Warrior Stance Archives - ZapOracle.com https://zaporacle.com Home of Jonathan Zap's Image Oracle Sat, 14 May 2022 18:09:45 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.9.3 https://zaporacle.com/wp-content/uploads/cropped-zaplogo31-32x32.jpg Warrior Stance Archives - ZapOracle.com https://zaporacle.com 32 32 18772393 Rabbit-Hole Navigation Skills—Free Video Guide for Orienteering in Zones of High Strangeness https://zaporacle.com/rabbit-hole-navigation-skills-free-video-guide-for-orienteering-in-zones-of-high-strangeness/ https://zaporacle.com/rabbit-hole-navigation-skills-free-video-guide-for-orienteering-in-zones-of-high-strangeness/#respond Thu, 22 Nov 2018 05:08:33 +0000 https://zaporacle.com/?p=22032 Note: the Guidebook Is A Youtube Playlist of Three Videos  The first video was filmed at the amazing Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, New Mexico Parts Two and Three at Zap Oracle International Headquarters in Boulder, Colorado       Explore the ultimate rabbit-hole: Looking Across the Event Horizon and into the Singularity Explore the …

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Explore the ultimate rabbit-hole:

Looking Across the Event Horizon and into the Singularity

Explore the Rabbit Hole of the Facebook Matrix (a Youtube version of this sci-fi word movie will be added soon):  Home is Where your Timeline is—A Sci-Fi Word-Movie Journey into the Facebook Matrix

WARNING: You are currently living in a Rabbit Hole that is a disgrace, a disaster, pathetic, sick, stupid, crooked, failing and sad. See:

Dispatches from the Trumpocalypse

Some of the topics and skills covered in Rabbit Hole Navigation:

How do you stay oriented and keep your moral grounding in an age of accelerating evolutionary metamorphosis?

Why reality-testing has become politically incorrect (and not just amongst fundamentalist and right-wing factions but also in New Age circles, festivals and subcultures).

Archetype possession and its classic symptoms—ego inflation, literalism, messianic delusion, proselytizing, etc.

How to work with archetypes and the collective unconscious without getting possessed

The trickster aspect of the paranormal and the discernment skills needed to work with  synchronicities, dreams, visions, charismatic experiences and paranormal occurrences without over reading them or being misled in various other ways.

Anti-rationality and the pre/trans fallacy

Connect the Dotism—how to detect patterns without spinning yourself into ever-more obsessive/paranoid webs

The conflation of skepticism with debunkerism and the origins of true skepticism in Greek philosophy

Working with ambiguity and avoidance of confirmation bias, premature closure, halo effects and other cognitive blind spots

The need for a strong moral compass and reliable allies who share a commitment to consciousness

Red flags to be wary of when relating to fellow explorers and purported guides, gurus, teachers, light-workers, walk-ins, channelers, mystics, sages, starseeds, etc

The “elder” fallacy and how to evaluate those who claim special lineages, off-planet connections, prophetic abilities, etc.

The crucial importance of “shadow” integration

The psychology of apocalypticism  

Wariness about materialist, pseudo-skeptic types with delusions of objectivity—-

Scientism versus science, and why so many scientists and institutions have an irrational and bias against paranormal phenomena and research

These are some of the skills I’ve learned from the last forty years of navigating rabbit holes. The adult phase of this work began in 1978, when I was 20 and in my last year of college. I set out to see if I could find a connecting link between my own paranormal experiences, obsessions, and parallel themes and images emerging from popular culture. In other words, I put himself into a nexus of all the rabbit holes I had ever known and tried to find a way through. 

Fortunately, help came from the master navigator of rabbit holes—-Carl Jung, who provided, through his collected works, crucial tools and guidelines that allowed me to make a life-changing discovery—- what I call the “the Singularity Archetype,” an emergent archetype that relates to the evolutionary metamorphosis of both species and individual. By May of 1978, the newly discovered roadmap through the nexus of rabbit holes became a philosophy honors paper entitled, “Archetypes of a New Evolution,”and in 2012, I published the much more developed version, Crossing the Event Horizon, Human Metamorphosis and the Singularity Archetype.

While I’ve written more than a hundred articles and essays relevant to rabbit hole navigation, most of the basic principles can be found in the following essays (which can also be listened to in their YouTube versions):

Explore the ultimate rabbit-hole:

Looking Across the Event Horizon and into the Singularity

 Reality Testing is Politically Incorrect

Carnival 2012—a Psychological Study of the 2012 Phenomenon and the Twenty-Two Pitfalls and Blindspots of Esoteric Research

Dynamic Paradoxicalism—the Anti-Ism Ism

Problems with the Conspiratist Worldview


There are certain moments when in the midst of rabbit hole navigation, amidst the slippery, treacherous suctions and impelling forces of creative obsessions, amidst the shadowy woods that are so lovely, dark and deep and hold promises you want to keep–

—-amidst the subterranean tremors reverberating from the howling chaos of Trumpocalypse roiling across the dense surface of the world far above—there are always those certain moments of clarity—


—when you look up and see the labyrinthine journey of ever-shifting improbabilities is actually working, and that though the journey is the destination, you are also actually getting somewhere and may even be able to offer maps, maps that generate their own territory and may one day be of use to other navigators . . .

Apologies to Robert Frost, more maps coming soon.



Dealing with the Mechanical Resistance of Everyday Life https://zaporacle.com/dealing-with-the-mechanical-resistance-of-everyday-life/ https://zaporacle.com/dealing-with-the-mechanical-resistance-of-everyday-life/#respond Sun, 09 Oct 2016 03:28:59 +0000 http://zaporacle.com/?p=18131 Image: Goya, The Forge, 1812-1816 Oil on linen The Frick Collection, New York City A subject that seems to rarely be discussed in counter-cultural circles, and yet is all-pervasive, is how to deal with the fragmented frustrations involved in daily life. I woke up predawn as usual to write and a new computer monitor that worked …

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A subject that seems to rarely be discussed in counter-cultural circles, and yet is all-pervasive, is how to deal with the fragmented frustrations involved in daily life. I woke up predawn as usual to write and a new computer monitor that worked perfectly until this morning was now flatly refusing to recognize the signal it should have been getting from my CPU. I messed with settings on it and on my laptop, tried a different cable, etc. feeling the precious predawn zone I prefer for writing (see Pre-Dawn Window Zone) slipping away as I dealt with obnoxious, mundane, mechanical resistance. As the frustration with it rose, I also thought about all the “open loops” (unfinished tasks) crowding around the next couple of days. I knocked off a couple of big ones last night and then drove off to complete another and found that the engine light had come on in my vehicle—another open loop to deal with today. I pushed the monitor issue aside (and yes, I realize these are first-world hardships) and wrote from my laptop. It ended up being a good writing session anyway. And then I wrote a bit in my journal, that spirit voice, the voice of the higher self, whatever you want to call it advising me on how to deal with such typical frustrations: This morning is a good example of what you need to do to fulfill your mission in the Babylon Matrix. Details. Details. Details. There are always going to be mechanical resistance and loops opening or lying open at your feet ready to trip you up. You are going to feel the imcompleteness of that, the wrongness of it, the inappropriateness of it in a world where the inappropriate is appropriate. As someone put it, “life is just one damn thing after another.” You know what to do. You just have to deal with the one goddamn thing after another, without letting yourself get hung up too much or distracted by open loops when you are working on an open loop or something of higher value. Relax into full engagement with the one thing you are focusing on right now, because that’s the most you can do. Focus on your stance. If you keep focusing on the one thing at a time, the leaky boat stays afloat, and the mission progresses. Loops will keep opening. Things that were working perfectly will keep breaking. Accidents and mishaps will happen. Petty tyrants will appear. Friends will become estranged and polarized and outcomes with them cannot be controlled.

Don’t focus on any open loops except the one you are focused on at the moment. If you think of or notice others, add them to the list. Start the day with majors, then work on some minors, exercise, do a few more minors perhaps, take time for social and other higher value opportunities. Bailing out the leaky boat, closing open loops as others open is the daily struggle.

You will usually feel stressed or celebratory. Don’t let that be an excuse to abuse your body or slacken healthy disciplines. Keep moving through the weeds doing the one damn thing after another. You are guaranteed to get through it, one way or another.

For my major work on this topic see Mechanical Resistance Matrix—available in document form, as a podcast and a Youtube and follow the links within it for more on perfecting your stance toward the daily frustrations of life.


