The Count of St. Germain has been variously described as an adventurer, charlatan, inventor, alchemist, pianist, violinist and amateur composer, but is best known as a recurring figure in the stories of several strands of occultism, particularly those connected to Theosophy, where he is also referred to as the Master Rakoczi and credited with near god-like powers and longevity. 

Guy Ballard, founder of the I AM Activity, claimed that he met Saint Germain on Mount Shasta in California in August of 1930, and that this initiated his training and experiences with other ascended masters in various parts of the world.

A book titled The Great Secret, Count St. Germain by Dr. Raymond Bernard purports that St. Germain was actually Francis Bacon by birth, and later authored the complete plays attributed to Shakespeare. He also contends, as does the Saint Germain Foundation in Chicago, IL., that Francis Bacon was the child of Queen Elizabeth and Lord Dudley but that it was kept quiet. Francis was raised by the Bacon family, yet throughout the Shakespeare Plays, there are numerous hints that he knows of his true birth as revealed in the plays itself, the numerous explicit hints in the text, as well as the cipher code he employed.

Saint Germain is the central figure in the Saint Germain Series of Books published by the Saint Germain Press. The first two volumes, Unveiled Mysteries and The Magic Presence, written by Godfre Ray King, describe Saint Germain as an Ascended Master who is assisting humanity and the Earth. Godfre Ray King is the pen-name for Guy Warren Ballard. In these first two books, he discusses his personal experiences with Saint Germain and reveals many teachings that are in harmony with Theosophy. 

C. W. Leadbeater claimed to have met him in Rome in 1926 and gave a physical description of him as having brown eyes, olive colored skin, and a pointed beard. Leadbeater said that Saint Germain showed him a robe that had been previously owned by a Roman Emperor and told him that one of his residences was a castle in Transylvania. According to Leadbeater, when performing magical rituals in his castle in Transylvania, Saint Germain wore a suit of golden chain mail once belonging to a Roman Emperor over which is worn “a magnificent cloak of purple with a clasp of a seven pointed star in diamond and amethyst”.

Theosophists consider him to be a Mahatma, Master or Adept. Helena Blavatsky said he was one of her Masters of Wisdom and hinted at secret documents. Some esoteric groups credit him with inspiring the Founding Fathers to draft the United States Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, as well as providing the design of the Great Seal of the United States.

Alice A. Bailey’s book The Externalization of the Hierarchy gives the most information about his reputed role as a spiritual Master. His title is said to be the Lord of Civilization and his task is the establishment of a new civilization. He is said to telepathically influence people who are seen by him and as being instrumental in bringing about the Age of Aquarius. Bailey stated that sometime after AD 2025, Master Jesus, Saint Germain, Kuthumi, and the others in the spiritual hierarchy would descend from the spiritual worlds and interact in visible tangible bodies on the Earth in ashrams surrounded by their disciples.

Prehistoric medicine is a term used to describe the use of medicine before the invention of writing. Because writing was invented at different times in different places, the term prehistoric medicine encompasses a large number of time periods and dates, and should not be thought of as a set period in time. Prehistoric medicine predates written records and so study of the subject relies heavily on artifacts and skeletons, and on anthropology. Previously uncontacted peoples and certain indigenous peoples who live in a traditional way have been the subject of anthropological studies in order to gain insight into both contemporary and ancient practices.

Prehistoric people believed in both supernatural causes and cures for diseases, beliefs which would continue in part to be used by the Ancient Civilizations. They blamed certain serious or disabling diseases which did not have a rational or obvious cause on the supernatural, such as gods, evil spirits and sorcery. They believed that evil spirits could inhabit the body and cause a person to become ill, and that these spirits could be removed from the body through treatments carried out by a Medicine man.

Prehistoric people used their common sense to understand the causes of many diseases and injuries, but most primarily the latter for which there was usually a clear cause. They did not have to blame injuries on the gods or spirits because they were able to understand how they were caused. If someone was injured by a fall then they realised that the fall must have been the cause. The discovery of a mummified body in the Tyrolean Alps in Northern Italy in 1991 gave rise to the suggestion that prehistoric people may have known more about the causes of disease than was previously thought. In a Lancet study, Dr. Luigi Capasso concluded that the discovery of the fungus suggests that the Iceman was aware of his intestinal parasites and fought them with measured doses of Piptoporus betulinus. Although the person found could not have had a detailed understanding of intestinal parasites, the findings suggest that prehistoric people were willing to accept a practical outlook on disease.

