Realm Kingdom Quotes

How absurd it was that in all seven kingdoms, the weakest and most vulnerable of people - girls, women - went unarmed and were taught nothing of fighting, while the strong were trained to the highest reaches of their skill.

It has always seemed to me. ever since early childhood, amid all the commonplaces of life, i was very near to a kingdom of ideal beauty. Between it and me hung only a thin veil. I could never draw it quite aside, but sometimes a wind fluttered it and I caught a glimpse of the enchanting realms beyond-only a glimpse-but those glimpses have always made life worthwhile.

He held up a finger and went to the hallway, where he tripped over Blotchy, and then over the two monster cats madly pursuing Blotchy. Swearing, he leaned over the landing and called to the guard that unless the kingdom fell to war or his daughter was dying, he better not be interrupted until further notice.

It sounds like a fairy-tale, but not only that; this story of what man by his science and practical inventions has achieved on this earth, where he first appeared as a weakly member of the animal kingdom, and on which each individual of his species must ever again appear as a helpless infant... is a direct fulfilment of all, or of most, of the dearest wishes in his fairy-tales. All these possessions he has acquired through culture. Long ago he formed an ideal conception of omnipotence and omniscience which he embodied in his gods. Whatever seemed unattainable to his desires - or forbidden to him - he attributed to these gods. One may say, therefore, that these gods were the ideals of his culture. Now he has himself approached very near to realizing this ideal, he has nearly become a god himself. But only, it is true, in the way that ideals are usually realized in the general experience of humanity. Not completely; in some respects not at all, in others only by halves. Man has become a god by means of artificial limbs, so to speak, quite magnificent when equipped with all his accessory organs; but they do not grow on him and they still give him trouble at times... Future ages will produce further great advances in this realm of culture, probably inconceivable now, and will increase man's likeness to a god still more.

Because…” I knew, oh goddess, I knew. Still, I needed him to say the words. “You are not his intended, Emilia.” The world beneath me tilted. Wrath’s gaze was steady enough to keep both my knees and the realm from quaking. “You are mine.

And is it the way, in these kingdoms you fell from, for a woman to join forces with an unnatural child who's murdered her friend? Or is that expectation unique to you, and your infinitesimal heart?

The kingdoms' people were at the mercy of the natures of those who rose to be their rulers. It was a gamble, and the current generation did not make for a winning hand.

As we live longer and longer, the vast majority of us will travel back and forth across these realms, spending much of our lives somewhere in between. These are the terms of our existence. The idea of striving for some beautiful, perfect state of wellness? It mires us in eternal dissatisfaction, a goal forever out of reach. To be well now is to learn to accept whatever body and mind I currently have.

The curse was broken. Manon just stared at them, her breathing turning jagged. Then she roused Abraxos, and was in the saddle within heartbeats. She did not offer them any explanation, any farewell, as they leaped into the thinning night. As she guided her wyvern to the bit of blasted earth on the battlefield. Right to its heart. And smiling through her tears, laughing in joy and sorrow, Manon laid that precious flower from the Wastes upon the ground. In thanks and in love. So they would know, so Asterin would know, in the realm where she and her hunter and child walked hand in hand, that they had made it. That they were going home.

Mockingbirds are the true artists of the bird kingdom. Which is to say, although they're born with a song of their own, an innate riff that happens to be one of the most versatile of all ornithological expressions, mocking birds aren't content to merely play the hand that is dealt them. Like all artists, they are out to rearrange reality. Innovative, willful, daring, not bound by the rules to which others may blindly adhere, the mockingbird collects snatches of birdsong from this tree and that field, appropriates them, places them in new and unexpected contexts, recreates the world from the world. For example, a mockingbird in South Carolina was heard to blend the songs of thirty-two different kinds of birds into a ten-minute performance, a virtuoso display that serve no practical purpose, falling, therefore, into the realm of pure art.

Tess had said that the river was liable to wash the palace and the city and the whole kingdom off the rocks, and then there would finally be peace in the world. "Peace in the world," Brigan repeated musingly when Fire told him. "I suppose she's right. That would bring peace to the world. But it's not likely to happen, so I suppose we'll have to keep blundering on and making a mess of it." "Oh," Fire said, "well put. We'll have to pass that on to the governor so he can use it in his speech when they dedicate the new bridge.

What if every story ever told was just a realm waiting to be discovered? Perhaps happiness isn’t the only thing you were meant to provide keys for.

Brother, you need never kneel to me again. We shall rule this realm together, you and I.

The Land of Dreams, that mystical realm, where the oddest of visions appear, come wander through scenes of joyful peace, or stampeded through nightmares of fear. Dare we open those secret doors, down dusty paths of mind, in long-forgotten corners, what memories we'll find. Who rules o'er the Kingdom of Night, where all is not what it seems? 'Tis I, the Weaver of Tales, for I am the Dreamer of Dreams!

Fire supposed he needed to be there in order to give rousing speeches and lead the charge into the fray, or whatever is was commanders did in wartime. She resented his competence at something so tragic and senseless. She wished he, or somebody, would throw down his sword and say, 'Enough! This is a silly way to decide who's in charge!' And it seemed to her, as the beds in the healing room filled and emptied and filled, that these battles didn't leave much to be in charge of. The kingdom was already broken, and this war was tearing the broken pieces smaller.