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Float like a Butterfly, Sting like A Bee—a Personal Reaction to the Death of Ali https://zaporacle.com/float-like-a-butterfly-sting-like-a-bee-a-personal-reaction-to-the-death-of-ali/ https://zaporacle.com/float-like-a-butterfly-sting-like-a-bee-a-personal-reaction-to-the-death-of-ali/#respond Sun, 09 Oct 2016 02:35:48 +0000 http://zaporacle.com/?p=18113 aliI thought of Ali yesterday, before the news, when I read that Iceland (where I’m traveling) was about the size of Kentucky, which made me wonder about how Ali, who is from Kentucky, was doing these days. Then this morning, I awakened in Stykkishólmur, Iceland at 4am, two days before the end of four and …

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I thought of Ali yesterday, before the news, when I read that Iceland (where I’m traveling) was about the size of Kentucky, which made me wonder about how Ali, who is from Kentucky, was doing these days. Then this morning, I awakened in Stykkishólmur, Iceland at 4am, two days before the end of four and a half months of travel to twenty countries, to the most intense vertigo I’ve ever experienced. It was like my head was mounted to a ceiling fan. Like anyone in the present era waking up under any circumstance, I reached for my five-inch life raft, the smartphone charging beside me, to find out the time and be reassured that I was still able to read and was not having a stroke. My fingers an inch from the phone, an email notification appeared, could barely read it, but decoded enough to realize that one of the most inspiring public figures of my life, Muhammad Ali, was down for the final count. My visual field was too blurred by the intense vertigo to read any details. Immediately after the shock of the breaking news alert, as if in reaction, a staccato cascade of texts began pouring in from a twenty-year-old I know, a martial artist with a warrior essence and all sorts of great talents, but who has also been experiencing life-threatening mental health episodes, telling me that he was about to leave his parent’s house at midnight to hitchhike across the country.

The moral imperative was to help him, to see if I could influence him, as I’d been advising him for a few weeks to stay put until his condition stabilized, but as I tried to sit up to compose messages, the spinning became so severe, all I got were gyrating, stroboscopic images of the ceiling. It was like my head was inside a rapidly spinning kinescope. It was nauseating, nearly panic-inducing, and yet I was struck by what seemed like a synchronicity—what I was experiencing must be close to what it would feel like trying to sit up after a knock out punch in a boxing ring. I flashed to something Ali said, something I read when I was a teenager, that boxing meant being able to stay on your feet when you were in a nightmarish, concusive zone where “alligators were playing trumpets.”

I knew I had gone to sleep with a fever and could feel I was badly dehydrated. There was a water bottle by my side, and downing half of it began to reduce the vertigo sufficiently for me to respond to the texts from my young friend six time zones away. He was about to put his pack on his back and head out the door at midnight, but he wanted someone to talk to first. Contradicting what he wanted to do never worked, but I advised him to stay put anyway, and, as usual, could see that paternalistic mode was only going to backfire. Giving up on resistance, I texted him that Ali had just died. His martial arts background gave him a bit more awareness of who Ali was than most millennials, but to someone born long after his retirement from the ring, Ali had always been a severely disabled living legend, not the larger than life figure he was to so many boomers like me who had grown up watching him float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

He reacted with a text:

“Oh wow, no way. May his spirit live on! Perhaps I can conjure him for a little extra umph in my journeys.”

This kid was born fourteen years after Ali’s retirement, but he still sensed him as a source of inspiration.

Reaching for a straw, or perhaps a yarrow stalk, I  asked my young friend if he would like an I Ching reading and he agreed. The I Ching app on my phone drew hexagram 5, Waiting, but he wasn’t willing to wait, he felt the urgency, the call to adventure of youthful risk taking and had already stepped out the door with his pack on, so I wished him luck and the next message I got from him thanked me for the reading and told me that he had already found a ride to the interstate.

The outcome of that impulsive choice is still unknown, but the saga of Muhammad Ali, the call to adventure he answered as a young man, the risks he took in the ring and out of it, the inspiration he brought to millions, if not billions, that hero cycle had just ended on this plane of reality.

Whatever time you wake up in Iceland this time of year, it’s light out, and with the impact of the news, and the light streaming in around the black-out curtains of my hotel room, three hours of sleep was going to have to be enough. The vertigo was slowly winding down as I pounded down more water and felt called to write something about Ali.

Even as a child I was fascinated by charisma, and by twelve I had concluded that the three most charismatic people I knew of were Muhammad Ali, Mick Jagger and Marlon Brando. All of them were artists, entertainers, but Ali could also make things happen in the brutally physical, blood-and-sweat-stained crucible of the boxing ring. Ali had more than stage presence, he had an uncanny ability to remain the last man standing when one after another of the biggest, baddest tough guys in the world had the opportunity and passionate motivation to beat his brains in. It was a form of credibility that no kid growing up, like me, in the Bronx, during some of the most violent years of that troubled borough, could fail to take seriously. Everyone wanted to be able to fight like Muhammad Ali— every kid my age wanted to stand over schoolyard bullies, like Ali stood over a stunned, horizontal Sonny Liston, and exclaim, “Take that mother fucker!”

Ali was the ultimate sports hero, even to a sports-hating kid like me who usually prayed that hometown teams would lose so I wouldn’t have to hear about it anymore. I lived a few subway stops from Yankee stadium and never went to a Yankee game. Actually, I went once as an adult, in the eighties, when I  was teaching GED at the Bronx House of Detention, a horrible jail literally across the street from Yankee stadium in the South Bronx. As I was leaving the jail one evening, a desperate scalper sold me a ticket for $5. I walked into Yankee stadium for the first and only time, watched Dave Winfield hit a home run, got bored and left after about ten minutes. That’s how much of a sports fan I am, but growing up, whenever Ali flickered across our black-and-white television set, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him, even when I thought he was an arrogant and narcissistic asshole. And Ali certainly was a narcissistic and arrogant asshole at times, but more about that in a moment.

By far the most intense media event I ever witnessed was the “Fight of the Century,” the 1971 Ali/Frazier fight, a match between two undefeated world champions that happened in my hometown of New York City. The second most intense media event I witnessed in New York City was the clinical hysteria of teenage girls when the Beatles came to America to perform a concert in Shea Stadium in 1965. Even on the other side of town, in the Bronx, you could feel the crazed excitement of screaming fans. But Beatlemania paled beside the build up to the first Ali/Frazier fight that I witnessed (the build up, not the actual fight) at age 13. The news dominated all the New York media and the tension and excitement in the air had a crackling, third-rail voltage. I remember reading at the time that there were uncommonly few suicides that night in the United States because even the most desperate people had to know how the fight ended.

My mom, who had met Ali, was impressed with him, and since the family had been against the Vietnam war, Ali, who had famously resisted the draft and lost four of his best boxing years as a result, was perceived as having a significance not usually accorded to athletes in my anti-sports, intellectual family. But I remember being intensely irritated by Ali’s bragging and self-promotion. I had gotten zoned into a junior high school in the South Bronx, and during the month or so leading up to the Fight of the Century, a group of  Nation of Islam kids in my junior high, who had Xs for middle names, specifically targeted me for daily harassment and beatings. And here was this braggart, Muhammad Ali spouting off about the Nation of Islam* and his mentor, Elijah Mohammed, and boasting about the beating he claimed he was going to deliver to Joe Frazier whom he repeatedly called a “gorilla” and “too dumb to be champion.” If a white boxer, or a white anybody had called a black athlete a gorilla their career would be over, but Ali had an ability, equaled only by Donald Trump, to deliver outrageous and undeserved insults and get away with it. Unlike the Donald, however, Ali had skin in the game, didn’t insult women, but saved his most vicious insults for other super tough black men who would get their chances to beat his pretty face in if they could. I wanted Joe Frazier to shut him up, but at the same time I couldn’t help but to be far more fascinated with dazzling, witty and ultra-charismatic Muhammad Ali.

*To his credit, Ali left the racist Nation of Islam in 1975.

The next day the New York Daily News ran a cartoon depicting Ali with his mouth zippered shut. But I remembered feeling this cognitive dissonance at the time— I felt Ali deserved to have his mouth zippered shut, but I was also disappointed because I was fascinated by his charisma and athletic and verbal brilliance. Ali had consciously crafted his trash-talking persona to be someone you loved to hate and the weird disappointment I felt forced me to realize the love that was mixed up in the hate he had also manipulated me to feel.