Different diseases and ailments were common in prehistory than are prevalent today. There is evidence that many people suffered from osteoarthritis, probably caused by the lifting of heavy objects which would have been a daily and necessary task in their societies. Things such as cuts, bruises and breakages of bone, without antiseptics, proper facilities or knowledge of germs, would become very serious if infected. There is also evidence of rickets bone deformity and bone wastage which is caused by a lack of Vitamin D.

There is evidence to suggest that many prehistoric peoples, where the climate and resources allowed, were able to set broken or fractured bones using clay. The broken area was covered in clay, which then set hard so that the bone could heal properly without interference. Also, primarily in the Americas, the pincers of certain ant species were used to close up wounds from infection. The ant was held above the wound until it bit it, then its head would be removed but the pincers holding the wound would remain.

Medicine men, witch doctors or shaman, along with the women who cared for the health of their families, would have looked after the health of their tribe, gathering and distributing herbs, performing minor surgical procedures, providing medical advice and supernatural treatments, such as charms, spells and amulets to ward off evil spirits. In Apache society, as would likely have been the case in many others, the medicine men initiated a ceremony over the patient, which was attended by family and friends. It consisted of magic forumlas, prayers and drumming. The medicine man then, from the patient’s recalling of their past and possible offenses against their religion or tribal rules, revealed the nature of the disease and how to treat it.

They were believed by the tribe to be able to contact the gods and use their supernatural powers to cure the patient, and therefore in the process remove the evil spirits. If this method did not work, the spirit was considered too powerful to be driven out of the person. A medicine man would likely have been a central figure in the tribal system, because of the their medical knowledge and because they could seemingly contact the gods. Many prehistoric cave paintings have been discovered showing a medicine man wearing antlers, which seems to agree with this theory. Because they would not have received any formal training in medicine due to the fact there was no way to record medical details, it is likely that any medical knowledge would have been passed down orally.

Because of the nature of the time period  before the invention of writing it is harder for historians to gather strong evidence on matters relating to prehistoric medicine. As there is a lack of written evidence they have turned to other sources such as skeletons and anthropological studies of people nowadays who live a similar nomadic lifestyle, though there are problems with both sources of evidence.

The writings of certain cultures such as the Romans can be used as evidence in discovering how their contemporary prehistoric cultures who had not yet discovered writing practiced medicine. People who live a nomadic existence today have been used as a source of evidence too, but obviously there are distinct differences in the environment in which nomadic people lived. Prehistoric people in Britain for example cannot be effectively compared to aboriginal peoples in Australia, because of the obvious differences in what resources would have been available to each.

Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all known forms of life. In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor or steam. Water covers 71% of the Earth’s surface. It is found mostly in oceans and other large water bodies, with 1.6% of water below ground in aquifers and 0.001% in the air as vapor, clouds, and precipitation.

The Ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles held that water is one of the four classical elements along with fire, earth and air, and was regarded as the basic substance of the universe. Water is also one of the five elements in traditional Chinese philosophy, along with earth, fire, wood, and metal.

All known forms of life depend on water, with many distinct properties that are critical for the proliferation of life that set it apart from other substances. It carries out this role by allowing organic compounds to react in ways that ultimately allow replication. Water is vital both as a solvent in which many of the body’s solutes dissolve and as an essential part of many metabolic processes within the body.

Civilization has historically flourished around rivers and major waterways. Large cities like London, Montreal, Paris, New York City and Hong Kong owe their success in part to their easy accessibility via water and the resultant expansion of trade. In places such as North Africa and the Middle East, where water is more scarce, access to clean drinking water was and is a major factor in human development.

Water is considered a purifier in most religions. Major faiths that incorporate ritual washing include Hinduism, Rastafarianism, Taoism, and Judaism. Immersion of a person in water is a central sacrament of Christianity, where it is called baptism. In addition, a ritual bath in pure water is performed for the dead in many religions including Judaism and Islam.

Water is often believed to have spiritual powers. In Celtic mythology, Sulis is the local goddess of thermal springs. In Hinduism, the Ganges is also personified as a goddess, while Saraswati have been referred to as goddess in Vedas. Alternatively, gods can be patrons of particular springs, rivers, or lakes. In Islam, not only does water give life, but every life is itself made of water.

Fruitlands was a Utopian agrarian commune established in Harvard, Massachusetts by Amos Bronson Alcott and Charles Lane in the 1840s, based on Transcendentalist principles. An account of its less than successful activities can be found in Alcott’s daughter Louisa May Alcott’s Transcendental Wild Oats.

Lane purchased what was known as the Wyman farm and its 90 acres, which also included a dilapidated house and barn. Residents of Fruitlands ate no animal substances, drank only water, bathed in unheated water, and did not use artificial light. Additionally, property was held communally, and no animal labor was used.