His Kingdom on this earth was to rule the visible world of man from the invisible realm of the spirit.

Does Britannia, when she sleeps, dream? Is America her dream?-- in which all that cannot pass in the metropolitan Wakefulness is allow'd Expression away in the restless Slumber of these Provinces, and on West-ward, wherever 'tis not yet mapp'd, nor written down, nor ever, by the majority of Mankind, seen,-- serving as a very Rubbish-Tip for subjunctive Hopes, for all that may yet be true,-- Earthly Paradise, Fountain of Youth, Realms of Prester John, Christ's Kingdom, ever behind the sunset, safe til the next Territory to the West be seen and recorded, measur'd and tied in, back into the Net-Work of Points already known, that slowly triangulates its Way into the Continent, changing all from subjunctive to declarative, reducing Possibilities to Simplicities that serve the ends of Governments,-- winning away from the realm of the Sacred, its Borderlands one by one, and assuming them unto the bare mortal World that is our home, and our Despair.

As we pray these fire prayers, the powers of darkness in the spirit realm will quiver and tremble in every area of your life that needs to be broken and brought down. Whether it’s fear, terror, sickness, or any kind of torment that any demons have against you, they will know today that the same as Pharoah and his army drowned in the Red Sea, these demons will drown in the blood of Jesus today.

One of the great differences that set Jews apart from other cultural groups is that we see our wealth as a means to partner with God, as a way to bring God’s kingdom into this earth, a concept that we call tikkun olam – perfecting the world. We perfect the world by using our God- given wealth to further God’s realm on this planet. So what you see is that the Jewish people’s pursuit of wealth is often paired with the pursuit of charitable works, not only for selfish purposes.

Banish her husband’s youngest brother back to his realm.

You are not his intended, Emilia.” The world beneath me tilted. Wrath’s gaze was steady enough to keep both my knees and the realm from quaking. “You are mine.

Whatever gets released around your life will be displayed, first in the secret place, then openly.

No one has yet believed in God and the kingdom of God, no one has yet heard about the realm of the resurrected, and not been homesick from that hour, waiting and looking forward joyfully to being released from bodily existence.

He was in a fairy kingdom where everything was possible. He looked up at the sky. And the sky was a fairy realm like the earth. It was clearing, and over the tops of the trees clouds were swiftly sailing as if unveiling the stars.

It is the certainty of never that hurts most. The knowledge that I will never eat star-shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with her in the pediatric ward again. Never dance around her living room, headbanging our wigs to the beat. Never watch her paint a new masterpiece. I understand why people believe in the afterlife, why they soothe themselves with the faith that those who are no longer with us still exist elsewhere, eternally, in a celestial realm free of pain. As for me, all I know is that here on this earth, I cannot find my friend.

Uncontrolled reasoning destroys faith.

Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations” (Jeremiah 1:4-5)

…when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him and would not let him go…” (Song of Solomon 3:4 AMP).

This is the testimony of Jesus Christ in the church: That the world may know them by this love, one for another (John 13:35).

God dwells in the words that you have spoken that create an atmosphere for Him to dwell in.

when Adam sinned, what had been three became two. Two thirds numerically is 0.666, which is called the mark of the flesh or the mark of the beast. (Revelation 13:17-18)

What if every story ever told was just a realm waiting to be discovered

If you can see demons, you can see angels. The reason you cannot see angels is usually because the inside of you and who you are is not purified enough to be able to see the right thing.

There are these rare moments when musicians together touch something sweeter than they've ever found before in rehearsals or performance, beyond the merely collaborative or technically proficient, when their expression becomes as easy and graceful as friendship or love. This is when they give us a glimpse of what we might be, of our best selves, and of an impossible world in which you give everything you have to others, but lose nothing of yourself. Out in the real world there exist detailed plans, visionary projects for peaceable realms, all conflicts resolved, happiness for everyone, for ever – mirages for which people are prepared to die and kill. Christ's kingdom on earth, the workers' paradise, the ideal Islamic state. But only in music, and only on rare occasions, does the curtain actually lift on this dream of community, and it's tantalisingly conjured, before fading away with the last notes.

is the Blood that redeems you from the enmity of the record of sin that is against your life - the dust. It is the Blood of Jesus that redeems you from the dust of the earth and from the power that the devil has over that dust.

Bloodraven is the root of all our woes, the white worm gnawimg at the heart of the realm.

And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand” (Mark 3:25).

In Fae and mortal realms alike, he who controls the press controls the world.

The Bible says that when you sin your conscience gets seared (1 Timothy 4:2).

A person who is not born again

The devil wants you to remember what you are; God wants to remind you who you are. The record of sin in your life reminds you of what you are; it reminds you that you are a person, a spirit in a temporal body. Who you are is a spirit being - you are a spirit being first.

But you need to meditate on the Word. You need to spend the time cultivating your spirit. You need to spend the time with God, doing some of these things that will grow you, so that when the glory turns up, or when you turn up in the glory, then your body does not get freaked out. Because your spirit man is the candle of the Lord (Proverbs 20:27).