Like so many boomers, I came to identify with Ali’s arrogant confidence and trickster-like rebellion from social norms. But my early impression of Ali as a narcissist bully was not wrong.  An HBO documentary, Thrilla in Manilla, reveals a very dark side of Ali who was both sadistic and racist in his treatment of Frazier who had helped him get his boxing license back and even given him money when he was struggling.

You don’t need to know much about boxing to watch the Ali/Frazier fights and perceive an archetypal difference between Frazier and Ali. Ali is the dazzling, far more talented and mercurial, almost magical athlete, while Frazier embodies a single, core warrior attribute: unbending intent. Frazier absorbs hideous punishment and never retreats, he keeps coming at Ali, even when both his eyes are swollen shut as they were in the final rounds of the Thrilla in Manilla.

But heroes are not supposed to be perfect. David took down Goliath, but he also sent an innocent man to his death just so he could get with Bathsheba.  As Jung said, “The larger the man, the larger the shadow.” Jung probably hoped the quote would be applied to him since he was 6’6” and had a deserved reputation as a bully since he was a boy.

Ali, could beat up the best of them, but his uncanny gracefulness and speed had an androgynous aspect and he was always boasting about how pretty he was. He was a big, strong man but his hand speed was clocked as 25% faster than Sugar Ray Robinson, often considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in history, a welter and middle weight  who weighed 50-60 pounds less than Ali. Ali’s famous rope-a-dope strategy he first tried on Frazier, but used with far more devastating effect on Foreman, was an androgynous strategy. (see my work on androgyny: Casting Precious into the Cracks of Doom—Androgyny, Alchemy, Evolution an the One Ring ). He allowed himself to be pummeled with body punches while he waited for his opponent to exhaust his fire. (see Zap Oracle card 630: Rope a Dope )  Using an almost feminine, trickster strategy, Ali was able to take down George Foreman, an opponent so powerful that sports pundits thought he might actually kill Ali. When Foreman punched the heavy bag while he trained in Manila, Norman Mailer said it looked like he might break it in half. At the end of the fight, I believe it was Howard Cosell in his memorable, nasal voice who said (approximately), “You can say a lot of things about Ali, but son of a gun, he delivers.”

In his most brilliant moments, Ali created the magnificent illusion that he could triumph not just over other boxers, but over the limitations of corporeality, limitations that the human species has an enormous will to transcend (see The Glorified Body).  He brought such style and grace to the most brutal of sports that his best performances seemed superhuman. Baby boomers like me would fantasize about being able to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee while doing the Ali shuffle.

But even Muhammed Ali only got to be Muhammed Ali in that sense for less than twenty years. And then Ali became, like Christopher Reeves, a fallen superman, and we had to witness the terrible late career fights followed by the even sadder consequence of his attempts to fly too close to the sun— the melting of wings, the slowed, earthbound body, the loss of quickness with fist and word.

Ali is a genuine hero of his age— he personified the indomitable aspiration, the arrogant confidence and narcissism to take on social conventions and deliver amazing victories, but also the price that comes due when we attempt to heroically transcend the body while still being embodied.

Ali has heard the final bell and stepped across the event horizon that awaits us all. Perhaps in some other dimension he can once again float like a butterfly.


Rope-a-Dope, a Classic Warrior Strategy that may have just Lessened the Odds of Trumpocalypse https://zaporacle.com/rope-a-dope-a-classic-warrior-strategy-that-may-have-just-lessened-the-odds-of-trumpocalypse/ https://zaporacle.com/rope-a-dope-a-classic-warrior-strategy-that-may-have-just-lessened-the-odds-of-trumpocalypse/#respond Sun, 09 Oct 2016 01:18:43 +0000 http://zaporacle.com/?p=18090 Rope-a-dope is an effective, androgynously intelligent warrior strategy that can help you deal with all sorts of difficult life situations. In the first presidential debate between Trump and Clinton we have a perfect example of how rope-a-dope can be used to defeat a foolishly aggressive opponent. But before I discuss how it played out in …

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But before I discuss how it played out in the debate, here is the text of Zap Oracle card #630, Rope-a-Dope :

“A master first reveals himself in his ability to hold back.” — Goethe

Rope-a-dope, the strategy that Muhammed Ali used to beat George Foreman in “The Rumble in the Jungle,” is a classic Warrior strategy that can be applied to many situations.

George Foreman, who was younger, bigger and stronger than Ali, and was the reigning heavyweight champion, was the heavy favorite to win their 1974 championship fight. Foreman was such a powerful puncher that, according to Norman Mailer, when he hit the heavy bag it looked like he was going to break it in half. Foreman had demolished the only two men who had ever beaten Ali, Joe Frazier and Ken Norton, both of whom lasted only two rounds. Foreman was such a powerful fighter that he was able to make a comeback after a decade-long retirement, and became the oldest man, at age forty-five, to ever become world heavyweight champion. Ali was considered by many to be over-the-hill, and some sports commentators worried aloud that he might actually be killed in the ring by Foreman.

Ali’s strategy was all about energy. It was about conserving his energy until just the right moment, while allowing his adversary to waste energy. Ali leaned back in the ropes taunting Foreman and allowing him to pummel him with wild punches while he covered up. In the extreme heat and humidity of Zaire, Foreman soon exhausted himself. By the eighth round Foreman was so spent that his punches lacked power and his defenses were greatly weakened. Ali pounced, and a devastating five-punch combination brought Foreman to the canvass and ignominious defeat.

Rope-a-dope became famous as a boxing strategy and was later used with great effect by boxers Manny Pacquiao and Nicolino Locche. Some have also generalized the strategy and applied it to any situation where you tempt a foolish, aggressive opponent to expose himself to danger. For example, recently in the news, political analysts have stated that Obama is trying to rope-a-dope the Republicans with the 2011 budget by letting them make the first moves on entitlements and other unpopular budget cuts.

This card suggests a greater generalization of the rope-a-dope strategy so that it can also be applied to situations where there is no human adversary, but an adversarial force that you cannot simply overpower. It is quite common, in almost any area of life, to find that your intentions are being blocked by seemingly inexorable forces. When forward progress is blocked by such a force, the common tendency is to punch yourself out in vain efforts to resist or break through the obstruction. This tendency puts us on the losing side of rope-a-dope. Let’s consider a hypothetical example: Max is a young man in his late twenties who has gone a few years without being able to find a romantic relationship with a woman. Feeling frustrated and desperate, he decides that he’s going to find a girlfriend in the next month no matter what. He starts answering every personal ad posted by a woman within twenty years of his age. He goes out on a series of unsatisfactory dates with women he has contacted through this process. All the women he meets are embarrassingly incompatible with what he wants, and he grows increasingly resentful and bitter. A couple of weeks after the month has passed, Max, still feeling exhausted by his month of romantic futility, meets, through his work, Sarah, a woman he feels deeply attracted to. Despite the fact that Sarah finds that they have much in common, she is turned off by something overwrought and needy about Max and rebuffs him.

In an alternate timeline Max’s life stance is informed by the rope-a-dope strategy. He recognizes that romance isn’t happening at the moment and that it’s not something you can make happen on a timetable. Instead, Max cheerfully makes progress at work and has deepening friendships with a number of his coworkers. He has a lot of pent-up energy which he sublimates into workouts at the gym. When Sarah shows up at his workplace she finds herself attracted to a cheerful, fit and confident Max who is on top of his game at work and popular with his coworkers. Instead of banging his head against a temporally closed door, Max bided his time and made progress in a number of open avenues of possibility. On the right side of rope-a-dope, when the door to romance opened he was energized and ready.

When we encounter powerful forces — obstructions, grievous absences, adversaries — that stand between us and what we want and/or need, we should avoid the temptation to punch ourselves out with futile resistance. To be on the right side of the rope-a-dope strategy, we allow a contrary force that is too strong for us to overpower to spend itself while we conserve our energy and move in the direction of open avenues of possibility.

An implied rope-a-dope life strategy can be found in the following quote by visionary genius WIlliam Blake (1757-1827):

“Fool they call me. I laugh at the goddess fortune for I know that she is the devil’s servant ready to kiss anyone’s ass. I labour upwards into futurity.”

Blake never got much recognition or income for his work while he was alive. He recognized that fortune was often irrespective of merit. We see this today, where celebrity and wealth are often bestowed on the unworthy. Instead of punching himself out trying to resist this aspect of fortune, Blake labored upward into futurity, moving toward the open avenues of possibility, relentlessly working on his poems, engravings, etc.

