We have been connected to cats for more than 30 million years. To our prehistoric ancestors cats were deadly predators of the night, and because of this ancient memory etched onto our DNA, cats epitomize our fear of the dark. Yet in addition to their connection to the dark and the shadows, their intelligence, sophisticated physical abilities, and finely tuned senses also led many cultures to view cats as connected to the spirit world.
Exploring the spiritual nature of cats, John A. Rush looks at humanity’s fascination and fear of cats through the ages. He examines spiritual and occult beliefs connected to cats from Mayan, Aztec, and Native American mythology as well as from ancient India, Samaria, Babylon, Japan, and Egypt, including how ancient Egyptians used cats to send messages to the gods. He reveals why the Catholic Church demonized cats and how cats are symbols of both Good and Evil. Examining cat evolution, the author looks at spiritual behaviors attributed to cats as well as modern biological research into cat behavior and their highly sophisticated sensory systems, which, unlike most other animals, have changed very little over millions of years. He explores their “psychic” ability to sense what humans cannot and the origins of their glowing eyes, which has connected cats, through myth, to both the Underworld and the World of Light. He also explores similarities between cat and human emotions, cat communications with us, and the deep connection between cats and meditation.
Revealing the spiritual journey of the cat from fearsome predator to occult symbol to household companion, the author shows how, in many ways, cats are mirrors of us, reflecting our conflicting dual nature that is at once loving yet distant, magical yet vengeful, and above all, deeply connected to the spirit world.
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Destiny Books (October 3, 2023)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1644117460
ISBN-13: 978-1644117460
Biological anthropology, also called physical anthropology, is about the biological us, and what we think we know about our origins. The Darwinian model, that is, random mutations, plus natural selection, plus time equals new species, has never been proven correct using material science. Saying that one species evolves into another species through random mutations tells us nothing of the processes involved. Saying life assembled and evolved randomly is no better than saying “God did it.” Show me how random events, without experimenter interference, can lead to functional codes like DNA. In this work not only does Dr. Rush point out the major problems with the Darwinian model but offers another model that can be properly researched by material science. This model is based around a very old idea, that life evolves itself. Scientists have no idea how life began, but there is compelling evidence that cells think and make decisions that can have direct and indirect effects on genetic coding. Here we are into epigenetics and endocellular selection. In the eighteen chapters, Dr. Rush covers the founding fathers of biological anthropology, creation stories from other cultures (Biological Anthropology is basically a creation story), how we classify and why, genetics, genomics, epigenetics, endocellular selection, topobiology, the sugar code, dating methodology, catastrophic events through the ages, the first primates and the ape lineages connected to the Oligocene and Miocene, our hominid and hominin ancestors (fact and fiction), primate behavior, the Homo line, modern humans, the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Paleopathology, and Forensic Anthropology.
Paperback: 453 pages
Publisher: Amazon (August 28, 2023)
Language: English
ASIN: B0CGVVK9F4
The most powerful thing in the world is the symbol. Through symbols, we create stories and myths that bring people to action. Where did the original symbols regarding an afterlife come from? The spiritual world is a fascinating place even more so today in that it is in direct competition with the metaphysics of science, especially physics, with numerous theories surrounding the origin of the universe and life. We read the universe came from nothing, we hear of singularities, multiverses, wormholes, string theory, metaphysics at its best. What do you think of as the spiritual world may be more than something that brings from our imaginings, of a world beyond that can be glimpsed, and perhaps manipulated if we perform the rituals correctly. As the reader will appreciate the spiritual world and quantum physics have a lot in common. Join Dr. Rush as he takes you through the world of imagination, of magic, shamanism, and worlds beyond.
Jesus, Mushrooms, and the Origin of Christianity analyzes the prevalence of a specific motif – the mushroom – in Christian art, proposing that this image is evidence of the true foundation of Christianity and the Catholic Church. Examining Christian art from 200 CE to the present, author John Rush argues that Jesus was not an actual, historical person, but a personification of the Holy Mushroom, Amanita muscaria and the mystical experience brought about by the ingestion of mind-altering plants and fungi by early, experimentally minded Christian sects.
Drawing on primarily historical sources, Rush traces the history – and pictured face – of Jesus, which was constructed and codified only after 325 CE. In the process, he shows how the mushroom was very much apparent, though often disguised, in the early years of Christian art, thus revealing the nature of the original Christian cults, rites, and rituals – including mushroom use. Jesus, Mushrooms, and Origin of Christianity emphasizes Jesus’ message of know thyself, seek wisdom, and be a decent person, which leads to peace, love, and spiritual growth, asserting his symbolic murder was a conspiracy by powerful reactionary forces who replaced his message with the oppressive religious-political system that endures today. Rush’s brilliant exposition of Amanita muscaria use by early Christians challenges mainstream views of Western religious history and is both provocative and persuasive.
This is the second edition of, The Mushroom in Christian Art, and contains new text and images.
VIEW/DOWNLOAD ALL PLATES/IMAGES HERE.