It felt the first indication a violent storm was approaching. The sort where you either stood your ground or ran for cover. It was as if the air between us grew heavy and dark with the promise of nature's fury. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine thunder rattling my teeth as winds whipped around, threatening to drag me into the swirling vortex and devour me whole. It was the kind of storm that broke cities, destroyed realms.

has two parts of their creation operating: their body and their soul. Their spirit is in darkness so they are a two thirds being, or 0.666 of a whole being. So we are busy looking for a man and it is already right in front of us.

Bitterblue took this information straight to the library. "Death?" she said. "Do we have birth records for the seven kingdoms for the year Leck would have been born? Will you review them for someone with a name that sounds like Eemkerr?" "A name that sounds like Eemkerr," Death repeated, peering up at her from his new desk, which was covered with smelly, scorched papers. "Lady Fire says that Leck told her that before his name was Leck, it was Eemkerr." "Which is a name she remembers from almost fifty years ago," Death said sarcastically, "spoken to her, not spelled, presumably not a name from her own language, and conveyed to you mentally fifty years later. And I'm to recall every instance of a name of that nature in all the birth records available to me from the relevant year for all seven kingdoms, on the extremely slim chance that we have the name right and a record exists?" "I know you're just as happy as I am," said Bitterblue. Death's mouth twitched. Then he said, "Give me some time to remember, Lady Queen.

What is certain in the rational realm is by no means certain in the kingdom of swoon.

For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

No book on this planet can give you the description of terms like religion, spirituality, divinity unless you discover it within the realm of your own mind.

Daenerys of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, The Unburnt, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Protector of the Realm, Lady Regnant of the Seven Kingdoms, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons

It is interesting that His disciples “went back and walked with Him no more” in John 6:66! If you do not have the record of the DNA of God in you, what do you represent? You represent two thirds, which is 0.666. If you represent that record then you will no longer walk with God.

The Gateways of your Body will reveal what goes on in the Gateways of your Soul. What comes out of your mouth, what you see, what you hear, what you speak, what you touch, what you taste, is going to come out of your soul. It either comes from inside out of you, which is the Tree of Life, or it comes from the outside into you, which is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:17).

For anyone who has ever felt like they weren’t enough. You are more than enough. You are worthy. And you deserve the most wondrous things this bizarre and beautiful realm has to offer. You are loved.

The first human cell that is formed starts reproducing itself into other cells around it and then that original cell implodes and goes into the centre of that little cluster of nuclei. The moment it hits the centre it becomes the human heart and it starts to beat. God is going to reverse that process with us so that our spirit man comes out from the centre of the nuclei of the body and soul, and begins to encase the outside again.

When we pray "Let your kingdom come," we aren't asking God to bring history to an end and whisk us to realms of glory, or to wave a magic wand and solve all the problems we face in our life. Rather, we are making a radical commitment to live our life in the world ("on earth") in such loving abandonment to God that the values and principles, the perspectives and dynamics of God's realm of life and wholeness become incarnate in and through our being and doing. Here too we are utterly incapable of actualizing the kingdom in this way. We can, however, through loving abandonment, allow God to incarnate kingdom life in and through us in the circumstances of our daily life.

King: Should I specify for the realm what religion will be acceptable in this Kingdom, as the Emperor in the East did? Titus: If you are of such sagacity, my Lord, that you know all the secrets of the Universe, you would be remiss if you did not specify the acceptable religion. But if you, too, are mortal, and your understanding is partial, I would think it arrogant to dictate to the people how they should approach Existence. Each has his own understanding, and each his own ability to understand.

This kingdom is not just a spiritual realm high above the concerns of human history. Nor is it a matter of geography and national boundaries. It is God's gracious rule in the hearts and lives of his people. Jesus and his apostles announce the present reality of the kingdom of God amid daily life. On one occasion Jesus declares, "The kingdom of God is within [or among] you" (Lk 17:21).

We want to be women who advance. The kingdom of God is advancing, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Don't you want to advance along with it? Don't you want to help it to advance? And don't you want to advance into the deeper realms of the heart of God? Advance into more healing, more deliverance, more intimacy, more life? Fear makes us retreat. Love causes it to advance.

There is so much garbage being said about the mark of the beast. A lot of it is based on what I call the ‘sky bus’ rapture theory, and is not about the Kingdom. It is a kingdom of fear because it is not about the returning power of the sons of God. You do not find anyone who teaches the rapture theory talking about the resurrection in the life of every believer, or of the glory of the Son of God. I do not find the manifestation of the Kingdom in their lives: the power to raise the dead today and for us to live forever in that glory. I do not hear them talking about the coming glory. When darkness rises, the glory must come in a greater measure (Isaiah 60:1-2). I do not see them talking about the coming glory, all the rapture theory does is create a generation of fearful people - a people who will not sow into the future with their words to make their children believe that there is a hope for them to live for today.

Some people gauge their spiritual maturity by their ability to prophesy or flow in the gifts. Yet remember, gifts are given, not earned. A donkey spoke and saw into the realm of the spirit. A rooster crowed three times and convicted Peter. Does that make these beasts spiritual? Jesus said that many would call Him Lord and expect entrance into His kingdom, only to be denied. They will have done miracles, cast out devils and prophesied in His name. But He will answer, "Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!" (Matt. 7:23). The

The hand of the king was the second-most powerful man in the Seven Kingdoms. He spoke with the king’s voice, commanded the Kings army’s, drafted the king’s laws. At times he even sat upon the Iron Throne to dispense king’s justice, when the king was absent, or sick, or otherwise indisposed. Robert was offering him a responsibility as large as the realm itself. It was the last thing in the world he wanted.