Consider this a propitious time to examine areas of your life where you face tenacious obstacles, grievous absences and adversaries. Which side of the rope-a-dope strategy do you want to be on?

The generalized rope-a-dope strategy is to avoid punching yourself out when you encounter obstructing forces you cannot overpower. Instead, bide your time, conserve your energy, and gracefully keep moving toward open avenues of possibility.


The first Trump/Clinton debate is a classic illustration of how to apply Rope-a-Dope. Yes, it would be great if this election took place in an alternate universe where candidates thoughtfully discussed key issues and our attention wasn’t dominated by vulgar power contests with an uniformed reality television star who more than earned his Politifact title of “liar of the year.” The debate was a power contest, far more than a discussion of issues and I’m going to analyze it from the power perspective.

Trump was his usual, hyper-aggressive self. He sought to dominate through volume of sound, quantity of words and various bullying tactics that worked well for him in the Republican primary debates.  He exemplified what William Butler Yeats prophecized in his apocalyptic poem, The Second Coming:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

 Are full of passionate intensity.

The passionate intensity of the gasoline and rag fire of Trump’s excess energy expenditure during the debate has been statistically analyzed by Bloomberg Politics and shows that Trump spoke a full 36% more than Clinton, interrupting and attacking far more often. Trump frequently and obnoxiously interrupted both Clinton and the impeccably restrained African-American moderator, Lester Holt. Clinton, who was obviously employing a prepared strategy, remained amiable, bemused and smiling, never resisting his frequent interruptions, some of which turned out to be disastrous admissions by Trump. For example, Clinton baited Trump about his refusal to release his tax returns: “Or maybe he doesn’t want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he’s paid nothing in Federal Taxes.” Trump couldn’t even wait till she finished speaking before snapping his pouty lips onto the fish hook. He interrupted with, “That makes me smart,” a devastatingly, highly unsmart admission that he had indeed, not been paying Federal income tax. Clinton quickly utilized Trump’s foolish confession: “So if he paid zero, that means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or health.”

Lester Holt gave Trump a chance to recover by changing the subject to Clinton’s greatest vulnerability, the email scandal. Clinton responded with a succinct apology of under fifty words, a low energy response that minimized the target. A rattled Trump responded with a few sentences of attack on one of the technicians who set up Clinton’s server and took the fifth in front of Congress, then he foolishly dropped the subject to return attention to the bleeding wound Clinton had just exposed, “As far as my tax returns, you don’t learn much from tax returns. That I can tell you.”

I won’t go through the whole debate, pointing out all the cases where Trump exposed his poor temperament and got baited into foolish admissions, since you can find so much about that online, such as this perceptive article in the New Yorker: Hillary Clinton Brings Out the Real Donald Trump. While most debaters would resist and protest another debater trying to monopolize the time by talking longer, going over allotted time markers and continually interrupting, Clinton held back, and used Rope-a-Donald, letting Trump punch himself out and go on temperament exposing, rambling and incoherent tirades while she remained a smiling onlooker as though sharing with the audience the bemusing spectacle of  a toddler breaking its own toys during a tantrum. Every so often she would come off the ropes long enough to land a stinging jab and then lie back and enjoy the resulting Trumptantrum.

Clinton managed to bait Donald into damaging Trumptantrums spilling into the next day as reported by Politico:

LAST NIGHT Hillary Clinton ended the debate by saying, “And one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. And he called this woman Ms. Piggy. Then he called her Ms. Housekeeping, because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name…Her name is Alicia Machado and she has become a U.S. citizen, and you can bet she’s going to vote this November.”
THIS MORNING Donald Trump went on “Fox and Friends” and said Machado was “the worst” contestant they had and chided her for gaining weight. “She was impossible…She was the winner and you know she gained a massive amount of weight and it was a real problem…This was many years ago, and [Clinton] found the girl and talked about her like she was Mother Teresa and it wasn’t quite that way, but that’s okay. Hillary has to do what she has to do.” Video clip http://bit.ly/2cA06xi (h/t Alex Burns)

Just as Rope-a-Donald may have slightly reduced the odds of Trumpocalypse, you can use rope-a-dope to improve your odds in many difficult situations.

See also: Can Post-Trumpocalytic Retrocausation Save Mankind?  which has links to my other Reality Sandwich articles on the 2016 election.  There is also a Warrior Stance section of Zap Oracle in which you can find articles and podcasts about other effective life strategies.


Are You an Invisible? https://zaporacle.com/are-you-an-invisible/ https://zaporacle.com/are-you-an-invisible/#comments Thu, 18 Jul 2013 09:43:58 +0000 http://www.zaporacle.com/?p=13283 A sometimes surreal exploration of Grant Morrison’s graphic novel masterpiece THE INVISIBLES asks the reader to consider whether they might be an Invisible---an empowered and transforming mutant.

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© 2013 Jonathan Zap



Are you an Invisible?





invisiblesreaching hand












He not busy being born

Is busy dying











invisible magnifier






We have mummified the LIVING here.

























—Grant Morrison, Supergods


 I’ve been here before.

You’re here still. Prepare yourself.

Initiation never ends.



II. Answering the Call of the Invisibles



















“Are they some sort of spirits?”




The old man kneels down to see.


dust mites



“What foul beasts of hell are these?”


“What do they feed on?”

“They are eating particles of your dead skin.”












There is a third domain of life–

Energy based organisms–

Recognized by all cultures except the fundamentalist materialists–

They are called “spirits” and many other names–


Similar energetic transactions as macro and microbiologicals–

Symbiosis, predation and parasitism


Potent energy parasites feeding off Homo sapiens—

Harvesting the energies of darker emotions and sexual chi–


The Gnostics called the most potent of these parasites the Archons–

Archons, the masters of deception–

As spiders weave webs, Archons weave matricies–

Archons have infiltrated the whole matrix of history–

Their spells are woven like threads of spider silk–

Woven into the bloody pageant of history–

Woven to keep us bound into conflict with each other–

Woven to keep us in a state of sweet fermentation–

Sweet ethers of suffering and dark passions–

Sweet ethers that feed them and fuel them–

Sweet ethers to harvest from us forever and ever and ever–

They are the harvesters—

Hiding above us on the food chain—

Their enemies are the Invisibles–

The ones who have awakened to the secret harvest–

The ones who glow as seed crystals awakening the host–

The ones who threaten the harvest–

The harvesters need us energetically—

Just as we need the energy of plants–

Or of animals who have eaten plants–

Plants have a catalytic enzyme, chlorophyll–

They are transducers of solar energy—

They can feed directly on the energy of the sun—



We learned to become hunters and gatherers and then harvesters—

As harvesters we came to believe we were above everything–

We lost sight of the harvesters above us–






Animals that want to disrupt their food chain–




The Invisibles see through to the hidden harvesting—

The Invisibles need you to join them—




Three things you can do with these 97 quotes.










These quotes have also been turned into an online oracle by my friend Nicholas Suski: http://www.suskitech.org/invisibles/






Now you can ask the oracle certain questions such as:


Without looking you let your fingers choose a piece of paper.





III. 97 Quotes from THE INVISIBLES














     Two things we will make you,

smooth between the legs, smooth

between the ears, and what we

take from you, will feed the

kings of the earth.



















There’s a palace in your head, boy.

Learn to live in it always.








On one side there’s the invisibles on the other…
















You’ll know when you see it….



A cannon fires only once but words detonate across centuries.



































Liquid looking glass.

The door to everywhere.






You’ve strayed far from home, little Orlando.

Little unfinished one.























They were given to me!




















Of course you’re dying.

This is the land of the dead, after all.









     That’s shite. This

isn’t a fucking spaceship


Not real Aliens.

This is just

like a


Except it’s

in 3-D.




Type O —common as muck.




For God’s sake! You’re not bringing one of them through!


Bow down slave.


Adore the king of all-tears.




We consume to fuel our imminent metamorphosis.














Her remade palate clickers and whines–




Contagion takes, contagion spreads, contagion rages along precise parameters.

The world sickens and begins to change.






And she realizes that she is a monstrous, parasitical insect.













I crumpled them into ash and drew a circle around me.







And they can remind you why you deserve it.








Somewhere, somehow I knew I had him beat.
















Cum out of the sir-kull .


Cum out of the sir-kull.