The community was short lived and lasted only seven months. It was dependent on farming, which turned out to be too difficult. The original farmhouse, along with other historic buildings from the area, is now a part of Fruitlands Museum.

The biggest challenge at Fruitlands was the farming aspect. The community had arrived at the farm a month behind the planting schedule and only about 11 acres of land were arable. The decision not to use animal labor on the farm proved to be the undoing of the commune, combined with the fact that many of the men of the commune spent their days teaching or philosophizing instead of working in the field. Using only their own hands, the Fruitlands residents were incapable of growing a sufficient amount of food to get them through the winter.

Fruitlands was also hampered by its structure. Alcott and Lane wielded nearly limitless authority and dictated very strict and repressive models for living. “I am prone to indulge in an occasional hilarity”, wrote Alcott’s wife Abby May, “but seem frowned down into still quiet… [and] am almost suffocated in this atmosphere of restriction and form”.

According to Bronson Alcott, the inhabitants left Fruitlands in January 1844. His daughter, Louisa May, wrote that they left in December 1843, which is considered to be the more accurate date. Alcott was deeply dismayed by the failure of Fruitlands and, moving with his family to live with a nearby farmer, refused to eat for several days. Later, Ralph Waldo Emerson helped purchase a home for the family in Concord.

Fruitlands had only a brief opportunity to impact America and the Transcendentalist movement, but it left a legacy of inspired authors, and is a prime example of the mistakes made by American utopian societies.

After Fruitlands ended, the land was bought by one of its former participants, Joseph Palmer, who used the site as a refuge for former reformers for twenty years. The property was later purchased in 1910 by Clara Endicott Sears, who opened the farmhouse to the public in 1914 as a museum. Today, the Fruitlands Museum also includes a museum on Shaker life, an art gallery of nineteenth century paintings, and a museum of Native American art and crafts.

Rongorongo is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Easter Island that appears to be writing or proto writing. It has not been deciphered despite numerous attempts. Although some calendrical and what might prove to be genealogical information has been identified, not even these glyphs can be read. If rongorongo does prove to be writing, it could be one of only three or four known independent inventions of writing in human history.

Two dozen wooden objects bearing rongorongo inscriptions were collected in the late 19th century and are now scattered in museums and private collections. None remain on Easter Island. The objects are mostly tablets made from irregular pieces of wood, sometimes driftwood, but include a chieftain’s staff, a birdman statuette, and two reimiro ornaments. There are also a few petroglyphs which may include short rongorongo inscriptions. Oral history suggests that only a small elite was ever literate and that the tablets were sacred.

Authentic rongorongo texts are written in alternating directions, a system called reverse boustrophedon. In the case of the tablets these lines are often inscribed in shallow fluting carved into the wood. The glyphs have a characteristic outline appearance and include human, animal, plant, artifact and geometric forms. Some of the human and animal figures, and have protuberances on each side of the head, possibly representing ears or eyes that are also characteristic of rongorongo.

Oral tradition holds that because of the great value of wood, only expert scribes used it, while pupils wrote on banana leaves. German ethnologist Thomas Barthel believed that carving on wood was a secondary development in the evolution of the script based on an earlier stage of incising banana leaves or the sheaths of the banana trunk with a bone stylus, and that the medium of leaves was retained not only for lessons but to plan and compose the texts of the wooden tablets. He found that the glyphs were quite visible on banana leaves due to the sap that emerged from the cuts and dried on the surface. However, when the leaves themselves dried they became brittle and would not have survived for long.

The glyphs are stylized human, animal, vegetable and geometric shapes, and often form compounds. Nearly all those with heads are oriented head up and are either seen face on or in profile to the right, in the direction of writing. It is not known what significance turning a glyph head down or to the left may have had. Heads often have characteristic projections on the sides which may be eyes but which often resemble ears. Birds are common. Many resemble the frigatebird which was associated with the supreme god Makemake. Other glyphs look like fish or arthropods. A few, but only a few, are similar to petroglyphs found throughout the island.

Easter Island has the richest assortment of petroglyphs in Polynesia. Nearly every suitable surface has been carved, including the stone walls of some houses and a few of the famous statues and their fallen topknots. Around one thousand sites with over four thousand glyphs have been cataloged. Designs include marine animals like turtles, tuna, swordfish, sharks, whales, dolphins, crabs, and octopus, some with human faces. Although the petroglyphs cannot be directly dated, some are partially obscured by pre-colonial stone buildings, suggesting they are relatively old.

