn't even know sharks were particularly threatened. Shark the hunter, man the hunted, right?

Not so, according to "Sharkwater". 90% of the shark population is already gone, and several species are threatened with extinction, including the peaceful whale shark (the world's largest fish). The documentary even claims that the complete extinction of sharks might affect the global climate, since shark predation stops other fish from overconsuming plankton. And plankton is necessary to keep the climate in balance.

I'm not sure if I buy that particular argument, or the claim that most sharks are pretty harmless to humans, but it's pretty clear from the documentary that all sharks are threatened by overfishing from the absurd shark finning industry. Conservations efforts are hampered by a variety of factors: shark fin soup and other shark-derived products are part of East Asian culture, the oceans are difficult to control, and many people don't like sharks anyway!

The most interesting part of "Sharkwater" features Paul Watson and his notorious activist group Sea Shepherd. I've heard of Sea Shepherd already 25 years ago, when they were literally attacking whaling ships in Iceland and Norway. Sea Shepherd has always been considered a dangerous extremist group.

Or so I imagined.

In "Sharkwater", Sea Shepherd is actually invited by the president of Costa Rica to protect the Cocos Island from poachers. However, as Watson and his ship approaches Costa Rica, something goes dangerously wrong. The local authorities in the coastal town of Puntarenas suddenly turn coat and start prosecuting Sea Shepherd, placing the entire crew in house arrest! Stewart goes AWOL and soon discovers what's going on: the Taiwanese mafia controls large and illegal shark finning facilities in the town, complete with secret ports. Here we have another and more disturbing reason why conservation efforts fail: sheer corruption. The mobsters presumably bought off the courts in Puntarenas, making sure they turn against Sea Shepherd.

Watson, Stewart and the other activists see no other choice than to leave Costa Rica as fast as possible, which they also manage to do under dramatic circumstances, the Sea Shepherd ship being chased by the coast guard. Instead, they set sail to the Galapagos Islands, where they are on friendly terms with the local authorities (!). Undaunted, Stewart decides to go back to Costa Rica in secret, and even sneeks into Puntarenas where the people have started to protest against the Taiwanese mafia and their illegal activities. Taking advantage of the chaos, Stewart finally manages to visit the elusive Cocos Island, where he can be alone with his beloved sharks...

"Sharkwater" does get a bit too romantic for my taste at times, but it's nevertheless one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. Indeed, it often comes close to being an adventure or action movie. To some extent, it's also a propaganda movie for the Sea Shepherd organization. Indeed, this is the film's weakest point, since Paul Watson turns out to be a misanthrope who apparently thinks sharks are better than primates (i.e. us). Perhaps when the sharks are safe and sound, we could feed this man to them? Still, I admit that these guys and their chases make great television!

Five stars.

Where on earth are the sharks?

The shark on the photo has no connection to the book under review

The book "Sharkwater" is a companion to the documentary of the same name, also available from Amazon. The movie "Sharkwater" is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen, and it has received a lot of awards at various international film festivals. The movie follows the controversial action group Sea Shepherd as they try to save sharks from poachers in Costa Rica and the Galapagos. It also contains splendid footage of sharks.

I had expected the book to be pretty much the same. Sure, the photos are (mostly) excellent. Most are in colour. But where on earth are the sharks???

I'd say only about 10% of the photos in the book version show sharks. Instead, we are treated to pictures of starfish, jellyfish, barracudas, seals, iguanas and the Sea Shepherd crew. All very interesting, to be sure, but I wanted more hammerheads and whale sharks! Not to mention our old friend (and Spielberg's nemesis), the Great White. In that sense, the book was something of a disappointment.

Still, since the photos aren't bad, I nevertheless give "Sharkwater" four stars. But I prefer the movie documentary.