Invisibles talking to one another in their own secret language.







To fight the empire is to be infected by its derangement.











“Individuality” is the name  you give your sickness.

Your deviation from correct functioning.




You are already in us.

We have always existed in you.

In your fevers,

In your sick longings,

In your cruelties and

In your despair.


The gate leads from what seems to what is.

Come home to the machine.













You are already in us.

We have always existed in you.

In your fevers,

In your sick longings,

In your cruelties and despair.



Only in your world are tortures eternal.


The darkness in people doesn’t frighten me.


That is when you see only darkness…




I’m almost scared to finish.




















 I can see the Ericksonian commands emerging through your sentence structure.









—Kali is the terrible mother of the negative universe—

—where milk is venom and shit is

gold and death is life—deranged

reversed entities fill the spaces

between things and concepts—







And I saw I had a choice.

Where fear is all there is, there is no fear.





There is only the machine, forever and everywhere.












I’ve been here before.

You’re here still. Prepare yourself.

Initiation never ends.








Before the memeplex, before the super context.



Do you feel as though time’s speeding up, darling?

 I mean ACTUALLY getting faster.

and your initiation is about to begin.















Nothing ends that isn’t something else starting.

So which side are you on?

Do you know yet?













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https://zaporacle.com/are-you-an-invisible/feed/ 6 Are You an Invisible? | ZapOracle.com Are You an Invisible? ---Manichean Mutant Metamorphosis, A Chaos Magic Artifact Brought Out of a Reading of THE INVISIBLES by Grant Morrison © 2013 Jonathan Zap (Note: All italicized quotes are from THE INVISIBLES unless otherwise indicated.) A sometimes surreal exploration of Grant Morrison’s graph archetype,energy parasites,Featured,hungry ghost,mind parasites,top,invisibles zap007 invisiblesreaching hand zap008 invisible magnifier zap002 zap004 zap011 zap006 zap009 dust mites dust-mite-image-for-article 13283
Two Chaos Magic Practices https://zaporacle.com/two-chaos-magic-practices-to-enhance-life/ https://zaporacle.com/two-chaos-magic-practices-to-enhance-life/#comments Fri, 31 May 2013 16:01:59 +0000 http://www.zaporacle.com/?p=13183 text and photo copyright Jonathan Zap, 2013 Image: Metal capsule and statement of intentions sitting atop a bronze fountain sculpture on Pearl Street, Boulder, Colorado   “The science and art of creating change in conformity with will.” —Aleister Crowley’s definition of magick I’d like to offer a couple of chaos magic practices I created:   …

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text and photo copyright Jonathan Zap, 2013




—Aleister Crowley’s definition of magick




The Capsule of Intentionality


Take a small box, jar, case, metal capsule, etc. —a small, aesthetically pleasing and well made container of some sort, and put a document of thoughtfully written worthy intentions in it. I call this a “Capsule of Intentionality.” Alternatively, you can have a journal book for this purpose only, a book that should also be well made and aesthetically just right.  A both/and variation is that the capsule need only contain words to the effect of: “Follow what I have written in my Journal of Intentionality.”

Write things in these sacred linguistic/intentionality containing spaces only when you are in the place of your deepest self— a calm, compassionate spacious place. You can write down intentions that you aim to follow lifelong, but you can also write down the carefully defined practices, disciplines, boundaries, specific guidelines of any sort, that you want to follow.  Any of these parameters (what I call “Lifeline Mission Parameters”) can be altered, but only if you are again in a calm, compassionate state and coming from your deepest self.

Then, as you go through life, aim to follow whatever you set up in your Capsule of Intentionality.  This practice is based on the principle that it is rarely wise to override what you set up in a deeper state of consciousness while you are in a lesser state of consciousness.  So, for example, if I record in my Capsule of Intentionality (while in a deep, calm, compassionate level of awareness) a parameter that I avoid eating sugar foods, but am approaching a party in which there will be tempting, sugary deserts, I can allow a change, or a temporary suspension of my parameter, if I am able to return to such a deep state of consciousness and write in the change.  On some particular occasion, I might find that there are valid emotional and/or social reasons for allowing such an exception. If, on the other hand, I’m in a state of even subtle speedy compulsion energy (notice that different states have very different time signatures), then it would be better not to override capsuled parameters and I should stick with what I set up in a higher state of consciousness. Before you write anything into your sacred document, ask yourself the question:  Am I in a deep, calm, compassionate state?  That is the threshold before you can write new words in your sacred document.  Be wary of creating a parameter that is too galling or ascetic and which you don’t have the will to follow. It is often better to create gentler, more flexible parameters that you stick to, rather than overly strict ones that you violate frequently.

It may be practical to write in your sacred document that a digital version of it on your smart phone is also  valid. This way, if you travel away from your Capsule or Journal of Intentionality, you can make alterations and amendments.  Alternatively, you could have a small Capsule of Intentionality, perhaps even as small as one of those metal capsules made for key chain or amulet use, and keep it with you always as well as some blank slips of paper of the right size to go in the capsule.  An emergency alternative (if you were separated from all of the above versions of the capsule) is to take any piece of paper and consecrate it as a Capsule of Intentionality. One way I’ve sometimes done that is by drawing an oval around the words I’ve written and then, in the center of one of the long curves I draw a little carabineer. This is my way of visually enclosing or encapsulating the words with a symbolic lifeline.  You can devise your own way of creating a boundary enclosing sacred space on a piece of paper.

If you find that you are cheating the state-of-awareness threshold (modifying parameters only in a state of deep authenticity, presence, compassion), you could set up what I call a “time buffer lock” on your Capsule of Intentionality.  Any change that represented a loosening of structure (and therefore raising alertness to the possibility of unworthy indulgence) could be put on a time buffer lock that you committed to in advance for all such loosening of structure modifications. For example, if I have a 24 hour time buffer lock on my Capsule of Intentionality and decide that I want to take down a parameter I set up of avoiding  sugar foods, I would have to write down the change and then wait 24 hours before it goes into effect.  Most drives for unworthy indulgence don’t want delayed gratification, so the time buffer lock is an effective threshold.  Nevertheless, the time buffer lock is not as empowered and flexible a boundary as respecting the threshold by accurately locating your state of consciousness before entering the sacred space of the document and modifying parameters.  From the point of view of the I Ching and Taoism (which was derived from the I Ching), it is best not to prestructure the future but to be open to spontaneous intuitions about how to handle situations as they happen. You seek to flow through the Nowever rather than march to a prestructured rule book and schedule for the future.  Your Capsule of Intentionality creates flexible structure, because it can be modified any time you are in a state of deep awareness.

Chaos Magic suggests that you create your own rituals and practices rather than following a tradition. What I offer here is not a tradition (at least not yet),  but an open structure where you supply the content. Ideally you will modify what I suggest to make it more your own creation.

There are many possible variations. For example, sex magic is at the core of the Western magical tradition.  Although that is traditional in the sense that it is a widely practiced form of magic, it is also just a basic force, like fire, that anyone can adapt individually. What you do with it may be for better or worse (as with fire), but it is a principle that does not need to have any aspect of patriarchal tradition or prescribed formula. Here’s an example (but not a prescription) of how sex magic could be incorporated into the Capsule of Intentionality practice. If you are fortunate enough to be capable of a life affirming auto-erotic experience (as compared to a compulsive, pornography dependent one, a worthy autoerotic experience based on your values and deep intuition) then you could create a glyph (a symbol or icon that represents some intention), or a specific image that does same, and try to focus on it at the point of orgasm. Alternatively, or additionally, you could hold your Capsule of Intentionality in an available hand during the worthy autoerotic experience.

I’m not going to try a serious exposition on the validity of sex magic, but here’s a paragraph:

An orgasm is a highly energetic, transient event, a peak of pleasure, often emotion, possibly even love. It is a an ecstatic between-and-betwixt place that we travel through very quickly, but while the clock may record only seconds, we may experience ourselves rippling out into a moment of eternity. Orgasm can be a rare moment in which we step off the linear time track, find that our inner narrator is speechless, and that the blurred boundary between inner and outer dissolves altogether. It is a zone in which our essence or vibration surges out into the collective human field very powerfully. For all these reasons, practitioners of magic have found orgasm to be a potent zone in which to focus on a worthy intention.