God can see every single thing that is in your soul. When you participate in something in your soul, God can see, and if God can see it, so can the demons. People tell me demons cannot read your mind. Really?! I come from an occult background. They can read your mind all right. They know exactly what you are thinking because what you are thinking, the little pictures you have are called ‘dust’. Dust is a record of the sin nature that you have experienced in your life. In Genesis 2 God gave Satan the dust of the earth. The dust needs to be brought under the Blood.

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels?" I know the answer: no one. Tell me: from where does love come? An angel is sitting on my face. To whom can I run? Take me in your arms, death, I'm so scared; do anything to me that will make me safe while I kick my heels and shout out in total fear, while we hurtle through your crags to where it's blacker: Orpheus' head eaten by rats, what's left of the world scatters, in the Lethe the poet's hairs, below where there's no ground, down into your hole, because you want me to eat your sperm. Death. I know. "Every angel is terrifying." Because of this, because I have met death, I must keep my death in me, gently, and yet go on living. Because of this, because I have met my death, I give myself birth. Remember that Persephone raped by Hades then by him brought into the Kingdom of Death there gave birth to Dionysius. You were the terrorized child, Mother, Now be no more. Requiat in pacem. Tell me: from where does love come? "Emerging at last from violent insight "Sing out in jubilation and in praise." to the angels who terrified away the night. Let not one string of my forever-child's heart and cunt fail to sing. Open up this body half in the realm of life, half in death and give breathe. For to breathe is always to pray. You language where language goes away. You were the terrorized child, Mother, Be no more. Requiat in pacem. Requiem. For it was you I loved.

MOCKINGBIRDS ARE THE TRUE ARTISTS of the bird kingdom. Which is to say, although they’re born with a song of their own, an innate riff that happens to be one of the most versatile of all ornithological expressions, mockingbirds aren’t content to merely play the hand that is dealt them. Like all artists, they are out to rearrange reality. Innovative, willful, daring, not bound by the rules to which others may blindly adhere, the mockingbird collects snatches of birdsong from this tree and that field, appropriates them, places them in new and unexpected contexts, recreates the world from the world. For example, a mockingbird in South Carolina was heard to blend the songs of thirty-two different kinds of birds into a ten-minute performance, a virtuoso display that served no practical purpose, falling, therefore, into the realm of pure art.

Wanting to be through with this quickly, I leaned forward and kissed him. Almost. I lost my nerve halfway there, somewhere around the moment I noticed he had a freckle next to his eye and wondered ridiculously if that was something he would remove if I asked it of him, and instead of a proper kiss, I merely brushed my lips against his. It was a shadow of a kiss, cool and insubstantial, and I almost wish I could be romantic and say it was somehow transformative, but in truth, I barely felt it. But then his eyes came open, and he smiled at me with such innocent happiness that my ridiculous heart gave a leap and would have answered him instantly, if it was the organ in charge of my decision-making. "Choose whenever you wish," he said. "No doubt you will first need to draw up a list of pros and cons, or perhaps a series of bar plots. If you like, I will help you organize them into categories." I cleared my throat. "It strikes me that this is all pointless speculation. You cannot marry me. I am not going to be left behind, pining for you, when you return to your kingdom. I have no time for pining." He gave me an astonished look. "Leave you behind! As if you would consent to that. I would expect to be burnt alive when next I returned to visit. No, Em, you will come with me, and we will rule my kingdom together. You will scheme and strategize until you have all my councillors eating out of your hand as easily as you do Poe, and I will show you everything---everything. We will travel to the darkest parts of my realm and back again, and you will find answers to questions you have never even thought to ask, and enough material to fill every journal and library with your discoveries.

Wester, Nander, Estill, Sunder, and the Middluns—the five inner kingdoms—had once known how to coexist peacefully. Centuries back they had all been of the same family, ruled by three brothers and two sisters who had managed to negotiate their jealousies without resorting to war. But any acknowledgment of that old family bond was long gone now.

IT ALL BEGAN with the High Court case about the madman and the watermelons. The man in question, named Ivan, lived along the River Dell in an eastern section of the city near the merchant docks. To one side of his house resided a cutter and engraver of gravestones, and to the other side was a neighbor’s watermelon patch. Ivan had contrived somehow in the dark of night to replace every watermelon in the watermelon patch with a gravestone, and every gravestone in the engraver’s lot with a watermelon. He’d then shoved cryptic instructions under each neighbor’s door with the intention of setting each on a scavenger hunt to find his missing items, a move useless in one case and unnecessary in the other, as the watermelon-grower could not read and the gravestone-carver could see her gravestones from her doorstep quite plainly, planted in the watermelon patch two lots down. Both had guessed the culprit immediately, for Ivan’s antics were not uncommon. Only a month ago, Ivan had stolen a neighbor’s cow and perched her atop yet another neighbor’s candle shop, where she mooed mournfully until someone climbed the roof to milk her, and where she was compelled to live for several days, the kingdom’s most elevated and probably most mystified cow, while the few literate neighbors on the street worked through Ivan’s cryptic clues for how to build the rope and pulley device to bring her down.

