President Donald Trump’s budget megabill is in the House of Representatives after being narrowly passed by the Senate. Here are the key items in “The One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
Funding for something called “The Facility.”
Smaller, phone booth–sized detention boxes on every American street corner.
Coupon for “buy two get one free” 12-packs of Coca-Cola products at ShopRite.
A few new mean nicknames for Jeb Bush.
A map of California inside a red circle with a cross through it.
A glossy centerfold photo of a hot woman who is about to lose her health insurance.
The end of treatment for those currently receiving CPR.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s world-famous moose tracks ice cream recipe.
Moderate cuts to Medicaid compared to what’s coming.
Melanistic and typically colored jaguars. Photo: Eduardo Estrada / Wikimedia
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
melanism
PRONUNCIATION:
(MEL-uh-niz-uhm)
MEANING:
noun: An inherited overproduction of melanin leading to unusually dark coloration.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek melano- (black). Earliest documented use: 1842.
NOTES:
Melanism is nature’s “dark mode”. The opposite of albinism (“light mode”). Iconic examples: black panthers, melanistic jaguars, and peppered moths that went goth during the Industrial Revolution.
The Lord of Dominion is a card about mastery – of life and of ourselves. It indicates the ability to follow through on our personal destiny, to make our dreams into reality, and to realise our strongest desires.Dominion is a word not much used these days – and therefore sometimes misunderstood. It means ‘rulership’… and has almost nothing to do with domination, even though each of them comes from the same root – domain. In the context of the Tarot, we are relating to our personal domain or territory as our own lives, and our potentials.This card has a great deal to do with the application of the True Will. We all have one of these, whether we have worked to discover and understand it or not. One thing that many people don’t understand is the fact that the Will functions at all times, in every second of existence. Every thought, concept, hope, dream, whether positive or negative, creates a piece of our upcoming reality.This is one reason why we have, in the Working With commentaries, concentrated very hard on looking at what we think and feel, how we see ourselves, and how we relate to life. Because, with every thought you think, your Will operates to bring that thought into existence. So if you happen to be thinking negatively and unhappily, your Will trots off and makes a little bit more negativity and unhappiness for you.The Lord of Dominion gives us power over our thoughts, by asking us to take responsibility for the future we are making for ourselves. We must do this by observing (without judgement nor self-recrimination) our thought patterns. And then we must consider where those thought patterns are leading us. And if we don’t like the look of the future – well, we have the opportunity to change it before it’s too late!!Part of your domain is what you think. So on a day ruled by the Lord of Dominion, check out your thoughts on a regular basis. And if you aren’t happy… do the affirmation!! And then decide what you want to invite into your domain which is positive and constructive and rewarding. Then think about that!!On this day, make no easy compromises. Cut straight to the heart of your desires and needs. Discard any thoughts which get in the way of you getting what you want. Make every action and choice a deliberate attempt to get closer to your goal. And enjoy!!
Affirmation: “My Will flows effortlessly in perfect acts of creation.”
Translation is a 5-step process of “straight thinking in the abstract” comparing and contrasting what seems to be truth with what you can syllogistically, axiomatically and mathematically (using word equations) prove is the truth. It is not an effort to change, alter or heal anything.
The claims in a Translation may seem outrageous, but they are always (or should always be) based on self-evident syllogistic reasoning. Here is one Translation from this week.
1) Truth is that which is so. That which is not truth is not so. Therefore truth is all that is. Truth being all is therefore total, therefore whole, therefore complete. Truth being true is therefore right, therefore correct, therefore perfect. I think therefore I am. Since I am and since Truth is all that is, therefore i, being, am Truth. Since I, being, am Truth, therefore i, being, have all the attributes of Truth. Therefore I, being, am total, whole, complete, true, right, correct, perfect. Since I am mind (self-evident) and since I (being) am Truth, therefore Truth is Mind. (Two things being equal to a third thing are equal to each other.) Since Truth is Mind, therefore Mind has all the attributes of Truth. Therefore Mind is total, whole, complete, true, right, correct, perfect.
2) Is consciousness equivalent to motion?