Another value of this practice is that worthy orgasms add life-affirming vitality to the collective field, while unworthy orgasms pollute the collective field. Again, “worthy” or “unworthy” (or insert qualifiers that work better for you) are based on your values and deep intuition rather than outer authority.  Bringing awareness and intention into the primeval intensity of orgasm shifts the human field.

The value of the physical presence of the Capsule of Intentionality is not limited to sex magic. You can also carry or wear your Capsule of Intentionally, attach it to keys (which are helpful survival gear), or in other ways ensure that the Capsule is in your field throughout the day.

Although the Capsule of Intentionality is a physical object, it is also in a liminal zone between matter and psyche because you have made it a meaningful, psychoid object that contains sacred space in which you have formalized your deepest intentions.

With the Capsule of Intentionality practice you take blank paper, the unmanifest field, and change it in accord with what Crowley called “True Will” (the implicit life mission, values, meanings, aims that are vitalized from your deepest core).

My intention in offering this practice is that it help you with the fulfillment of your True Will.



Unfortunately, “vibrations,” like  “inner child” (a potent archetype and subpersonality), has, for many, taken on the cheesy, Celestine taint of New Age cliché. But looking at the world in terms of vibration is as valid as looking at it from the point of view of mathematical relationships, systems analysis, and energetic transaction. Physics tells us that there are no solid objects, that everything is vibratory. Einstein said that solid matter is just a special case of energy. Everything we think is solid is actually patterned energy, the stuff that dreams are made of.  Even black holes don’t sit still and can spin at 84% of the speed of light.


Studies of the frequency of foods (and, no, I haven’t investigated the validity of their protocols) show highly processed food to have low frequency while, for example, a live orange still attached to a tree would have a very high frequency. Gabriel Cousins points out that all food is a transduction of solar energy. According to the principle of his raw foods diet, you should eat food as close to sunlight, the source energy, as possible. An orange right off the tree would be preferable to the gas station purchase of a cellophane wrapped food-like substance with a microscopically inscribed list of chemicals that would make a mad scientist cackle with sadistic glee. Cousins created an acronym, “SOEF,” for “subtle organizing energy field.” This is another way of saying that the vibration of a life giving food contains useful patterning. A raw almond would have a more potent SOEF than a roasted almond. If you bury a raw almond in fertile soil it could turn into a thirty-foot tall almond tree. In the same conditions, a roasted almond put in the ground, rots. It doesn’t contain the SOEF, the patterned information and energy, to create an almond tree.

Food, and other things you ingest, are information, vibration, patterned energy, entering the sacred vessel of your body and thereby influencing your state of energy and vibration. For example, foods alter moods, and a mood is a state of energy and vibration. Here’s a simple thought experiment: in your mind’s eye clone two new versions of yourself who are like well rested versions of yourself right now, and invite them into the thought experiment. Following a good night’s sleep, both clone 1 and clone 2 are in the same vibratory state until they diverge by having different breakfasts. Clone 1 has a fruit salad made from just picked, luscious ripe fruits, etc. Clone 2 is obliged to eat two Big Macs plus a supersized milkshake and supersized fries that must be dipped in mayonnaise. Observe in your mind’s eye if their vibrations diverge, and try to language the differences as accurately as possible.

If you are capable of performing this thought experiment, then you are qualified to evaluate vibrational effects without the use of any hardware. Mechanical instruments will not be as sensitive as you are to effects on you.

If I project myself into a timeline in which I eat a large bowl of ice cream, I foresee pleasure vibrations as I eat it, and then a lowering of frequency and overall energy after. That’s my evaluation based on intuition and life experience for me, but you need to supply your own.

We would be living in a much healthier world if people made a mindful, vibratory evaluation of any solid, liquid or gas (smoke, vapor) they choose to allow across  the portal of a bodily orifice and become part of  their body (you are what you eat, breath and drink). A way to turn that into a practice is to inwardly (or aloud if in solitude) say the word “vibration” before ingesting anything. You could also say “vibration” inwardy before any energetic transaction such as sex, spending (or other financial transaction), choosing a cultural experience (music, movie, game, sport), or initiating or choosing to participate in a conversation (or other mode of communication such as an email).  At any decision nexus–what website to go to, or television channel, or any activity you can choose to spend time on—inwardly say “vibration” before allowing the choice to pass through the gateway of change into actuality.  Saying this word (really saying it, saying it with presence, feeling and awareness rather than by mechanical rote) is a reawakening to the reality of vibration and an opportunity to choose vibratory transactions that accord with your True Will.

Some relevant and supporting documents (all brief Zap Oracle cards, except for last link):

Taking on the Sacred Regimen 

Wizard out in the World    

Warriors the Light (the basics of a Warrior philosophy and with a link to my more substantial document, The Way of the Warrior.

The Capsule of Intentionality    (free book I wrote in 1996)

Any sort of feedback—typos noticed, your thoughts about or experiences with these practices, anything thoughtful, is very welcome.  Comments section follows.

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PreDawn Window Zone https://zaporacle.com/predawn-window-zone/ https://zaporacle.com/predawn-window-zone/#comments Thu, 16 Aug 2012 11:32:20 +0000 http://www.zaporacle.com/?p=11585 copyright 2012, Jonathan Zap Status Update August 16, 2012 3:30 am Awakened by the Spirits of the High Desert and the Red Book So often I find the muse waking me up between 3 and 4 in the morning, as it did this morning at about 3:10 AM, and that can work out very well …

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copyright 2012, Jonathan Zap

Status Update August 16, 2012 3:30 am

Awakened by the Spirits of the High Desert and the Red Book

So often I find the muse waking me up between 3 and 4 in the morning, as it did this morning at about 3:10 AM, and that can work out very well if I’ve gotten to sleep early enough, say 9PM. The predawn hours are the magical time for me creatively, a window zone where the veil between the realms seems thinner, and most people in the community are in the dreamtime and I have just come from the dreamtime. This morning I’m at 7200 feet in the high desert of Taos, New Mexico at the guest house of someone whose book I’m editing. The muse has been waking me up at 3 something all this week even if I’ve gone to sleep late. When that happens, my brain is just not rested enough and I usually have to go back to sleep. It feels like the muse is reminding me that I should have been ready, and when this happened a couple of days ago the awakening was from an intensely magical dream image which let me know that a magical zone had been prepared for me. I was awake, but not well rested enough to rise to the occasion. I had stayed up till 11 something and drunk a couple of glasses of wine the previous evening which had further lowered the quality of sleep. I had an embarrassed feeling, as if someone had thrown a surprise party for me, but I wasn’t dressed or in any sort of state to be able to entertain the waiting guests.

Intense winds are howling across the high desert, like insistent spirits. I feel the insistence of forces that want me up and paying attention to them. The sound of the wind blowing across the desert feels like it is reminding me not to compromise this zone, to be ready for it, to be present because it has come a long way to find me.

After a brief meditation I decided to read a little in Jung’s Liber Novus (Red Book), which I’ve been doing recently before some morning writing sessions. The exact passage I was up to was so uncannily relevant to what was happening to me that morning that it appeared to be a classic synchronicity. And what could be more appropriate than a synchronicity involving the writings of Carl Jung, the man who coined the term “synchronicity,”and developed the concept.

In the passage,  Jung is having a dialogue with his soul in the early morning.



[I:] What great work?



[Soul:] But you could have told by the fact that I have been disturbing your sleep for a long time: You have been too unconscious for a long time. Now you must go to a higher level of consciousness.

Just after I wrote the above I was scrolling through my journal and found a related status update from several months ago:

I seem to need the pre-dawn hours to work on my fantasy epic, Parallel Journeys. Pre-dawn I can gaze out at a boundaryless horizon shimmering with interdimensional portals. Most people in the community are deep in REM sleep, traveling in the dreamtime. The air is filled with possibilities.

But when the sun comes up the wave function collapses and the whole machinery of the Babylon matrix boots up. There is the sound of traffic and garbage trucks backing up. Anxious commuter thoughts crowd the psychic ether and the iridescent perfume of fertile darkness becomes the smell of gasoline and coffee with non-dairy creamer.

Many other creative people I know prefer the night owl window into the unknown and sometimes we overlap and they message me on Facebook. They are at the end of their day and I at the beginning of mine.