The plant and animal kingdoms (excluding humans) offered some pleasant surprises. Organisms from these realms are much simpler to figure out. Their behaviours are not muddied by personality factors or flawed belief systems. If an insect smells like a fart, you can be sure that the stench has a genetic basis. It is neither trying to make a lofty point, nor is it suffering from an inferiority complex.

From the moment we're born, women are brainwashed to prioritize motherhood and marriage over intellect and personal fulfillment. We're handed baby dolls and aprons and told our greatest contributions are accomplished in the nursery and the kitchen. But that lie is as damaging as it is degrading, because a kingdom is only as strong as its weakest citizen! And a society with unjust limitations is less likely to prevail than a country of equal opportunity When a nation segregates any percentage of its population, it only segregates a percentage of its potential! So for the sake of the kingdom, it is time for women to stand together and demand a new government that values every citizen's thoughts, ideas, and morals. Then and only then will our country journey into realms of prosperity it has never seen before.

The seventh kingdom was Monsea. The mountains set Monsea apart from the others, as the ocean did for Lienid. Leck, King of Monsea, was married to Ashen, the sister of King Ror of Lienid. Leck and Ror shared a dislike for the squabbles of the other kingdoms. But this didn’t forge an alliance, for Monsea and Lienid were too far removed from each other, too independent, too uninterested in the doings of the other kingdoms.

The Westeros of Aegon’s youth was divided into seven quarrelsome kingdoms, and there was hardly a time when two or three of these kingdoms were not at war with one another. The vast, cold, stony North was ruled by the Starks of Winterfell. In the deserts of Dorne, the Martell princes held sway. The gold-rich westerlands were ruled by the Lannisters of Casterly Rock, the fertile Reach by the Gardeners of Highgarden. The Vale, the Fingers, and the Mountains of the Moon belonged to House Arryn … but the most belligerent kings of Aegon’s time were the two whose realms lay closest to Dragonstone, Harren the Black and Argilac the Arrogant.

Wherever I AM, everything is perfect. There’s no reason for any argument, for that Body that you will wear in the Resurrection is a perfect body. And nothing is dead in your world; nothing can be imperfect in your world. Everything is perfect wherever you are. That is the Resurrection Body, and that is spoken of in Scripture as the “Kingdom of Heaven.” So, the Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, it’s not a realm; it is a body!

But the state had no jurisdiction over the conscience of the individual and no right, therefore, to fight heresy or lead a holy war. While it could have nothing to do with the spiritual realm, the state must have unqualified and absolute authority in temporal affairs. Even if the state were cruel, tyrannical, and forbade the teaching of God’s word, Christians must not resist its power.37 For its part, the true church, the Kingdom of God, must hold aloof from the inherently corrupt and depraved policies of the Kingdom of the World, dealing only with spiritual affairs. Protestants believed that the Roman Church had failed in its true mission because it had dallied with the sinful Kingdom of the World.

THE HEAVENS BELONG TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER We have a brother in Africa who is a tall black guy and I have never seen anyone who is as much of a soldier in all my life. He has planted three churches in the occult capital of the world! In this country they lose many people in a three month period in human sacrifice when all the witches, warlocks and new age people go there. The rivers run red with blood. He has planted three churches in the middle of his country and got right in the face of the enemy. I have never seen anybody with grunt like that in my life! He has been attacked by werewolves and vampires. He has even got marks on his arms where vampires have come for him, missed and hit his arms! God has really been doing some work over there. One of the things this brother would say in some of his conferences is that the heavens belong to the highest bidder. An example of that in scripture is when the king came and asked if he was going to win the war:

INTRODUCTION A NOTE TO ALL STORYTELLERS  Imagine a world with magic. Now imagine this place is home to everything and everyone you were told wasn’t “real.” Imagine it has fairies and witches, mermaids and unicorns, giants and dragons, and trolls and goblins. Imagine they live in places like enchanted forests, gingerbread houses, underwater kingdoms, or castles in the sky. Personally, I know such a place exists because it’s where I’m from. This magical world is not as distant as you think. In fact, you’ve been there many times before. You travel there whenever you hear the words “Once upon a time.” It’s another realm, where all your favorite fairy-tale and nursery-rhyme characters live. In your world, we call it the Land of Stories.

I’m an oddity, a commodity, a rumor. I’m the king’s favored. His prized saddle. The one he gold-touched and keeps in a cage at the top of his castle, my body bearing the mark of his ownership and favoritism. The gilded pet. I’m the darling of King Midas, ruler of Highbell and the Sixth Kingdom of Orea. People flock to see me just as much as they come to look upon his gleaming castle worth more than all the riches in the entire realm. I’m the gold-plated prisoner. But what a pretty prison it is.

Leaving the age of materialism and duality behind us, we now seek to become Masters of the Spiritual Kingdom ~ moving into the penthouse of ourselves, the crown chakra, as it were. Herein lays all our joy, our progress and our discovery of our superior and limitless Divine powers. By loosening identification with the sense world, we begin to access the greater causal gifts and realms. I believe we must always learn to use our power of choice ~ to develop Spiritual authority, and come out of victim consciousness. It is important to encourage the setting of strong goals (focusing around fulfillment of pure heart’s desires). When the will is highly focused, the reader become receptive to the Higher Way and technologies of God I wish to impart.