As with most undeciphered scripts, there are many fanciful interpretations and claimed translations of rongorongo. However, apart from a portion of one tablet which has been shown to have to do with a lunar calendar, none of the texts are understood. There are three serious obstacles to decipherment, assuming rongorongo is truly writing: the small number of remaining texts, the lack of context such as illustrations in which to interpret them, and the poor attestation of the Old Rapanui language since modern Rapanui is heavily mixed with Tahitian and is therefore unlikely to closely reflect the language of the tablets.

The prevailing opinion is that rongorongo is not true writing but proto writing, or even a more limited mnemonic device for genealogy, choreography, navigation, astronomy, or agriculture. For example, the Atlas of Languages states, “It was probably used as a memory aid or for decorative purposes, not for recording the Rapanui language of the islanders”. If this is the case, then there is little hope of ever deciphering it. For those who believe it to be writing, there is debate as to whether rongorongo is essentially logographic or syllabic, though it appears to be compatible with neither a pure logography nor a pure syllabary.

Findhorn is a spiritual community for holistic education, helping to unfold a new human consciousness and create a positive and sustainable future. It is located near the end of a small peninsula on the northeastern shore of Scotland. It offers a range of holistic workshops and events in the unique environment of a working community and ecovillage. The programmes are an integral part of the community’s work and give participants practical experience of how to apply spiritual and holistic values in daily life.

In late 1962, Peter Caddy and Dorothy Maclean became unemployed and for want of any other accommodation settled in a caravan near the village of Findhorn. They began organic gardening as a way of growing food. To this activity they brought their spiritual practices, which they believed led to communication with nature spirits under whose guidance the garden flourished. Peter Caddy also introduced the positive thinking practices he had learned in the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship.

Within the Findhorn village, sustainable values are expressed in the environment with ecological houses, innovative use of building materials such as local stone and straw bales, beauty in the architecture and gardens, and applied technology in the sewage treatment facility and electricity generating wind turbines. Sustainable values are also expressed in the community’s social, economic and educational initiatives.

Education at Findhorn is experiential and transformative, a journey of self-discovery that changes people’s lives and is helping to create a sustainable and peaceful world. Living education is an integral part of the community’s work. Recognising the interdependence of all life is at the heart of the education. Taking time for inner reflection, building relationships with others, and co-creating with nature are essential to the fabric of community life.

This type of experiential, living, and transformative education has become increasingly important as humanity comes to terms with global conflict, depletion of the world’s resources, changes in climate, and questions about the purpose of life and the values we live by. The environment in which teaching happens is often as important as the teaching itself, and the range of programs offered at Findhorn address profound personal and global concerns within the unique context of a thriving spiritual community.

The Findhorn project has received special designation from the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements. It is a tangible demonstration of the links between the spiritual, social, ecological and economic aspects of life and is a synthesis of the best of current thinking on human habitats. It is a constantly evolving model used as a teaching resource by a number of university and school groups as well as by professional organisations and municipalities worldwide.

We who are the life of the earth are increasing our being. Our nature as humans allows us to amplify and potentiate what now lies dormant, waiting to unfold. Like the unused capacity of our brains, there are other potential abilities that can be cultivated. The clarity and strength of our communication is one of those.

Communication between humans on a verbal level uses the tool of language. Language reflects the focus of attention of the culture. In the language of the Inuit of the far north it is said there are more than thirty descriptive words for snow and its different conditions. In the ancient language of the Greeks there were many descriptive words for love and the various qualities of its manifestation. Language carries the culture and becomes a tool of thought. As we learn language we learn the culture.

We find that in English as well as many other languages of civilization there is much confusion. In many cases similar sounds mean different things, and different word sounds mean the same thing. Language, as we know it, has become indistinct from what is being described. To add to this we are now coming into the age of double speak in which government employs psychological operations and media manipulation teams to confuse and disinform the masses.

A type of intuitive language has been formulated by John W. Weilgart. “aUI” is the name of this language, which means ”mind space sound” (in aUI). It is not the type of language that we are accustomed to. Abstract symbols like letters do not denote or connote abstract meanings. Instead there are a set of thirty basic symbols that reflect the intuitive realities of our existence. These are such things as space, movement, light, human, life, time, matter, sound, feeling, round, equal, inside, quantity, quality and so forth. Out of these basic categories thoughts are put together intuitively.

The symbols for each of these categories is congruent with their meaning so that the symbol for “inside” is a circle with a dot inside of it. “Feeling” is a heart shaped symbol and “active” is a lightening shaped symbol. Weilgart created the sounds for each symbol so that the sound is intuitively similar to the meaning so that the sound for “inside” is a guttural sound coming from deep inside the throat. Weilgart has also created a sign language in which the arms and upper torso form the symbols. This provides an additional level of congruence of meaning for each symbol.

