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January 2009You may need to click "load images"
or something similar to see the photos WelcomeIt has been a very busy month with Christmas, the Theosophical Society convention in Wellington, a few days in Nelson and completing the writing my book, Gonna Lay Down my Sword and Shield. I was lucky to have three weeks' holiday this Christmas and my big project was to complete the first draft of my book I have been working on for the last 13 years. It feels really great to have this project really moving on. I am interested in having people read the draft for comments. At present it is 450 pages long and will need to be trimmed back a good bit. Send me an email if you would like me to send it to you. I had a good quiet Christmas in Dunedin and a great neew year with a progressive dinner starting at my house and ending in the Octagon for fireworks on the New Year.
Back home and it was back on to the book, but the
writing went well. I have a new programme at the Milburn prison to
begin. I will be doing more speaking for the Theosophical Society
through the year; a North Island tour, a South Island tour and a
workshop at the School of theosophy, so I will be kept busy. Best of the NetGenographic updateYou may remember a couple of months ago I wrote about the genographic project tracing the DNA of people back to our African origins. My results showed on my direct male line, my ancestors came out of Africa about 40,000 and went to the middle East and the northern coast of the Meditaeranean. It is likely that from there they went north around Germany and then east until eaching Russia. The MIT video classes look really interesting. I hope I get time to have a good look through them A Great site on brain functioning and the triune brain theory. Arthur C Clarke The Colours of Infinity. This documentary started my interest in Chaos Thery and Complexity. I found it again on the net. Phillip Zimbardo speaks of the experiment he undertook in 1971 when subjects werre randomly assigned to as either a prisoner or a guard in a simulated prison. After only about two days the guards perfomed abusive acts of psychological harm. He says the guards in Abu Graib prison in Iraq operated under the same dynamics. he calls for a psychology of heroism, whereby we are willing to stand and do what is necessary to do the right thing. An interesting video about how what we assume to be the real world is just what our brain creates about what is out there....if there is an out there.....(Interestingly though if you look at Ken Wilber's book, he says deny any form of objective reality is going too far.) More Books read this month..Integral Spirituality by Ken WilberI have been reading Ken Wilber now for close on 15 years. I thought I had a pretty good understanding of what he was saying, and while much of the book was repeating things I know, it was surprisingly fruitful to read this book. I particularly noted his criticisms of Spiral Dynamics as claiming that it explains more than it actually does and that many writers, particularly in the area of complexity often fall into the trap of the myth of the given; of not realising that so much of what we observe is created by the mind rather than pre-given. He also criticizes people like Ervin Laszlo, Fritjof Capra and Deepak Chopra who read too much into the findings of quantum mechanics and other sciences and assume the parrallel must be true in the spiritual realm. Plenty of challenging stuff for me!! |
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Victor's BlogI have started a blog where I can write down thoughts I am having that I hope will stimulate some discussion. Check out my Blog. It has not been used much, so I amy not continue with this if it is not used.
Previous NewslettersNewsletter archive Old "Recent News" Books I read this monthVocal Enrichment. by Hazel Menehira I met Hazel Menehira at the Theosophical Society convention in Wellington and she kindly gave me a copy of her litle book. It is al about how to correctly use your voice but moves into areas such as meditation and healing as being a part of fully using our voice. The God Theory by Bernaird Haisch Bernard Haisch is a scientist with impressive qualifications to talk about science and Quantum Mechanics, so I was interested to see how he related science to his concept of God. It was good, but I think he could have easily given miuch more detail of the science behind his ideas that would have added real substance to it. The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb I have only just started this book, so I will wirte this one up next time. It looks at how much we are conditioned to avoid acknowledging how highly improbbaly events which do actually sometimes occur. |
Victor's webpage Victor's complexity website Subscribe Email Victor Victor's first book Victor's Blog |
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Next, I was off to Wellington for the
Theosophical Society national convention. It was great catching up with
those I had met and meeting other members from around the country.
Tracey, our vice-president also came. I gave a talk on Intuition from a
scientific, esoteric Monty Python approach that went down extremely
well.
My mum in Nelson had a fall just before Christmas and broke
her hip. She has been recovering well and was zipping around on her
Zimmer frame by the time I got there. I got down to Okiwi Bay for a
couple of days.