2:1 - Wherefore are the Kings of thy nations, those who allege rulership over other Men, just as these same Men do allege rulership over the beasts of the land and the trees of the forest? Wherefore are the High Priests of thy wretched temples, who mock the birds of the air, or the misers, the moneylenders, who hoard all the precious gems and fine metals? Not a one of these worked for earnest betterment of their fellow man, and so it is they have vanished from the earth, gone below into the Pit that is the Dragon's Maw, and their souls given to my cruelest and most cunning daughter, and in wrath did she Judge. Know thee now righteous fear at last? Now, in the claws of the Black Lioness, She: my most clever and carnivorus daughter, that Mistress-of-Ashes, whose name Men know as Annhilation?
2:2 - And lo! see how others now arisen come to take their place...Will they recall their forerunners whose labours were beyond measure? Nay. This is the land where man wages war forever on his kinsmen without worthy cause, over and again. They do not learn even when my Laws have been set in the foundations of the world's beginning and although they may be allowed to bend, only my by hand can they be broken.
2:3 - See now how this land is burnt down? The souls are gathered as wheat from harvest and facing up like their forefathers did to that snarling visage of the Lioness, my daughter: the Lady-of-the-Crowns, Anaretar! whose eyes are lightning and whose roar is thunder, before which such wicked souls are stricken dumb, deaf, blind. Before her they know not how to atone; so it is that they are all of them eternally Damned.

"At the background of the Cosmos are the eternally spinning spheres of the Dau-Dei, expressed in the World as the primordial twins, as the Ensifera -- Sword-Bearer. Forever do they dance in perfect discord, and constantly they are at play as the life-breath of Creation. Therefore the Ensifera is not any special person, not confined to any specific country, race nor by any border. This is the highest secret of the Metaphysique, and it is full of science. In the formula of the Twins, the primeval human is qualified by the same quality as the God."

"The meaning of the water bearer for Aquarius is that the star sign can carry the emotions of others and not be influenced by them. This has to do with their quest for higher truth. They are able to carry emotions to reach an understanding of the truth. Aquarius bears the water, it can carry the water, or it can pour out the water with their mind. Aquarius has the ability to do this because carrying or transmitting water, which represents our emotions, happens through language. And, the Air signs, such as Aquarius, represent language. Aquarius is able to express emotions but it’s not the emotions -- or the 'water' -- itself."

What if we posit that “Things-in-themselves” emerge against the background of the Void of Nothingness, the way this Void is conceived in quantum physics, as not just a negative void, but the portent of all possible reality? This is the only true consistent “transcendental materialism” which is possible after the Kantian transcendental idealism. For a true dialectician, the ultimate mystery is not “Why is there something rather than nothing?” but “Why is there nothing rather than something?”

I once asked the lama of Enche what would be the post-mortem subjective visions of a materialist who had looked upon death as total annihilation.

"Perhaps," said the lama, "such man would see apparitions corresponding to the religious beliefs he held in his childhood, or to those, familiar to him, held by the people among whom he has lived. According to the degree of his intelligence and his post-mortem lucidity, he would, perhaps, examine and analyse these visions and remember the reasons which, during his life-time, made him deny the reality of that which now appears to him. He might, thus, conclude that he is beholding a mirage. "A less intelligent man in whom belief in total annihilation was the result of indifference or dullness, rather than of reasoning, will, perhaps, see no vision at all. However, this will not prevent the energy generated by his past actions from following its course and manifesting itself through new phenomena. In other words, it will not prevent the rebirth of the materialist."

Quote from: Madness on February 17, 2020, 04:16:46 pm

Sorry, me, for the double post but...

On topic, Bakker does write with a healthy selection of botany books within reach and I have it from more than a few readers (some I know personally with degrees in forestry) that Bakker's tree knowledge is on point.

Wait... really? Why??