Word-tracking: consciousness: science, to know, can, being awake, aware, concerned, considered, mind equivalent: equal to, same as, not different from differ: not divided or able to be divided into different elements, types, etc. (etymology: carried away from) motion: movement, to move, to change, to go change: to become different, unlike
3) Truth being all that is, there is nothing different (or carried away) from Truth, Therefore Truth is undifferentiated, changeless. Truth being changeless and to change meaning to move, therefore Truth (whatever that is) does not change or move from being one thing to being another. Therefore Truth is one changeless thing. And Truth being mind/consciousness, therefore the one changeless thing that truth is is undifferentiated consciousness.
4) Truth is undifferentiated, changeless. Truth (whatever that is) does not change or move from being one thing to being another. Truth is one changeless thing. The one changeless thing that truth is is undifferentiated consciousness. 5) Truth is one changeless thing: individuated Consciousness.
Weekly Invitational Translation Group invites your participation. If you would like to submit a Translation on any subject, feel free to send your weekly Translation to zonta1111@aol.com and we will anonymously post it on the Bathtub Bulletin on Friday.
New Thinkin Jul 3, 2025 Mary K. Greer has been studying and teaching tarot for the last half century. She is author of eleven books on tarot and on magic. They include Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for Personal Transformation; Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and Priestesses; The Essence of Magic: Tarot, Ritual, and Aromatherapy; and Mary K. Greer’s 21 Ways to Read a Tarot card. She has taught tarot for 11 years at the New College of California. She has a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Central Florida, where she first taught tarot in 1974. Here she describes the history of tarot cards and the various ways they can be used both for personal growth and to help others. In particular, she focuses on the esoteric tarot system used by the Order of the Golden Dawn. Many examples are illustrated from her personal experience. 00:00 Introduction 04:29 The Order of the Golden Dawn 09:26 History of tarot 19:25 The French tarot tradition 22:31 The major and minor arcana 24:03 Tarot spreads 28:33 Archetypal symbols 31:47 Tarot as a conversation 37:17 Tarot in magical rituals 45:20 Conclusion New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on June 3, 2025)
New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove Jul 2, 2025 Rick Strassman, MD, is an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of New Mexico. He is author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule — A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research Into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences, Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys to Alien Worlds Through Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies, and DMT and the Soul of Prophecy: a New Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible. He has also authored a novel titled Joseph Levy Escapes Death. His website is https://www.rickstrassman.com/ In this interview, rebooted from 2019, he describes how he was an active Buddhist meditator for twenty years while he was also engaged in DMT research. Eventually he left Buddhist practice, and began a deep study of the Hebrew bible. Initially, he thought that the DMT “spirit molecule” might be responsible for spiritual experiences. In retrospect, he now believes that DMT serves as a placebo to amplify that which is already in the mind. He has developed the concept of “theoneurology” — suggesting that the divine acts upon human imagination that then inspires the rational intellect. New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on September 27, 2019)
Our very cells respond to the thoughts we think. With every word, silent or spoken, we influence the body’s functioning. We participate in the life of the universe itself. If my consciousness grows lighter, then so does everything within and around me. This means, of course, that with every thought, I can start to re-create my life. In saying yes to new beginnings, I begin to bring them forth.
Today I am open to a life reborn, arisen from the ashes of my wounded self and any limits born of circumstances that are no more. I am willing to be renewed and repaired by the spirit of God’s love. I am willing to forgive.
Amen.
Today I say yes to new beginnings
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The Jesus who challenges billionaires, who breaks ICE detention centers, who stands with transgender kids, who feeds the hungry—that Jesus is still too danger
The modern image of Jesus in much of American Christianity would be nearly unrecognizable to the man who walked the dusty roads of Galilee 2,000 years ago. Today, he’s too often presented as a soft-spoken personal savior, a symbol of comfort and obedience, whose primary mission was to get people into heaven after they die. In many churches, he’s been reduced to a mascot for empire, capitalism, and personal prosperity.
But the Jesus we meet in the Gospels is far more dangerous than that.
He was a revolutionary—a direct threat to the religious elite, the Roman Empire, and every system of power built on hierarchy, exclusion, and violence. The message he preached—”The Kingdom of God is at hand”—was not a promise of escape from this world. It was a challenge to transform it.
The Kingdom Was a Threat
To understand the radical nature of Jesus’ message, we need to strip away centuries of theological varnish and return to his actual words. The central theme of his teaching was not individual salvation, but the Kingdom of God—a phrase that appears over 100 times in the New Testament.
This Kingdom was not a place in the sky after death. It was a new reality to be born on Earth, here and now. It was not about private piety but public transformation. It turned the social order upside down.
