Tag Archives: Giordano Bruno

We Take Inspiration From These Great Lives

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ShouldersOfGiants. We take inspiration from these great lives.

Sir Isaac Newton said “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” In the past two months, the students of the Free School of the New Message from God (myself included) have been contemplating, among other things, people whose efforts and contributions make them examples we wish to emulate.

We take inspiration from these great lives

In March of 2015, we read and reflected on the revelation “The Gift of a New Life,” received by Marshall Vian Summers in May of 2011. There are many great ideas here, but the part I wish to share is this part about the efforts which must be made on our part.

“To have a new life, you must do the work. It is not a spell that is put upon you. It is not taking some magic potion and having everything be different. It is not a form of addiction or intoxication.

You will have to do the work. You will have to take the risks. You will have to make the decisions. You will have to disappoint other people. You will have to disappoint your own goals and ambitions. You will have to change your plans.

This is where you become strong. This is where you become united within yourself. This is where you follow one voice instead of many voices in your mind. This is where your true allegiance emerges amongst your other commitments and obligations.

This is where you reclaim your strength and your self-confidence. This is where you stop behaving foolishly, giving your life away to silly and meaningless things. This is where you know who to choose to be with and how to resist the temptations that lead you elsewhere in life.”

We take inspiration from these great lives. In April of 2015, we were asked to consider people who did the work, people who took the risks, people who made the decisions, people who became strong, etc. Students shared people they selected, and gave examples of the work they did and the risks they took. Our selections included, but were not limited to:

Mohandas Gandhi. We take inspiration from these great lives.Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), father of modern India, called “Mahatma” or “great soul,” nonviolent advocate

Giordano Bruno. We take inspiration from these great lives.Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), philosopher and heretic, prophet of the Greater Community.

Paul Farmer. We take inspiration from these great lives.Paul Farmer, American physician who is best known for his humanitarian work providing suitable health care to rural and under-resourced areas in developing countries, beginning in Haiti.

Amma, the hugging saint. We take inspiration from these great lives.Mata Amritanandamayi, also known as Amma, the hugging saint. They say she has hugged 34 million people.

Chico Mendes in 1988. We take inspiration from these great lives.Chico Mendes (1944-1988), Brazilian rubber tapper, land rights advocate, and environmentalist. He said “At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realize I am fighting for humanity.”

Tesla in his lab. We take inspiration from these great lives.Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), Serbian-American scientist, engineer and inventor. Our electrical grid works because of his ideas.

We take inspiration from these great lives. We seek to stand on their shoulders, that we may see further. We seek to follow in their footsteps, that we may give what we yearn to give.

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

Many New Planets Swim Into Our Ken

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Artist's conception of Kepler-444 system. Many new planets swim into our ken.

The poet John Keats had an experience of wonder when he read a translation of Homer by George Chapman. He cried out,

“Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;”

Many new planets swim into our ken

I mention this to share two items of space exploration news. The first item is the sixth anniversary of the launch of the Kepler space telescope. Many times scientists conduct experiments expecting to find certain things. Many times they fail to find what they had hoped for. But the Kepler mission has found what was looking for in abundance.

Many new planets swim into our ken. How many? Kepler has found 1,019 exoplanets, planets outside our solar system. By “found” I mean “found possibilities of exoplanets which were later confirmed by independent observation.” The above image shows an artist conception of 5 of those exoplanets who share the same star. In addition to this, Kepler has found possibilities of an additional 3,100 “candidates” which will either be confirmed or discarded in the future. The mission scientists believe that 90% of the candidates will be confirmed as exoplanets, although I don’t know how they know this.

Many new planets swim into our ken. Where does this figure of 1,019 exoplanets fit into the larger picture of exoplanet exploration? At this point, NASA reports a total of 1,827 confirmed planets. The first exoplanet was discovered in 1992. In other words, Kepler has discovered more planets in the past six years than all the efforts from 1992 to 2009. And that’s not counting the candidates. Even though crucial components of Kepler failed in May of 2013, I consider the Kepler mission to be a smashing, groundbreaking success.

Many new planets swim into our ken. How many of them are habitable? These scientists say “62, or around 3%, so far.” On the other hand, astronomer Charlie Lineweaver posited that the average number of habitable planets per star is 2, plus or minus 1. Since there are somewhere between 100 billion and 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, that’s quite a few habitable planets.

Many new planets swim into our ken. What does it all mean? I say it means that Giordano Bruno might have been on to something in the 1500’s when he envisioned intelligent life on then-unknown exoplanets. I also say it means that the New Message from God teaching about a greater community of intelligent life to be a little more plausible than it was before these news items appeared.

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

Giordano Bruno, Prophet of the Greater Community

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Giordano Bruno, prophet of the Greater Community

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was many things in his full, eventful life. He displayed a talent for memory as a child. He was an ordained Catholic priest and a member of the Dominican order. He was considered a scientist of that time. His instrumentation was inadequate to prove or disprove his thought experiments. He expressed his scientific and philosophical arguments in the form of literary dialogues.

The part of his life I find mysterious is his ideas about the universe. Nicolas de Cusa had suggested a hundred years or so earlier that the sun is but another star. In the early 16th century, Nicolaus Copernicus showed that the earth and the other planets revolved around the sun.

Giordano Bruno, prophet of the Greater Community

Giordano Bruno put together a number of ideas. Suppose the sun is but another star. Suppose there are planets around our sun. Why should there not be planets around other stars as well? Our planet has intelligent life on it. People believe that is a good thing. Why should there not be intelligent life on the many other planets revolving around the other stars? Why should that not be a good thing too?

Giordano Bruno envisioned what the New Message from God refers to as the Greater Community of Worlds. Sometimes it is just called the Greater Community. It is a universe swarming and teeming with intelligent life. I therefore call him the prophet of the Greater Community, someone who considered the idea quite a bit before its time.

Nicolas de Cusa would not be proven right by scientific observation until the early 19th century. The first exoplanet (planet outside our solar system) was discovered in 1992. Since that time, there has been an explosion in the amount of exoplanet research. Many new methods of exoplanet detection have been developed. Many new exoplanets have been confirmed.
multi_transits_many_full_0The NASA Kepler mission announced Wednesday (as in today, 26 February 2014) the discovery of 715 new planets. These newly-verified worlds orbit 305 stars, revealing multiple-planet systems much like our own solar system. This brings us up to a total of 1,690 planets around 1,023 stars. All I know is that somewhere, Giordano Bruno, prophet of the Greater Community, is smiling.

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.