This is a long one, especially to think that it's a continuation of the last one! As usual everything is a double entendre for occult references, not sex. Or they could be both making them the ever so elusive triple entendre! Since sexuality plays a big role in the occult, I wouldn't doubt it. But since I don't know enough about the occult like Blair does, being a writer on the subject for over 20 years, most of this stuff is way over my head.

Proceeding on, Arguelles, if one does little research, is the founder of the Planet Art Network (P.A.N., coincidence?) and wrote a little book called Time and the Technosphere. I haven't read that one so that's about as much as I can offer on that. Basically Arguelles is one of the lead researchers on the Mayan calendar, except that he has created his own calendar from it that separates into it's own timeline because of some leap year distortion thing. Nevertheless, Jose argues that his calendar is biologically correct for the entire planet...Whatever that means, there's only one way to find out. Or maybe two ways according to Blair. So they're headin to chitzen itza where the Mayan Pyramids dwell, this must of happened a year ago, or whenever Danny tore his bicep.

Anyways, after making some jokes about the peddlers receiving mixed messages from the mother star, Blair tries describing his own idea for a t shirt to the peddler. At this point, basically all this breaks down to DMT. Seriously, all the hype and rituals surrounding the mayan culture, all the galactic references, and the sacrificial offerings were not necessarily about pleasing the gods in a sense, as much as they were about sending the victors off into space! The "losers" (winners?) of the Pok-a-lok or whatever the fucking name of that game is, are beheaded. Blair is saying all the elaborate decoration and fancy rituals are but a reflection of what's going on inside the "victor's" head. The only endogenous tryptamine I can think of right now is DMT, duuuuh. Endogenous meaning, it's made inside the body already! The most powerful hallucinogenic known to man is made inside your body already! But like on dannycarey.org, and in "The Spirit Molecule" which I have read finally, this endogenous tryptamine only shows itself in extremely high stress situations, i.e. your birth and death. Yes I'm talking about the dream of the dreamless, the residuum of paradise. The gateway molecule that transcends your consciousness into a higher dimension, and the Mayans knew it! They just didn't know the biology of it, but they knew something was goind on, something powerful and galactic! "...the potency of which a beating heart is detrimental to"? Need I remind you of the January 2008 newsletter in which Blair states Heinlein wrote "The Number of the Beast" only after he suffered a transient ischemic attack which caused a severe blockage of blood to his brain? Hmmm, near death experience, potency detrimental to a beating heart, alchemical substance in the brain, I don't know you do the math...

I'm tellin ya, everything that inspires Tool and Blair in their lives, and everything unknown to us that inspires our lives, revolves around DMT. This is the substance that inspired lachrymology, the (pseudo)science of crying. Your eyes are directly connected to your pineal gland, which is responsible for the DMT invasion, so maybe when you actually cry it puts stress on your third eye, so it cries a little drop of galaxy dust every now and then to cheer you up. Most likely though, it has nothing to do with your regular eyes as much as it's just about the study of your third eye crying. I'm sure there's much more than meets the eye here, but all I got out of it after this point was that adam played a joke on blair after his g/f was nagging him about being tired and it made blair laugh. Then blair encounters a tailess scorpion, and being an arachnaphobe, thinks it's a spider and freaks out.
It sounds like Blair's girl is a complete bitch, who could complain about anything when you're in mexico with Tool?

The May 2008 newsletter is continued from the May 2007 newsletter.
Is there significance with May?
Why wait a full year?
Was he waiting for a slow news month?
Also, it's nearly July....

Good point, I didn't even realize that it was continued from a year ago....I don't know, May, Mayan, just a synchronicity perhaps. There's more to this one than I can put my finger on!

Rid of him? Have you ever read one of Blair's books? Who's we? Do you have the slightest idea of what you're talking about?

Richard Strassman's The Spirit Molecule was a good read and not near as convoluted as Blair's banter. The guy just simply refuses to write in a way that's easily digestible and coherent. I still enjoy reading it from time to time though.

And people call Rivek the egotistical pompous ass that thinks he's smarter than everyone else :-O

haha... Yeah, Blair does strike me as this guy smirking while he writes things clouded with mystery. I find it annoying as well. I remember the first time I went to Toolband I was actually expecting to get news pertaining to Tool, instead all I got was a bunch of geeky occult bullshit and announcements for shows in L.A. Needless to say I was disappointed. :(

I was picking on Blair that time bro. You know I luv ya! (Not like that, but you know what I mean)

Anyway, I'm sure everything that Blair writes in "code" is important and interesting if we we're wise enough to follow it. I mean the guys an occult expert and you're gonna sit around and say "I don't understand it therefore it's annoying!" Well that's fine, but sit in silence and have people THINK that you're ignorant rather than opening your mouth and remove all doubt! It's the same with all occult writers, lips of wisdom are closed except to the ears of understanding. I'm not even saying I understand half of the occult babble, but I do research a lot of the things he talks about and I have learned a shit load of random occult knowledge, that really all in all just leaves me raising more questions than I had to begin with. That's the point though, just to keep on digging.

