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Published on Feb 19, 2017
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A while back, Mike posted a quotation from Schickelgrubr, to which I appended a comment promising (threatening?) to post a quotation from Karl Marx . I’ve finally managed to track that quotation down.  Here it is:

“The reform of consciousness consists solely in … the awakening of the world from its dream about itself.”

– Karl Marx, Der historische Materialismus: Die Früschriften (Leipzig <1932>), vol. 1, p 226 (letter from Marx to Ruge; Kreuzenach, September 1843), as quoted by Walter Benjamin in The Arcades Project (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London; England, 1999).

Virgo is notorious (or famous) for seeing the flaw, imperfections and the cracks that need to be fixed. This Full Moon brings light to those parts of each of us and to society as a whole, that need to be worked on and restructured to help us heal for the greatest possible good. Virgo is the servant and needs to help others on the physical plane for maximum satisfaction. Pisces sees the grand view or the Spiritual view of things and then enjoys serving ones spirit or soul. The Virgo/Pisces axis (the 6th and 12th houses) is considered the serve or suffer axis on the Astrological Mandala. Both mutable signs need to be of continuing value and service.

So, this is a time for enlarging your ability to balance and integrate the important energies of Virgo and Pisces. A person needs the Virgo perspective to become aware of the physical disarray and chaos distracting from your vision and goals. Pisces energy is intuitive and awakens you to Spiritual sensitivity and directs you toward humble service and the healing of your soul. Big changes can and will happen for each of us over time, and this is the perfect time to take the first inspired steps toward what is ideal for you.

At the time of this Full Moon the Sun, Neptune,Mercury, Venus, Chiron and Neptune are all in Pisces. This is a powerful push for us to be more sensitive to the needs of others and to treat those in our circle of influence with care and compassion. All of this sensitive Pisces energy is thinning the veil for many. Visions, strong intuition and contact with Divine entities and helpers is possible. Set the stage by quieting your mind and listening to connect with what is for you and your evolution. If you are feeling overly emotional or negative, you could be picking up on other peoples stuff. Get in water to clear your auric field of the emotions and negativity that do not belong to you.

With this Full Moon also comes an opposition with the Sun conjunct Neptune in Pisces and the Moon in Virgo, which can indicate a time of conflict in spiritual, doctrinal or dogmatic points of view. This can create huge chasms and confusions in organizations and with people. Religious and/or spiritual beliefs may be threatened leaving people without their normal Spiritual footing and security. For some, this may feel like a Dark Night of the Soul. Some may come to realize that everything they were taught, and believed in, is not real. You may feel that you have dedicated a large part of your life to a belief system you now recognize is false. This could lead to a total dismantling of your old belief systems, and represents a giant step in your evolutionary process and should be a cherished experience even though it may be jarring and painful. This can give birth to a new, joyful paradigm that incorporates the new thoughts and emotions of your newfound clarity. “There could also be an unveiling of mysteries, long protected by secrecy.” Dane Rudhyar

If Atoms Are Mostly Empty Space, Why Do Objects Look And Feel Solid?

By Reality Beyond Matter  February 28, 2018

Chemist John Dalton proposed the theory that all matter and objects are made up of particles called atoms, and this is still accepted by the scientific community, almost two centuries later. Each of these atoms is each made up of an incredibly small nucleus and even smaller electrons, which move around at quite a distance from the center.

If you imagine a table that is a billion times larger, its atoms would be the size of melons. But even so, the nucleus at the center would still be far too small to see and so would the electrons as they dance around it. So why don’t our fingers just pass through atoms, and why doesn’t light get through the gaps?

To explain why we must look at the electrons. Unfortunately, much of what we are taught at school is simplified – electrons do not orbit the center of an atom like planets around the sun, like you may have been taught. Instead, think of electrons like a swarm of bees or birds, where the individual motions are too fast to track, but you still see the shape of the overall swarm.

In fact, electrons dance – there is no better word for it. But it’s not random dancing – it’s more like ballroom dancing, where they move in set patterns, following steps laid down by a mathematical equation named after Erwin Schrödinger.

These patterns can vary – some are slow and gentle, like a waltz whereas some are fast and energetic, like a Charleston. Each electron keeps to the same pattern, but once in a while it may change to another, as long as no other electron is doing that pattern already. No two electrons in an atom can do the same step: this rule is called the Exclusion Principle.

Electrons are like a swarm of birds. John Holmes/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Although electrons never tire, moving up to a faster step does take energy. And when an electron moves down to a slower pattern it loses energy which it gives out. So when energy in the form of light falls on an electron, it can absorb some energy and move up to a higher, faster “dance” pattern. A light beam won’t get far through our table, since the electrons in all the atoms are eager to grab some energy from the light.

After a very short while they lose this gained energy, perhaps as light again. Changes in the patterns of absorbed and reflected light give reflections and colours – so we see the table as solid.

So why does a table also feel solid? Many websites will tell you that this is due to the repulsion – that two negatively charged things must repel each other. But this is wrong, and shows you should never trust some things on the internet. It feels solid because of the dancing electrons.

If you touch the table, then the electrons from atoms in your fingers become close to the electrons in the table’s atoms. As the electrons in one atom get close enough to the nucleus of the other, the patterns of their dances change. This is because, an electron in a low energy level around one nucleus can’t do the same around the other – that slot’s already taken by one of its own electrons. The newcomer must step into an unoccupied, more energetic role. That energy has to be supplied, not by light this time but by the force from your probing finger.

The table resistance is strong. Shutterstock

So pushing just two atoms close to each other takes energy, as all their electrons need to go into unoccupied high-energy states. Trying to push all the table-atoms and finger-atoms together demands an awful lot of energy – more than your muscles can supply. You feel that, as resistance to your finger, which is why and how the table feels solid to your touch.

~ Roger Barlow, Research Professor and Director of the International Institute for Accelerator Applications, University of Huddersfield.

Shortly after his encounter with British talk show host Cathy Newman (posted below), Jordan Peterson – visibly shaken, his preternatural (one might almost call it Obamian) cool more than a little frayed around the edges, and wearing a very heavy sweater under his suit jacket – appeared on the Dutch weblog Geenstijl, opposite editor Timon Dias :

I hesitated to post this conversation at first, lest the Bathtub Bulletin start turning into “Jordan Peterson Central”.  But there are some unique things here, which I think everyone will find more than interesting –

The first section of the conversation is an analysis/discussion/post-mortem of Peterson’s interview with Newman: very insightful, with Peterson exhibiting a truly critical attitude – especially toward himself and his handling of the interaction (most refreshing, in this day of grandstanders and I’m-so-great-ists…).

The second, and much longer, section consists of a discussion of Peterson’s philosophy, as broken down by Dias into five major points – as good a summation of said philosophy as I’ve seen yet…