Fairy tales, fantasy, legend and myth...these stories, and their topics, and the symbolism and interpretation of those topics...these things have always held an inexplicable fascination for me," she writes. "That fascination is at least in part an integral part of my character — I was always the kind of child who was convinced that elves lived in the parks, that trees were animate, and that holes in floorboards housed fairies rather than rodents. You need to know that my parents, unlike those typically found in fairy tales — the wicked stepmothers, the fathers who sold off their own flesh and blood if the need arose — had only the best intentions for their only child. They wanted me to be well educated, well cared for, safe — so rather than entrusting me to the public school system, which has engendered so many ugly urban legends, they sent me to a private school, where, automatically, I was outcast for being a latecomer, for being poor, for being unusual. However, as every cloud does have a silver lining — and every miserable private institution an excellent library — there was some solace to be found, between the carved oak cases, surrounded by the well–lined shelves, among the pages of the heavy antique tomes, within the realms of fantasy. Libraries and bookshops, and indulgent parents, and myriad books housed in a plethora of nooks to hide in when I should have been attending math classes...or cleaning my room...or doing homework...provided me with an alternative to a reality I didn't much like. Ten years ago, you could have seen a number of things in the literary field that just don't seem to exist anymore: valuable antique volumes routinely available on library shelves; privately run bookshops, rather than faceless chains; and one particular little girl who haunted both the latter two institutions. In either, you could have seen some variation upon a scene played out so often that it almost became an archetype: A little girl, contorted, with her legs twisted beneath her, shoulders hunched to bring her long nose closer to the pages that she peruses. Her eyes are glued to the pages, rapt with interest. Within them, she finds the kingdoms of Myth. Their borders stand unguarded, and any who would venture past them are free to stay and occupy themselves as they would.

Accordingly, the kingdom of God is not essentially a social or political reality at all. Indeed, the social and political realm, along with the individual heart, is the only place in all of creation where the kingdom of God, or his effective will, is currently permitted to be absent. That realm is the “on earth” of the Lord’s Prayer that is opposed to the “in heaven” where God’s will is, simply, done. It is the realm of what is cut out “by hands,” opposed to the kingdom “cut out without hands” of Daniel, chapter 2.

Family life, which is the Ashrama of the householder, can also take you in His direction, provided it is accepted as an asrama. Lived in this spirit, it helps man to progress towards Self-realization. Nevertheless, if you hanker after anything such as name, fame or position, God will bestow it on you, but you will not feel satisfied. The Kingdom of God is a whole, and unless you are admitted to the whole of it you cannot remain content. He grants you just a little, only to keep Your discontent alive, for without discontent there can be no progress. You, a scion of the Immortal, can never become reconciled to the realm of death, neither does God allow you to remain in it. He Himself kindles the sense of want in you by granting you a small thing, only to whet your appetite for a greater one. This is His method by which He urges you on. The traveller on this path finds it difficult and feels troubled, but one who has eyes to see can clearly perceive that the pilgrim is advancing. The distress that is experienced burns to ashes all pleasure derived from worldly things. This is what is called ‘tapasya’. What obstructs one on the spiritual path bears within itself seeds of future suffering. Yet the heartache, the anguish over the effects of these obstructions, are the beginning of an awakening to Consciousness.

God has given us the tools to build enough faith to access any door, yet He leaves us our freewill to decide when to fast, when to pray, and when to listen. When we decide to build our faith, it is something we initiate, and then in response He increases our faith so that we can experience more of His Kingdom. This is a fundamental element in our relationship with God; He gives us the choice of the relationship we want: “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8 NKJV). Another way to say it would be, “The ball is in our court.

The next time I took notice of you, you were sobbing all over the snow. Well, I thought, finally she's being sensible. Then I realized that you were sobbing because you'd stabbed yourself in the arm, and not out of concern for my imminent demise. I noticed that your tears were freezing as they hit the icy ground and collecting into the shape of a sword. Well, that almost killed me. I mean that---I froze for a full second, during which our yeti friend nearly skewered me through. I dodged, barely, my head whirling. One day I would like for you to explain to me how you heard of the story of Deirdre and her faerie husband, a long-ago king, which is one of the oldest tales in my realm. Do mortals tell it as we do? When the king's murderous sons schemed to steal his kingdom by starving it into torpor with endless winter, Deirdre collected the tears of his dying people and froze them into a sword, with which he was finally able to slay his children. It is a tale many of my own people have forgotten---I know it only because that poor, witless king is my ancestor. I felt the story in my blood and let my magic flow into the sword you were fashioning.

I was never attracted to big things―convertible Porsche's, mansions, fame, and money. I always found those things to be repulsive and energy-draining. Give me the gutters, the junkyards, the bars, the liquor stores, the grimy graffiti-ridden back alleys, the insane asylums, the pimps, the hookers, the preachers, the old, the drunkards, the junkies, the homeless, the madmen, and the madwomen. Wherever the ghetto is, that's where life is. It doesn't matter where you live, United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, you won't find a liveliness like in the ghetto anywhere else. They're the things that refill my energy tank and keep me going. Anything out of that realm is just plain, dull, and boring. Give me the cheap and effortless lifestyle. The factory job, the small one-bedroom apartments, the whores, the Budweiser six-packs, the hand-rolled cigarettes, the Tom Waits vinyls, and the old vintage typewriters. I'll be alright.