In creating aUI, Weilgart has discovered something of the nature of language in its primitive state and something essential about human communication at its beginning stages. This language is not a concocted language like esperanto. It is a rediscovery of the basic categories of human thought and expression.

By working with basic categories of meaning and a simple set of aural and visual symbols for each, Weilgart has succeeded in making language definitive rather than merely denotive or conative. Basic categories are communicated through single symbols and new concepts are created by merely combining the basic symbols by way of a simple, intuitive logic. The result is language which has the simplicity of archaic speech plus the sophistication of modern thought.

There are a number of cultures known to modern anthropology that use several languages within their cultures. Among the Apache of Southern New Mexico there existed a war language that was only used in expeditions of war. Among other cultures there are known to have been spiritual languages, used primarily for discourse on spiritual subjects.

aUI is so intuitive and simple that Weilgart was able to teach it to many different groups. Individuals of diverse groups such as military servicemen, children of tribal societies, and school children were able to begin communicating in the language within a few minutes. Weilgart, among other talents, was a professor of psychology. In this capacity he used this language to facilitate communication with people classed as schizophrenic. These people, who ordinarily experience confusion in communication, were able to improve their communication significantly because of the precision and clarity of the language that they learned after a brief introduction.

Recently, I’ve become interested in gourds. As part of a fund raising event in the area, local artists are requested to fashion decorated items from gourds and submit them for auction during an event during September. Last weekend, I went to a gourd workshop and learned about how to prepare, cut, decorate and finish gourds. As it turns out, gourds have been used around the world for thousands of years as lightweight vessels for carrying water, storing perishable items, as utensils for food and as musical instruments.

One of the uses for gourds that I found quite fascinating was its purpose as a koteka, a codpiece traditionally worn by native male inhabitants of ethnic groups in western New Guinea to cover their genitals. It is held in place by a small loop of fiber attached to the base of the koteka and placed around the scrotum. There is a secondary loop placed around the chest or abdomen and attached to the main body of the koteka. It is worn without any other clothing.

There is little correlation between the size or length of the koteka and the social status of the wearer. Kotekas of different sizes serve different purposes. Very short kotekas are worn when working, while longer and more elaborate kotekas are worn on festive occasions. The koteka is made of a specially grown gourd. Curves can be made in it by the use of string to restrain its growth in whatever direction the grower wishes.

The gourds can be quite elaborately shaped in this manner. When harvested, the gourd is emptied and dried. It is sometimes waxed with beeswax or native resins. It can be painted or have shells, feathers and other decorations attached to it. It is the only item of clothing worn by men in the tropical environment of New Guinea. Many tribes can be identified by the way they wear their koteka.

It is commonly assumed that there is a sexual display element to wearing the koteka. However, kotekas are worn only to cover and protect the penis. Any male that has ever left their genitals exposed while running, working or cooking food can understand the value of the koteka in an environment where men wear no other clothing and are required to run through the dense underbrush of a tropical forest to hunt for food.

Men choose kotekas similar to ones worn by other men in their cultural group. For example, Yali men favour a long, thin koteka, while men from Tiom wear a double gourd, held up with a strip of cloth, and use the space between the two gourds for carrying small items such as money and tobacco.

Missionaries in the 1950s attempted to alter the local customs by forcing locals to wear shorts. Many of the New Guinea natives felt exposed without their kotekas and could be seen wearing shorts with their kotekas sticking out of them. Eventually the missionary effort and the Indonesian government’s campaign were abandoned. Kotekas are still considered acceptable attire in church, however.

In the 1970′s, the government launched Operasi Koteka (Operation Penis Gourd) which consisted primarily of trying to encourage the natives to wear shorts and shirts because such clothes were considered more modern. But the people did not have extra clothing, did not have soap, and were unfamiliar with the care of the clothes so the unwashed clothing caused skin diseases. There were also reports of men wearing the shorts as hats and the women using the dresses as carrying bags.

Gourd kotekas are increasingly popular with tourists, and certainly make for a novel souvenir for the folks back home. The tourists tend to prefer more ornate gourds, and a whole industry has grown up to cater to their preferences. Some natives even fashion novelty gourds out of Western objects, such as tin cans, rubber tires and old toothpaste tubes.

Kotekas made from gourds have also been the fashion in parts of South America and Africa. In the 15th and 16th centuries the codpiece was an important item of European clothing, and codpieces are still worn today in performance costume and in leather subculture. In Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of  Anthony Burgess’ futuristic novel A Clockwork Orange, Alex and his droogs wear codpieces.