esotericvoyage.com

On November 28th, after an investigation The New York Times published an article about how an internet seller used threats and intimidation to generate negative comments on the internet about him and raise his Google ranking.  This is also a story about how we are evolving into the information age.  The information age will have profound affects on spirituality around the world.

See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html?scp=1&sq=A%20Bully%20Finds%20a%20Pulpit%20on%20the%20Web&st=cse

On December 1, Google took notice and changed the way they rank websites so negative reviews wouldn’t raise someone’s profile.

See http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/being-bad-to-your-customers-is-bad-for.html

We were horrified to read about Ms. Rodriguez’s dreadful experience. Even though our initial analysis pointed to this being an edge case and not a widespread problem in our search results, we immediately convened a team that looked carefully at the issue. That team developed an initial algorithmic solution, implemented it, and the solution is already live. I am here to tell you that being bad is, and hopefully will always be, bad for business in Google’s search results.

And now on December 7th, the authorities are taking notice and the abusive seller was arrested.

See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/business/07borker.html?hpw

Finally the study is released that begins to change the minds of science:

from http://hplusmagazine.com/editors-blog/precognition-real-cornell-university-lab-releases-powerful-new-evidence-human-mind-can-

According to today’s conventional scientific wisdom, time flows strictly forward — from the past to the future through the present.  We can remember the past, and we can predict the future based on the past (albeit imperfectly) — but we can’t perceive the future.

But if the recent data from the lab of Prof. Daryl Bem at Cornell University is correct, conventional scientific wisdom may need some corrections on this particular point.

In a research paper titled Feeling the Future, recently accepted for publication in the prestigious Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Bem presents some rather compelling empirical evidence that in some cases — and with weak but highly statistically significant accuracy – many human beings can directly perceive the future.  Not just predict it based on the past.

A pre-publication copy of Bem’s paper is available on his website, and it should appear on the journal’s website shortly. The article is already attracting considerable attention, including a piece in Psychology Today. Also, Bem reports that he has already received hundreds of requests for “replication packages” — documentation and software allowing others to repeat the experiments he did.   If you want to try to replicate the work yourself, replication packages for some of the experiments are already available at http://dbem.ws/psistuff .

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One thing that stuck out for me in the article was that most of the objects to precognition had to due with the physics of time without serious considerations of other phenomenon.  A better explanation (and the reason that the results only showed 51-53.1% success rate) is that the experimentee is tapping the Gaia mind, the Gaia mind is using it’s vast computing power to calculate the probably outcome.  It is a measure of the randomness of the computer to be random and a measure of the person to tap that collective predictive power.

from http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/november/27.40.html

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Other survey results have been grimmer. At the May 2009 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, top political scientists Robert Putnam and David Campbell presented research from their book American Grace, released last month. They reported that “young Americans are dropping out of religion at an alarming rate of five to six times the historic rate (30 to 40 percent have no religion today, versus 5 to 10 percent a generation ago).”

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And so it begins, the disolution of old religions.  Soon to be replaced by the modern spirituality…  Stay Tuned.

…For example, one friend has had distinctly postmodern misgivings. When his father learned of his decision to leave the faith, he rushed his son a copy of Mere Christianity, hoping the book would bring him back. But C. S. Lewis’s logical style left him cold. “All that rationality comes from the Western philosophical tradition,” he told me. “I don’t think that’s the only way to find truth.”I also met leavers who felt Christianity failed to measure up intellectually.

Shane, a 27-year-old father of three, was swept away by the tide of New Atheist literature. He described growing up a “sheltered Lutheran” who was “into Jesus” and active in youth group. Now he spoke slowly and deliberately, as if testifying in court. “I’m an atheist and an empiricist. I don’t believe religion or psychics or astrology or anything supernatural.”

Others have been hurt by Christians. Katie, a former believer in her early 30s, had been molested by two members of her childhood church. Her mother occasionally still drags her to church. Once, one of her mother’s friends approached Katie with an intense look of concern. She grabbed Katie by the shoulders: “Katie, you’ve become so hard,” she said.

Katie’s voice faltered as she recalled the encounter. “That affected me,” she said. “I don’t want to be hard.” She paused to regain her poise. “But you have to be hard, or else life will hurt you.”

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About the TV show “Lie to Me” from http://bigsole.blogspot.com/2010/10/lie-to-me-what-was-that-business-about.html

Yes, I did see Tricia Helfer, who played Caprica Six on Battlestar Galactica, in her guest role on Fox’s Lie to Me, Season 3, Episode 4, “Double Blind.” While she is a talented actress, I was more curious about character Cal Lightman’s reference to the Monarch and Viceroy butterflies. So, I looked up how butterflies use mimicry to confuse predators. (Tim Roth plays Lightman)

As explained at Henderson State University in Arkansas, the Monarch (Danaus plexippus) is the dangerous one, just poisonous enough to make birds ill but not kill them. The Viceroy benefits from mimicking the Monarch’s color pattern, but only taste bad:

Another butterfly, smaller than the Monarch but mimicking its color pattern, can be found in areas inhabited by the Monarch. Compare the left photo of the Monarch to the right photo of its mimic. This mimic, called a Viceroy (Limenitis archippus), does not feed on milkweed and is not toxic. It would be acceptable food for a bird, but if the bird has already learned not to eat a Monarch, the bird will leave the Viceroy alone as well. If a bird ate a Viceroy first, it might not learn that the color pattern is meant to be a warning. That would make the mimicry less effective, so there are fewer Viceroys than Monarchs. Lower numbers of Viceroys increase the chances that the first contact a bird has would be with a Monarch.

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Elizabeth SanFilippo explains at Gather how this butterfly issue relates to Lie to Me’s “Double Blind” episode.

… (Tricia Helfer’s character) Naomi (is) a Viceroy butterfly, mimicking the poisonous Monarch butterfly so predators stay away. Since Naomi is so skilled at deception and Lightman has difficulty reading her, he realizes it’s in his best interests to stay away, too. Although that doesn’t stop him from giving Naomi time to escape.

“Lie to Me” gets it mostly correct.  Wikipedia has a bit more details on the Monarch butterfly.  Mimicry has more than one form; Mullerian and Batesian.