Index

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The story of the formal founding of the United States in 1776 can be told in more ways than one. Alternative versions are loaded with bizarre beliefs about the identity and aims of the “Founding Fathers.” Historical evidence that George Washington and other leading figures of the Revolution were Freemasons has fuelled a variety of conspiracy theories. See Declaration of Independence. (Washington with Masonic apron and dcor. Engraving, 1868.)

Ialdabaoth Bizarre name found in Gnostic texts, referring to the master entity of the Archons, the offspring of the Aeon Sophia before Her embodiment as the earth. Pronounced EE-al-DAH-buy-OT. For an account of Ialdaboth and the Archons, see Alien Dreaming.

 
ideological belief: expressed in ideological form, that is, in a systematic body of abstractions or formal ideas.

For a complete list of permutations of belief see Modes of Believing.


ideology Vague term for the embodiment of beliefs in abstract ideas that can drive human behavior to pathological extremes. Fromm (A, 253) cites L. von Bertalanffy, a pioneer of systems theory, on the exceptional role of ideological cues in human behavior:

There is no doubt about the presence of aggressive and destructive tendencies in the human species which are of the nature of biological drives. However, the most pernicious phenomena of aggression, transcending self-preservation and self-destruction, are based on a characteristic feature of man above the biological level, namely his capacity of creating symbolic universes in thought, language and behavior.

Morris Berman writes:

Ideologies arise when people feel they have no real somatic anchoring....Our ideologies are as hollow as our organized religions. The millionare dies a bitter and a lonely man; the famous finds that nobody cares about his great track record of decades past. Success, as Swiss therapist Alice Miller demonstrates powerfully in Prisoners of Childhood, is one of the hollowest ideologies around.
(Coming to Our Senses, p 22)

imagination Sure to be a doozy.


imperative belief: stated in a flat non-narrative form.

Example: Children can be told the story of the sin of Adam and Eve, a Biblical narrative encoded with the belief that sex in a sin, or they can be flatly told that sexual intercourse is sinful. When belief is stated in non-narrative form is assumes a particular dynamic. See Double Bind and Alienation.

Example: "The meek shall inherit the earth." The belief is flatly stated, although the same belief could be scripted in a story. With the use of the future tense, the syntax reinforces the imperative sense: what is stated here will come to be, it is not merely a statement of that which one hopes or wishes to come to be.

For a complete list of permutations of belief see Modes of Believing.


indemnification A common tactic in story-telling by which the way a story is told asserts and endorses the values or beliefs inscribed in it. For instance, a history of the Civil War in the United States might be told in such a way that it approves the abolition of slavery, without of course coming right out and saying so. In that case, the telling would indemnify that aspect of the events recounted. But this is not the only way the Civil War could be recounted. One can easily imagine another version of the same events in which the abolition of slavery is treated as a bad thing, without however calling it so in an overt way.

To be effective, indemnification often conceals itself to some extent, but in some cases it positively announces itself. The Aquarian Conspiracy by Marilyn Ferguson is an account of New Age trends in American science and society. It contains many beliefs about what is good in the new Age and what good will arise in society due to the adoption and application of certain avant-garde notions propagated by the elite corps of masterminds who spearhead the conspiracy. The author clearly indemnifies the program she describes and in which she figures (by her own assessment) as a major player. When indemnification operates at this level of self-disclosure, it amounts to an overt declaration of beliefs and values; really, a manifesto.

Ferguson’s book may be contrasted to Unfinished Animal by Theodore Roszak, a work that treats some of the same New Age trends, but presents them as a set of optional propositions. Writing like a metahistorian, Roszak assesses the options and only at the end of the book, after making a clear statement that he will now present his own views, does he venture to speak subjectively about the prospects of the new Age. In short, he never indemnifies the material.

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interbeing Term suggested by Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh for the co-existence of Form and Void, or the ecstatic and selfless manner in which all things exist through each other.