You wish to hear the origin story?” “Uh, yes.” I passed him the bottle. “Very well.” He drank, handing it to Jack, starting another round. “A goddess of magic devised a contest to the death for select mortals. She invited deities of other realms to send a representative from their most prestigious house, all youths. Each one bore their god’s emblem upon his or her right hand.” My heart raced . . . I had been one of those youths. “These players would fight inside Tar Ro, a sacred realm as large as a thousand kingdoms, harvesting their victims’ emblems; only the player who’d collected them all would leave Tar Ro alive. Naturally, the gods cheated, gifting their own representative with superhuman abilities, making them more than mortal. Secret abilities. That’s why we’re called Arcana.” “Hail Tar Ro,” I murmured. “The High Priestess told me that.” “An old-fashioned greeting. She’s quite knowledgeable about the games. Very respectful of the old ways.

A Christian has no right to separate his life into two realms... to say the Bible is good for Sunday, but this is a week-day question, or the Scriptures are right in matters of religion, but this is a matter of business or politics. God reigns over all, everywhere. His will is the supreme law. His inspired Word, loyally read will inform us of His will in every relation and act of life, secular as well as religious; and the man is a traitor who refuses to walk therein with scrupulous care. The kingdom of God includes all sides of human life, and it is a kingdom of absolute righteousness. You are wither a loyal subject, or a traitor. When the King comes, how will He find you doing?

The Kingdom of God is His kingship, His rule, His authority. When this is once realized, we can go through the New Testament and find passage after passage where this meaning is evident, where the Kingdom is not a realm or a people but God’s reign. Jesus said that we must “receive the kingdom of God” as little children (Mark 10:15). What is received? The Church? Heaven? What is received is God’s rule. In order to enter the future realm of the Kingdom, one must submit himself in perfect trust to God’s rule here and now. We must also “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” (Matt. 6: 33). What is the object of our quest? The Church? Heaven? No; we are to seek God’s righteousness—His sway, His rule, His reign in our lives.

That you cannot distinguish between the able and the incompetent shows that your eyes are corrupt. Your failure to chant the Odes and the Documents shows that your mouth is corrupt. Your rejection of loyal advice shows that your ears are corrupt. Your ignorance of past and present shows that your whole being is corrupt. Your conflicts with the lords of the realm show that your stomach is corrupt. Your dream of usurpation shows that your mind is corrupt. To make a renowned scholar like me serve as drum master is a poor imitation of the tricks of such villains of old as Yang Huo who slighted Confucius, or Zang Cang who tried to ruin Mencius. Do you think you can hold men in such contempt and still become the leader of the lords of the realm?

Even if millions have seen Bonhoeffer’s death as tragic and as a prematurely ended life, we can be certain that he did not see it that way at all. In a sermon he preached while a pastor in London, he said: No one has yet believed in God and the kingdom of God, no one has yet heard about the realm of the resurrected, and not been homesick from that hour, waiting and looking forward joyfully to being released from bodily existence. Whether we are young or old makes no difference. What are twenty or thirty or fifty years in the sight of God? And which of us knows how near he or she may already be to the goal? That life only really begins when it ends here on earth, that all that is here is only the prologue before the curtain goes up—that is for young and old alike to think about. Why are we so afraid when we think about death? . . . Death is only dreadful for those who live in dread and fear of it. Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God’s Word. Death is not bitter, if we have not become bitter ourselves. Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in him. Death is mild, death is sweet and gentle; it beckons to us with heavenly power, if only we realize that it is the gateway to our homeland, the tabernacle of joy, the everlasting kingdom of peace. How do we know that dying is so dreadful? Who knows whether, in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly, blessed event in the world? Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death.

Thus not in vain is that power of the intellect which ever seeketh, yea, and achieveth the addition of space to space, mass to mass, unity to unity, number to number, by the science which dischargeth us from the fetters of a most narrow kingdom and promoteth us to the freedom of a truly august realm, which freeth us from an imagined poverty and straitness to the possession of the myriad riches of so vast a space, of so worthy a field, of so many most cultivated worlds. This science doth not permit that the arch of the horizon that our deluded vision imagineth over the earth and that by our fantasy is feigned in the spacious ether, shall imprison our spirit under the custody of a Pluto or at the mercy of a Jove. We are spared the thought of so wealthy an owner and subsequently of so miserly, sordid and avaricious a donor. Nor need we accept nourishment from a nature so fecund and pregnant, and then so wretched, mean and niggard in her fruit.

If I were you? I would go west instead of east. Land in Dorne and raise my banners. The Seven Kingdoms will never be more ripe for conquest than they are right now. A boy king sits the Iron Throne. The north is in chaos, the riverlands a devastation, a rebel holds Storm’s End and Dragonstone. When winter comes, the realm will starve. And who remains to deal with all of this, who rules the little king who rules the Seven Kingdoms? Why, my own sweet sister. There is no one else. My brother, Jaime, thirsts for battle, not for power. He’s run from every chance he’s had to rule. My uncle Kevan would make a passably good regent if someone pressed the duty on him, but he will never reach for it. The gods shaped him to be a follower, not a leader.” Well, the gods and my lord father. “Mace Tyrell would grasp the sceptre gladly, but mine own kin are not like to step aside and give it to him. And everyone hates Stannis. Who does that leave? Why, only Cersei.