In this Kingdom, the first would be last. The meek would inherit the Earth. The hungry would be filled. The rich would be sent away empty. The merciful, the peacemakers, the persecuted—they would be blessed.
These were not abstract moral ideas. They were revolutionary statements, threatening to the powerful of his time. Jesus was announcing the arrival of a new political, economic, and spiritual order—one that would dismantle empire, subvert religious hypocrisy, and lift up the oppressed.
Jesus vs. Empire
Jesus lived in a time of brutal Roman occupation that would have delighted Trump. The people of Judea were heavily taxed, militarily controlled, and religiously manipulated by elites who had aligned themselves with Caesar. Crucifixion was Rome’s favored method of control—a public reminder of what happened to those who challenged authority.
And Jesus did challenge it.
When he flipped over the tables of the money changers in the Temple, it wasn’t just about spiritual corruption—it was an act of political defiance against a system that exploited the poor in the name of God.
When he called Herod a “fox,” when he refused to pay homage to Caesar, when he entered Jerusalem on a donkey to mimic and mock imperial processions—it was calculated satire, revolutionary theater. He was, as theologian John Dominic Crossan put it, “a Mediterranean Jewish peasant with a consciousness of divine justice,” whose mission was nothing short of dismantling the machinery of domination.
Not a Sinner’s Prayer, but a Social Gospel
Modern evangelicalism often asks people to recite a “sinner’s prayer” to secure their place in heaven. But Jesus never asked anyone to say a prayer like that. He asked people to follow him—to heal the sick, feed the poor, forgive their enemies, and reject materialism.
He talked constantly about money and justice. He denounced the hoarding of wealth, telling the rich young ruler to sell everything. He warned that “you cannot serve both God and Mammon.” He told parables where the villain was often the rich man who ignored the suffering at his gate.
In Matthew 25, he laid out the terms of judgment—not based on belief or ritual, but on acts of compassion. “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was a stranger and you welcomed me… Just as you did it to the least of these, you did it to me.”
This was not a privatized spirituality. It was a public ethic. It was solidarity with the poor, the outcast, the criminal, the foreigner.
What the Early Christians Knew
The first Christians understood all of this. They weren’t building megachurches or lobbying for tax breaks. They were forming underground communities where wealth was shared, status was dismantled, and allegiance to Caesar was rejected.
Acts 2 tells us they “held all things in common” and “no one claimed private ownership of any possessions.” They were practicing an early form of radical economic justice—what today would be derided as socialism or worse.
They were tortured, arrested, and killed not because they believed in being nice or going to heaven—but because they lived a life that directly contradicted the values of empire. Their refusal to bow to Roman authority was not just theological—it was political.
How Jesus Got Tamed
Over time, as Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the radical message of Jesus was tamed. The Kingdom of God was reinterpreted as a post-mortem paradise. Faith became institutionalized. The Church aligned itself with kings and empires, blessing war and conquest in Jesus’ name.
Today, many churches in America have once again traded prophetic truth for political power. Jesus has been co-opted to justify nationalism, racism, corporate greed, and anti-immigrant bigotry. In doing so, they are not following Jesus—they are crucifying him again.
The Jesus who challenges billionaires, who breaks ICE detention centers, who stands with transgender kids, who feeds the hungry without checking their citizenship status—that Jesus is still too dangerous for many pulpits.
Reclaiming the Revolution
But the Gospel hasn’t lost its power. It’s just been buried—under layers of comfort theology and imperial theology.
To reclaim the real Jesus is to reclaim the path of spiritual resistance. It is to stand against systems of domination and announce, with both word and action, that a new world is possible. It is to align ourselves with the powerless and recognize that divinity is most fully expressed not in palaces, but in prison cells and border camps and public housing and hospice wards.
It is to say, as Jesus did, “The Kingdom of God is at hand”—and to live as if that were true.
Cliff Fletcher, loved by many, passed away on Sunday, June 29th.
Cliff Fletcher had been deeply involved in The Prosperos during part of the ’60’s and ’70’s. Over the following years, he often spoke about Thane and his teachings, which were clearly still significant in his life.
He stayed in touch with many Prosperos students. One especially important way he remained close was through the men’s group he participated in for many years.
The group members are mostly Prospero students who are deeply sharing and bonding with each other.
We are thankful he was part of our lives and for the love we shared with him over the years.
(via Sara Walker at The Prosperos High Watch Translation Service)
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