Absolutely. I love Blair, and he annoys me. Kinda like you and Rivek :-O

Seriously though, one of my biggest frustrations is that I am ignorant to the occult. Subsequently, I probably miss out on a lot of really cool stuff that I would indeed find compelling. The good thing is the procedure spawns the quest for knowledge. Its not just handed to us. It forces us to think for ourselves and seek our own answers. If Robert Langdon had given up because the puzzles were too cryptic, the Merovingian bloodline would have surely ended.

Aren't we all doomed?

robert langdon isn't real...unless that's just what he WANTS you to think! *drum roll

I guess it's better than all the typical fan crap that you find on other rock band sites.

Wait...there are other rock band sites?

Yes, but no other rock bands.

I don't know, if you go to the mars volta website, it seems like they're almost emulating the mystical aspect of a certain modern progressive rock band...what with the whole dramatic backdrop about a ouija board being the inspiration for their latest album. Still nowhere near as mysterious or mind boggling as blair's time travel journeys.

The Mars river in Ghana?

The Mars physicist?

I don't get it...

that's because it's so deep and mysterious ok?!

Maynard and danny obviously were born close to each other on purpose, just like they planned to release their future albums on those months on purpose. duuuuuuuh

The hidden aspect of science is for those who seek to understand that which they don't already comprehend. Or the doomed ones like you said.

Yeah, but why?

That unsettling feeling of being unsatisfied with what you know about the world and it's mysteries?

But why are we unsatisfied?

Exactly.

You're an idiot. By denying "the occult" in general you're denying yourself a whole world of new ideas and everything that can and will enrich your life. But I can't get too mad at you, being that you don't know what you're talking about when you lob "the folk magic" and "religious mystic concepts of old" into the only thing that defines occult. And by what should these concepts "hold up" to? Please, alliterate.

If you had an inkling of a clue, which I don't imagine you do since you consider the links on these forums to be your definitive occult resource guide, then you'd know that occult simply means hidden. Nothing more, nothing less. Anything that's not taught to you or shown to you on the forefront. The dark side of the moon. If you had any logic at all you would realize that everything that you see on the outside is accounted for somewhere on the inside. The other side if you will, the hidden aspects of our own psyche. But no let's all live in your one way of thinking, one dimensional world where only guitar matters because you care about it. You're right.

Sorry I'm so angry now, close minded people just piss me off.

For the same reason you had the urge to ask why.

You're right I meant articulate, smartass, but I'm a little stoned so forgive me please speaker of the "denizens of TDN", what a joke. Who cares what they think? I'm talking about the positive aspects of the occult and you're lobbing the whole thing into a negative category. That sounds more like a personal problem to me, because I can enrich my life with knowledge about the occult as much as I can enrich it with music. Obviously you can't, that's okay.
You seem to think I'm only referring to mysticism and the kaballah and magic in general, when I'm not dude. Why can't music be a part of something occult? Why are you separating the two, all it means is hidden. The study of psychedelics is considered occult you dolt. That rhymed. And I happen to find it fascinating and it enriches my life to a fuller degree. Who says I'm tryin to say I know some big secret? I guess if I can enjoy being interested in the occult without worrying about how stupid it makes me look to try and understand it's meanings like you, then yeah, that's my secret.
So yeah, articulate, elaborate, and fucking alliterate on the subject would ya? Instead of waving your dick around with your thumb up your ass.

You've just revealed to yourself the truth of the occult. There's no real "magic" to it, it's all on the other side of what you see. What you don't see is what's controlling. Arrogance will get in the way of what you can see in your own words.

So DenIZeNS oF TdN WhOSE ReAlY CloSeD MindEd ThE OnE WhO aCtUAlLY CaReS WHAt YoU PeoPlE ThiNK Or ME? Oh wait, I don't give a fuck.

Yes, I'm glad that there's a winner now, here's your trophy son.
What's so unclear to you bud? Look it up, the occult simply means hidden. It could be the study of ANYTHING hidden. And yes, the study of psychedelics and the effects they have on the human mind IS a very hidden thing today. It's something that we know very little about and are taught nothing about. I never said anything about the concept of entheogens being hidden. We all know the concept, you eat it, you trip, you have religious experiences or what have you. I'm talking about more than just the concept of it all Rivek, c'mon pull your head out of your ass. So you've taken a gander at some spiritual religious hokey pokey and you don't like it. Well join the club, I don't dig it much either man but the occult is a VERY broad subject! Methinks you're the one making it so narrow.
Aliens, ufo's, psychedelic drugs, esp, astral projection, hypnotism, these are all subjects included in the occult my friend, and I'm sorry these things seem so unclear to you, I really am, I wish I could make them more clear to you but I can't, it's up to you really. This discussion is only over when we wanna stop talking about it, I certainly could go on forever but I won't bother wasting your precious time with lame old boring occult knowledge.