The price of admission to the magical pre-dawn time can be steep. For me it means going to sleep really early and on an empty stomach. I also need cardio exercise and a very healthy diet. If I’m not in shape I can get up at that hour only to find that my energy is wilting. I also try to do all the caffeine for the day, strong yerba mate, at this time. Late night social must be sacrificed for the predawn zone. And it’s hard to get all these factors lined up just right. Much of the time I can’t fall asleep right away so I might spend an hour or two listening to audio books (preferably fantasy fiction) on headphones, but I stay in bed with my eyes closed. I may only get 5 and half or six hours sleep this way, but often that’s enough if I can complete a full REM cycle before I get up. I wake up without an alarm, and when it works this is usually at 3am, the witching hour. I wake up remembering dreams and stay close to the dreamtime.

 In time management there is a concept called “peak time.” It’s the time when you are at your best for a given activity. One great advantage to this schedule is that I create peak time before any responsibilities of the day begin. If I have to go to work that day, I’ve already done my writing and have this feeling of high value accomplishment that can keep my morale up no matter what the rest of the day throws at me. However you structure your day I recommend that you find ways to save your peak time for your highest value activities.

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ZIJ—Dealing with Zones of Inner Jeopardy https://zaporacle.com/zij-dealing-with-zones-of-inner-jeopardy/ https://zaporacle.com/zij-dealing-with-zones-of-inner-jeopardy/#comments Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:04:21 +0000 http://www.zaporacle.com/?p=9043 Zones of inner jeopardy (ZIJ) are those familiar times when we are inwardly stressed, our thoughts and emotions are agitated, and we may be enveloped by dark moods. The causes of ZIJ are various, and usually there are multiple causes such as metabolic disequilibria, social/sexual issues, financial hardship, disturbances in the force and so forth."ZIJ" is used in this essay to refer to both zones of inner jeopardy and a way of dealing with them.

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text and top photo copyright Jonathan Zap, 2011

Edited by Austin Iredale

photo: Manhattan store front window with reflections


A Note on ZIJ Terminology























with ZIJ monitoring.”

ZIJ Supplementals









Becca: Yep, depends on the funk really!



Matthew: Im terrible at this













1.Facing deep issues and taking action

2. Diet and exercise

3. Meditation and inner exercises

4. Earning and expressing inner-approval.



A Note About ZIJ and Time Urgency

One key aspect of ZIJ vicissitudes I notice is a correlation with time urgency. Time urgency, also sometimes called “hurry sickness,” is a sense of time as adversary where you always feel that you are behind and can’t quite catch up with life. Here’s a link to a good summary article: http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/always-in-a-rush-maybe-its-time-urgency/ Time urgency usually means a disconnect from the feminine. We are caught up in the hectic pace of the industrialized world and feel a panicked sense of not getting to where we need. Often where we need to be is off the conveyor belts and treadmills of hectic, industrial time. We are caught in a paradox, trying to hurry through time to get to a restorative place, a more feminine dimension, but the more we hurry toward it the further it recedes.



ZIJ and Social Urgency






ZIJ and Body & IC Scans


ZIJ Approval








I would love to hear what you’ve noticed about ZIJ and any techniques you’ve found that work for you. I expect that this document will continue to grow and would be glad to add some of your thoughts and observations to it. Send to jonathanzap@hotmail.com and put “ZIJ” in the subject heading.


Dealing with Psychic Entropy

Rebelling from the Pain Body Matrix


Living with Dark Feelings

Light through the Veil of Darkness

Awakening from Depression

In the Realm of Deadly Delusions

Finding your way through the Fog

Dealing with Crescendo of Awfulness Situations

Soul Imprisoned

Working in Hell


Rebirth from the Dark Night of the Soul

Dealing with Melt-Downs

Rebelling from Victim Mentality and Self-Pity

Antidote to Worry

Mutant Emerging from Eclipse

Turn that Frown Upside Down!

Anxious Sojourner

Inner Adversary

IUI—Incarnating Under the Influence in a Polywater World

Confessions of a Self-Aware Starship

Beware the Hungry Whirlpools

A Guide to the Perplexed Interdimensional Traveler


https://zaporacle.com/zij-dealing-with-zones-of-inner-jeopardy/feed/ 3 Dealing with Zones of Inner Jeopardy text and top photo copyright Jonathan Zap, 2011 Edited by Austin Iredale photo: Manhattan store front window with reflections https://youtu.be/oKn4fbc6zUs Zones of inner jeopardy (ZIJ) are those familiar times when we are inwardly stressed, our thoughts and emotions are agitated, and we may be envel Featured alethiometer-watchface watchbandreplacement.info breguet_image.2213968 BREGUET Marine Royale 5847 05 9043
Imagine Getting More https://zaporacle.com/imagine-getting-more/ https://zaporacle.com/imagine-getting-more/#respond Sat, 30 Apr 2011 04:40:14 +0000 http://www.zaporacle.com/wp/?p=124 One of the most potent of spells or enchantments that can bind you into the matrix is to live under the compulsion of always having to imagine getting more in the future. Under this spell you become a donkey forever hypnotized by an imaginary carrot just up ahead.

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Imagine Getting More (Zap Oracle Card # 332)  copyright 2007, Jonathan Zap

One of the most potent of spells or enchantments that can bind you into the matrix is to live under the compulsion of always having to imagine getting more in the future. Under this spell you become a donkey forever hypnotized by an imaginary carrot just up ahead. The carrot, the “more”, that ever glitters in your mind’s eye like a ring of power, could be many things—–sex, money, power, fame, looks—-often the imagined more is a vision of that more perfected life just up ahead, the one in which you have realized your ideal weight, made your first hundred million, and have an amazing lover with whom you live in a house featured in Architectural Review… The phrase in the cigarette ad— “Imagine getting more…”—- is meant to encourage you in the profitable belief that cigarette smoking leads to getting more sex. The warning label, black and white and boxed in, reminds the alert mind that what you will be getting more of is cancer. What you get more of when your eyes are bedazzled by the imaginary carrot just up ahead is more cancer of the soul. Your vision, your consciousness, is misdirected away from the present moment where it could have more power and life right now.

Most people on the planet experience scarcity in one or more key areas of their lives. Some scarcities are related to needs and others to wants. Common areas of perceived scarcity include money, physical resources, social status, youth, looks, sex, physical health, fulfilling relationships, inner resources, and meaningfulness. Most lives involve strange and tense combinations of scarcity and abundance. For example, a tan and sleek billionaire walking off the tennis court might be dying of a famine of meaningfulness. Our vision of scarcity is often highly distorted and one-sided. Perceived scarcities range from delusory toxic wants to what would be genuinely fulfilling if we had more of it.

Scarcity comparisons with other people are almost always unreliable and highly distorted. Typically we compare our area of most irritating scarcity with someone else who seems to have that area filled to overflowing. We never look at the whole portfolio of scarcity and abundance in the other’s incarnation. We can’t look at it, we’d have to know how their whole life turned out. We see tall, handsome Christopher Reeve galloping on his thorough bred horse, we don’t necessarily see up ahead where he gets tossed to the ground a quadriplegic, and goes through a life phase of horrendous scarcities as he becomes more soulful and compassionate and discovers new forms of fulfillment.

“Imagine getting more” and “envious comparison” are intertwined spells that bind us into neurotic suffering. These spells promise fulfillment in the future, but create hollowness in the present.

Hollowness is the mindset of the ringwraith as it withers the present while it forever reaches toward that glittering precious just up ahead.  Hollowness is the state of one who forever reaches toward the future to be filled up.

Don’t wither the vitality of the present by looking at it with the eyes of scarcity and victimhood. All too easily you can build a reality tunnel defined by your view of the present as the time of scarcity before you have an abundance of money, or before you have the perfect lover, the perfect body…whatever you covet getting more of. This is the time that counts right now, this time with its strange and tense combination of scarcity and unrecognized abundance, the time that gives you everything you need to work with in the present moment. Break the spells, become disenchanted and more powerful, work with what you got right now.

See Kill the Time Grid and Fire up your Life

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Pathfinding/ Day Mapping https://zaporacle.com/pathfinding-day-mapping/ https://zaporacle.com/pathfinding-day-mapping/#comments Tue, 26 Apr 2011 04:40:13 +0000 http://www.zaporacle.com/wp/?p=126 A very practical and grounded way to navigate your pathway through a chaotic world.