If there is one thing that undermines Darwinian evolution, that is, the insistence that random mutations and natural selection are the singular keys to the origins of life and species, it would be the cell’s ability to “think,” make decisions, and alter its DNA accordingly. This idea is implied in the works of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1809) and it resurfaced as “directed mutation” by Cairns et al. (1988). The cell’s active participation (instead of a passive recipient) in its evolutionary direction is unthinkable for many researchers mainly because it undermines randomness and natural selection and extends change potential to the cell itself. How much of biological evolution is random and how much is directed or purposefully initiated by the cell? How does this relate to consciousness and the cell’s ability to “think,” make decisions, and alter its DNA? These are issues the academic community must take seriously.
Have you ever wondered-
What is the origin on the domesticated cat, Felis catus? What is our ancestral relationship to cats? Do cats have anything to do with our fear of the dark? Why has the domesticated cat (Felis catus) changed so little over the past 12 thousand years, when compared to other domesticated animals like the dog? What are the dietary needs and behavioral patterns of Felis catus? Why can they not digest vegetable material, often added to commercial cat food? And the big question, why do we keep them around in the first place?
Cat Tales answers these questions and many more for all cat lovers and anyone interested in cat and human evolution.
Hello, and thank you for visiting the Cat Gallery!
I am currently working on a book about cats entitled, Cat Tales: Origins, Interactions, and the Domestication of Felis Catus, and will be available mid-2021. In the meantime visit us here to learn fun facts about cats and see a few pictures of our furry friends. This gallery will provide you with facts about cats as well as my personal journey.
My journey started about 35 years ago when two feral cats took up residence on our compost pile. The poor starving cats waited anxiously for my daily trips to the compost pile and would eat anything they could. So, of course, we started feeding them.
Observation and research has helped me understand cats. We borrowed a couple of traps from the SPCA, trapped them, and got them fix. When they recovered we released them in the backyard beginning my education and life experiences living with cats. We named them Whittie & Missy, and the rest was history.
The Egyptian, Chinese, and Tibetan Galleries were, for the most part, culturally specific and aligned on the body to show similarities between these traditions suggesting cross-cultural interaction over a very long time span. Early shamanism, in my opinion, can be seen as the floor plan upon which all magical-religious traditions were built, past and present. Probably originating in Africa with Homo erectus, shamanism eventually spread with their original migration (1.8 Million Years Ago) into the Levant, southern Europe, and eventually China by over 1 MYA. Sacred rites and rituals designed to influence nature or the gods are very conservative maintaining continuity over long, long periods of time, for to change the ritual would represent a loss of power. The more modern diffusion of symbols and ideologies begins between 8000 and 4000BCE; slow at first as weather patterns changed and populations increased. The diffusion routes, often referred to as the “Silk Road,” can be seen as a conduit for the reworking of ideas and images connected to these magical practices. These very old trade routes extend from the Mediterranean in the west and eventually to Xian, China (and beyond) in the east. The most recent religious/mythic mixtures with us today began between 600 and 500BCE. This gallery is more specifically dedicated to world myth and more particularly astronomy and origin myths.
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Most people are under the impression that we, as a species, are living longer thanks to modern medicine This is more illusion than fact. According to Dr. Jonathan Miller, “. . .in the past 50 years modern medicine has made such an insignificant contribution to human health and longevity that the enormous expense incurred for developing and administrating treatments was hardly worth it” (cited in James, W. 1995. Immunization: The Reality Behind the Myth. Westport, Conn.: Bergan & Garvey, pg. 33). As Clark Larson points out ( “Biological Changes in Human Populations with Agriculture.” In, Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 24,1995:185-213), beginning about 10,000 years ago, “[t]he shift from foraging to farming led to a reduction in health status and well-being, an increase in physiological stress, a decline in nutrition, an increase in birthrate and population growth, and an alteration of activity type and work load. Taken as a whole, then, the popular scholarly perception that quality of life improved with the acquisition of agriculture is incorrect.”
If you ever had questions about evolution, this is the book to read. Using research from the fields of statistics, cell biology, zoology, and genomics over the past 50 years shows random mutations and natural selection inadequate to explain the origins of species let along the origin of self-replicating life forms. New data coming from studies in epigenetics, symbiosis, hybridization, quantum biology, topobiology, and the Sugar Code hold promise for revealing the scientific process of speciation if not the origins of life. The Neo-Darwinian model of random mutations plus natural selection leading to new species is an idea, a hypothesis that has never been tested using materialistic science (math, chemistry, physics). In fact, it is impossible to test this hypothesis because any test constructed would be through human design eliminating any sense of randomness. Neo-Darwinism incorrectly claims that you, all your experiences, and the physical world came about randomly, without a purpose, to remove any notion of intelligence beyond that of the human animal. Darwin’s ideas led to social Darwinism, a political statement that sprung from a belief that there is a superior group of people – the elites, the intellectuals, who should rule everyone else and that all the rest were inferior. This progressed to eugenics, socialism, Nazism, and communism and misery and death for millions of people. Darwin and his followers were racists – in the extreme. Furthermore, given that there is no scientific basis for their claim, Neo-Darwinism is a misrepresentation of science. If you are looking for a light to shine on this corner of science, you’ve got the right book!