In TNH's unique treatment of Buddhism, the experience of personal love also falls within the realm of the Form and Void. This view seems to correspond to the romantic theology of the European troubadours who initiated the Cult of Amor in Southern France in the 12th Century. The troubadour's dedication to the Lady who is distant and unattainable may reflect the realization that love endures in absence (Void) as well as in presence (Form).

Although the Cult of Amor did celebrate intimate and carnal contact between troubadour and lady, it looked beyond consummation in the flesh to the transcendent bonding that is completed, rather than defeated, in death, as the legend of Trtistan and Isolde shows. It is perhaps no accident that Plum Village, Thich Nhat Hanh's Buddhist retreat, is located in the heart of troubadour country in Southern France.

An essay on the Cult of Amor is forthcoming in this site.

intervention theory In comparative mythology, any scenario that describes a superhuman or alien agency intruding upon human experience, for good or ill.

Often the action of the being who intervenes is considered to be salvific. This type of benevolent intervention is seen in the Hindu myth of the twelve avatars of Vishnu. On twelve occasions when the world is threated by catastrophe, the god Vishnu, "the Preserver," is believed to assume some form (a tortoise, a lion, a human prince) by which he can intervene and save humanity. Avatar comes from a Sanskrit verb meaning "to go down, descend." The avataric descents of Vishnu present what is probably the most archaic model of intervention. Because these descents happen in specific moments of time, the mytheme of avataric descent is closely linked to the occult teaching on the World Ages.

Other scenarios present more ambiguous plot-lines in which is it unclear if the intervention by divine or superhuman beings is benevolent or malevolent. Narratives found on cunieform tablets from Sumeria describe the intervention of the Annunaki, interpreted by Zechariah Sitchin to be a superhuman species from beyond the Earth. Dating to 1800 BCE, these tablets preserve late redactions of much earlier written narratives.

The cunieform narratives of intervention respresent the oldest written record of an evolutionary mythos for our species.

Rather amazingly, the first recorded narratives of human evolution (from which later versions such as the OT scenario of Genesis and the Flood derive) present what appear to be accounts of "alien" or ET involvement with humanity in prehistory. Wild stuff, this, but there is more amazement to come. In his interview for a special issue on "Secrets of the Da Vinci Code" published in December 2004 by US News and World Report, Gnostic scholar James Robertson points out that

Dan Brown refers to the Nag Hammadi find as 'scrolls," but they are not. They are codices—books with individual pages. They are actually the oldest examples we have of leather-bound books. (p. 36)

To my knowledge, no scholar has pointed out the extraordinary nexus of the Sumerian intervention narrative and the Gnostic expose of same. This outrageous "coincidence" is central to the 1947 Nexus, a developing entry in the Lexicon.

Jacques Vallee calls the intervention narrative "the myth of contact." (Messengers of Deception, p. 49) Along with John Keel, who is perhaps his sole equal in subtle analysis of ET/UFO issues, Vallee maintains that the phenomenon conditions our perception of it. It behaves "like a conditioning process. The logic of conditioning uses absurdity and confusion to achieve its goal... If you take the trouble to join me in the analysis of the UFO myth, you will see human beings under the control of a strange force that is bending them in absurd ways, forcing them play a role in a bizarre game of deception." (p. 7, 20) This is arguably close to how Gnostic texts describe the "tactics" of the Archons:

They sought to overpower humanity in its psychological and perceptual functions... although they saw that human thinking was superior to theirs... For indeed their delight is bitter and their beauty is depraved. And their triumph is in deception (apaton), leading astray, for their own structure is without divinity.
The Apocryphon of John II, 20ff

No matter what one may think of the scenario of intervention, the fact remains that it is there, recorded in historical and archeological evidence. Gnostics took up the Sumerian material on the Annunaki and critiqued it with Vallee-like finesse. Their interpretation of the "myth of contact" is a unique expose of alien intrusion with a strong warning message for humanity. It may well turn out that the Gnostic view of invervention is indispensable to our vision of ourselves as a species.

In development...

ET/Archon Navigator