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Pathfinding and Day-Mapping

text and photo © Jonathan Zap 341

Jonathan path finding in Escalante Canyon, Utah

This image relates to a very practical and grounded way to navigate your pathway through a chaotic world. I have a very poor natural sense of direction, and yet I was able to use ordinary map and compass skills to navigate myself, and a small group, through a maze of canyons with no marked paths (Escalante Canyon, Utah). The method is fairly simple, but profound in its proven effectiveness. You have a topographical map which you can orient to the visible landscape. You know that the map is not the territory, some features have changed, and some things may have been mapped wrong, but most things will correspond. You know the overall direction you want to go, and you use your compass to locate a near landmark that is along your line of travel. You walk to the near landmark, reorient briefly, and pick a new landmark. This is called “point-to-point-navigation.”

Pathfinding through life can be like finding your way through a maze of canyons. It is crucial to know the overall direction you want to go. If you don’t already know that overall direction, you need to consult your global intuition. The mind and the ego are indispensable psychic functions, but they will not cut it here. If you use them to determine overall direction, you will likely find yourself in some sort of mental ping pong game — What about this? But what about that? But what if this happens? But what if that doesn’t happen? You can’t think your way through to the overall direction, you need to recognize it from the soul level. One way to contact this recognition is to go to a quiet, solitary space and ask yourself: What will I remember well on my deathbed? Your honest answers to this core question will usually reveal your True Will and the life mission you came here to accomplish.

Once you have located your overall direction, the mind/ego alliance is able to serve an invaluable role, employing pathfinding technique. An especially propitious time for pathfinding is at the start of the day. A natural unit of time lies before you, and you have a goal: to make the best use of your time, consistent with your overall direction, between awakening and bedtime. You locate navigational landmarks in space/time to efficiently orient yourself. A mundane example would be a doctor’s appointment. Maintaining your health is consistent with your overall direction, so this is an important navigational landmark, a point in space and time you know you have to hit. There may be a number of other such points to be recognized as your map of the day takes form.

As you prepare your day map, it is crucial that you mark off significant space/time for work on your big dream, something that you have identified as crucial to your life path. A good rule of thumb is that a big dream is going to require a minimum of two hours work per day. The work on your big dream is important, but may not be urgent (in a superficial temporal sense), like hitting the doctor appointment at a very specific time, or answering a ringing phone. Without a good day map it is all too easy to focus on the superficially urgent, small stuff and neglect the important, non-urgent work. This common tendency is sometimes called, “majoring in the minors.”

When you draw up your day map, it is crucial to gauge time as accurately as possible. My tendency, and it is a very common tendency, is to put down how long I think something should take, as compared to how long it usually takes (about twice or three times as long as I think it should). Add some extra buffer time so that you don’t create tremendous stress by rushing or falling behind. If what you need to do is too much to allow for buffer time, then it is time to triage your projects and activities — What can you afford to let go? What can you absolutely not let go? What might fall in some middle category? It is better to accomplish some important things really well, plus a modest amount of mechanical chores, than to be in a frantic rush all day trying to accomplish everything you think you should be able to do (usually based on what a superhero could do after twelve cups of coffee). Mark out your day map with majors and a modest number of minors.

Your state of mind as you draw up the map is essential. It is crucial that the map-drawing exercise does not become an ego attempt to tightly prestructure the future. You must have a deep recognition that the map is not the territory, that the landscape of the day will likely have unseen and unpredictable features, and you allow as much room for them as possible. You recognize that drawing the map is a strategic activity you engage with in the moment, but future developments may cause you to have to redraw the map, and often without a moment’s notice. This is one of the reasons why I like the early morning alone at my desk as my space/time zone of the day for the majors, the high-level creative work. This is the time of day least interfered with by unpredictable minor urgencies. I have just stepped out of the dreamtime, and most of the community is still in it, so the field of human consciousness is less mundane. Early morning is my “peak time,” the time of the day when I am capable of my best focus, and I want to align my majors with peak time, my minors with the off-peak time. I am using myself as an example, not a model. The necessities and variations of your life may require different strategies.

So most days I start with a few hours of focused creative work, and when I reach a natural stopping point, I have the whole rest of the day ahead of me to deal with the urgent minors, a couple of non-urgent minors, and whatever other majors can be fit in. By anchoring my day, right at the start, with a few hours of high-value work, I greatly elevate my morale with real accomplishment, and I am therefore much better able to withstand the often bruising engagement with mundane and mechanically resistant minors. In the morning, after I finish my creative work, I draw up a day map that attempts to put other goals for the day (major and minor) in some sort of efficient order. For example, it is usually much more efficient to group similar sorts of tasks together. There are a few annoying paperwork tasks I’ve been neglecting, so I group them together, because once I’ve made the titanic effort to get myself into dealing-with-annoying-paperwork mode, I might as well knock off three such tasks instead of just one.

Don’t draw up a day map with the relentless efficiency of the commander of a Nazi Panzer division. Don’t make the day into a death march. Find space for some relaxation, for nurture of the body, for key relationships, some space for all your psychic functions and subpersonalities to breathe. It is crucial, for example, to have the cooperation of your inner child — a core subpersonality — and that won’t happen if your day map is drawn up from the grim perspective of cramming in as many minors as you can possibly imagine accomplishing. For example, I have found for myself that by the last two to three hours of the day, I’ve run out of steam for mechanical minors. I am approaching the dreamtime, my active energy is subsiding, I need to unwind and my imagination wants to come out unencumbered by mundane focus. The end of the day is a great time for me to engage in passive, imaginatively stimulating activity — watching a worthwhile movie is about perfect for this time of day. For some it might be reading a novel, or talking to a friend. I have a slightly loose time marker for when I want to go to sleep. If I can get to sleep before 9:30 pm I will often be able to get up by 4am without an alarm, but if I stay up past 11pm I will probably need 7-8 hours of sleep. There are cycles with sleep and dreaming, and every hour of sleep before midnight may be worth two after. If I catch the right cycle, I can get in my REM sleep earlier, and have a higher percentage of REM sleep. Since REM sleep tends to happen at the end of the sleep cycle, usually in the early hours of the morning, it is particularly exhausting to stay up late and then wake up to an early alarm that truncates REM sleep.

Often we find ourselves faced with a classic problem — our body is a more conservative organism than our psyche. What is good for the body is like what is good for a cat or dog — a consistent, predictable routine. Eating and sleeping at the same time every day is great for the body, but it can be oppressive to the creative spirit. There needs to be a careful negotiation and choice. Sometimes the spontaneous social or creative opportunity is worth staying up all night. More often, at this phase of my life, the best creative opportunity for me is to go to sleep early and have that early morning creative session. If I break that rhythm, it can sometimes take me a few days to get it back.

Once you have prepared your day map, taking all these things into consideration, you start moving toward your navigational points. It is most efficient to have your map and some sort of list-making device within hands reach throughout the day. To-do items and future time markers should be immediately noted or listed so that you don’t fatigue and worry yourself by trying to retain them in memory.

Finally, be path-oriented, not goal-oriented. Don’t demoralize yourself by continually checking for progress on your long-term goals. Focus on the part of the path you are on at this moment; you’ve engaged point-to-point navigation, so traveling to the next point is where the rubber meets the road. If you feel off kilter, stop and reorient yourself by asking yourself the question, What’s the best use of my time right now? The answer could be a nap, time off for contemplation, hammering away at minors, work on a neglected major, etc. If the answer or answers aren’t what you are currently doing, take a few moments to reconfigure your day map.

Pathfinding means orienting yourself toward your big dreams, and making day maps that navigate carefully through majors and minors. Dealing with the chaos of life means journeying as best you can between awakening and bedtime.

For more on your relationship to time see:

Catching What’s in Reach

Temporal Fencing and Life Fields
and Kill the Time Grid and Fire up your Life
Read Time Shifting, an article by Stephan Rechtschaffen and consider reading the book as well.

For more on setting the overall direction see:
The Path of the Numinous

For a philosophy of dealing with mechanically resistant minors see: Mechanical Resistance Matrix

For more on the Warrior path and philosophy see:
The Way of the Warrior
Warrior Quotes

Taoist Quotes

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https://zaporacle.com/pathfinding-day-mapping/feed/ 1 Pathfinding/ Day Mapping | ZapOracle.com Pathfinding and Day-Mapping https://youtu.be/pubs-8zE3r0 text and photo © Jonathan Zap 341 Jonathan path finding in Escalante Canyon, Utah This image relates to a very practical and grounded way to navigate your pathway through a chaotic world. I have a very poor natural sense of direction, and yet dream,taoist quotes,the path of the numinous,warrior Path-Oriented At a National Rainbow Gathering 126