Technically, all things are occult. Everything is "hidden" until it is discovered. Even after it is discovered by one, it remains hidden to others. Why people resort to name calling instead of intellectual progress is occult.

Which got me thinking, why is "douchebag" understood to be insulting? Think about it. A douchebag is a hefty bag that is filled with clean and sterile liquid. This means it's healthy and relatively strong. Its primary purpose is to clean the vagina, which is extremely important to everyone. The douchebag goes through life selflessly helping others be equally as strong and healthy as itself. Sounds more like Jesus than something we would be ashamed about...

I don't know man, the douche bag also has to hold the dirty aftermath water, and only Satan knows what comes out of there.....ehhh i just got the shivers thinking about it. And what about enemas? They use douche bags too I'm sure...somewhere in the world. All things are not technically occult, where are you getting this garbage? As a collective conscious, some things are hidden from us. There are always two sides to every coin, and the occult just means the opposite side from what you see or know on the outside. It's the ocean under the glacier, the gears behind the clock, the DMT behind your pineal gland. People resorting to name calling is not very occult, and I don't know why we're using this term so loosely now, like it can be applied to everyday objects. :::Picks up orange, "Hmm this looks occultish" set's down orange::: or :::Reads random online conversation "I declare this to be occult"::: duuuuh, it doesn't work that way.

Why call it garbage (as an insult) instead of just progressing the banter?

Ocean under the glacier...fruit under the orange peel...

A clock and the gears behind it are not everyday objects?

Yes, with not-so-everyday metaphors tied to them. You're exactly right, they are everyday objects, and we never see, or care about, the inner workings behind it. What about a person's face? This is an everyday object, but what goes on behind it? It's beautiful to imagine an ocean or gears working behind someones eyes, because you know that's what's going on anyway you just can't explain it accurately with words. This is the object of the occult, the hidden aspect of everything that you see. It's not so friggin complex to understand it's objective in this world. I'd say any philosophical person has questioned occult related subjects at least once in their life.

Exactly, but it's not just philosophical people questioning occult related subjects. It's everyone questioning everything. So if occult simply means hidden, then all things are occult, because all things have hidden aspects to them.

But in reality, occult does not simply mean hidden. It is used in relation to the paranormal, the secret, and the mysterious. Not to everyday things.

The word has many uses in the English language, popularly meaning "knowledge of the paranormal", as opposed to "knowledge of the measurable", usually referred to as science. The term is sometimes popularly taken to mean "knowledge meant only for certain people" or "knowledge that must be kept hidden", but for most practicing occultists it is simply the study of a deeper spiritual reality that extends beyond pure reason and the physical sciences.The terms esoteric and arcane can have a very similar meaning, and the three terms are often interchangeable.

The term occult is also used as a label given to a number of magical organizations or orders, and the teachings and practices as taught by them. The name also extends to a large body of literature and spiritual philosophy.

Oh thank you now you're a scholar on the subject. Oh wait you just copied that directly from wikipedia didn't you? That tells me you know exactly what you're talking about. No, the three terms are only interchangeable to those who lob them all into the same category. Occult studies INCLUDE esoteric and arcane knowledge, and why are you arguing the meaning of it? It's not something to discuss, it simply means hidden. Excuse me, "secret, paranormal, and mysterious" don't mean hidden at all.....hmmmmmmmmm.
How can all things be occult just because all things have a hidden aspect to them? That's like saying all things are known because they have an exposed side to them...That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. It would be better to say all things have an occult aspect to them. Not all things are occult.

So after jumping to page 2, I have no idea what this thread is about, which is sad, so sad, that im not clicking on page 1.

Why does everything seem like an argument to you? Is this really the dumbest thing you've ever heard? Or are you resorting to insults due to your difficulty in explaining all this?

I'm no scholar on the subject. I know very little about it. I was hoping you could get past trying to be right and prove me wrong so that I might learn something of value from you regarding the occult.

Yes, I presented the initial information on wikipedia. Only as a basis to further our discussion and understanding. Not to be a scholar or try to show you that I know what I'm talking about.

At this point, I would go back into discussing that if occult "simply means hidden", then easter eggs are occult, but I can see this is quickly turning into a waste of time, which I should have expected in the first place.

[QUOTE=Kody27;2506749]I don't know man, the douche bag also has to hold the dirty aftermath water, and only Satan knows what comes out of there.....ehhh i just got the shivers thinking about it. And what about enemas? They use douche bags too I'm sure...somewhere in the world.QUOTE]

Our bowels hold far more disgusting and dirty water than a douchebag.

I would be more insulted if someone called me a colostomy bag...