What is inherent or intuitively “known within” and what has been taught? Nature or Nurture? Perhaps our “amnesia” is actually our society “telling” us to ignore impressions, intuitions, and feelings that many of us have that could be interpreted as recollections from past lives or contact with the spirit realm. The Western paradigm, like other traditions and societies, will bring us, through the back door, to mass hypnosis and social enculturation, sometimes called education. It is often the process of enculturation, or education and assimilation, that “causes” us to ignore our feelings and intuitions, to essentially forget our 6th sense connected to our higher selves, and divine wisdom. We are strongly encouraged here in the West to put aside childish notions. Not so fast. Forget not that it was Jesus who said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (The Bible, Matthew 18:3)

The Vikings spoke of a place at the world’s northern rim, sometimes called Ultima Thule, where the oceans emptied into a vast hole that recharged all the springs and rivers on the earth. The Greeks believed in a realm called Hyperborea that lay far to the north. A place of eternal spring where the sun never set, Hyperborea was said to be bordered by the mighty River Okeanos and the Riphean Mountains, where lived the griffins—formidable beasts that were half lion and half eagle. The notion that Saint Nicholas—a.k.a. Kris Kringle or Santa Claus—lives at the North Pole seems to have a much more recent vintage. The earliest known reference to Saint Nick’s polar residence comes from a Thomas Nast cartoon in an 1866 issue of Harper’s Weekly—the artist captioned a collection of his Yuletide engravings “Santa Claussville, N.P.”Still, the larger idea behind Nast’s conceit—of a warm, jolly, beneficent place at the apex of the world where people might live—had ancient roots, and it spoke to America’s consuming fascination with the North Pole throughout the 1800s.

From east to west, in fact, her gaze swept slowly, without encountering a single obstacle, along a perfect curve. Beneath her, the blue-and-white terraces of the Arab town overlapped one another, splattered with the dark-red spots of the peppers drying in the sun. Not a soul could be seen, but from the inner courts, together with the aroma of roasting coffee, there rose laughing voices or incomprehensible stamping of feet. Father off, the palm grove, divided into uneven squares by clay walls, rustled its upper foliage in a wind that could not be felt up on the terace. Still farther off and all the way to the horizon extended the ocher-and-gray realm of stones, in which no life was visible. At some distance from the oasis, however, near the wadi that bordered the palm grove on the west could be seen broad black tents. All around them a flock of motionless dromedaries, tiny at the distance, formed against the gray ground the black signs of a strange handwriting, the meaning of which had to be deciphered. Above the desert, the silence was as vast as the space. Janine, leaning her whole body against the parapet, was speechless, unable to tear herself away from the void opening before her. Beside her, Marcel was getting restless. He was cold; he wanted to go back down. What was there to see here, after all? But she could not take her gaze from the horizon. Over yonder, still farther south, at that point where sky and earth met in a pure line - over yonder it suddenly seemed there was awaiting her something of which, though it had always been lacking, she had never been aware until now. In the advancing afternoon the light relaxed and softened; it was passing from the crystalline to the liquid. Simultaneously, in the heart of a woman brought there by pure chance a knot tightened by the years, habit, and boredom was slowly loosening. She was looking at the nomads' encampment. She had not even seen the men living in it' nothing was stirring among the black tents, and yet she could think only of them whose existence she had barely known until this day. Homeless, cut off from the world, they were a handful wandering over the vast territory she could see, which however was but a paltry part of an even greater expanse whose dizzying course stopped only thousands of miles farther south, where the first river finally waters the forest. Since the beginning of time, on the dry earth of this limitless land scraped to bone, a few men had been ceaselessly trudging, possessing nothing but serving no one, poverty-stricken but free lords of a strange kingdom. Janine did not know why this thought filled her with such a sweet, vast melancholy that it closed her eyes. She knew that this kingdom had been eternally promised her and yet that it would never be hers, never again, except in this fleeting moment perhaps when she opened her eyes again on the suddenly motionless sky and on its waves of steady light, while the voices rising from the Arab town suddenly fell silent. It seemed to her that the world's course had just stopped and that, from that moment on, no one would ever age any more or die. Everywhere, henceforth, life was suspended - except in her heart, where, at the same moment, someone was weeping with affliction and wonder.

When we remember we are queens from another kingdom, then the kings in this one will wake up at last and honor our presence and open the gates. We won't storm the castle walls; we will melt the castle walls. Kings will then set a table for us to feast at instead of tossing us bones. They will recognize us when we recognize ourselves. We come bearing gifts from another realm. We bring illumination when our minds are illuminated. We are only visiting here, but our visit is an honor, a mitzvah, and the entire earth kingdom is blessed by our presence. Wake up, damn it, and thank the stars. We have been playing so small and the crown is so huge. We will not wear it until we expand our heads. Don't your get it? Can't you see? As we change our minds, we will change the world. And until we do, we will remain where we are. And all the laws and all the bashing and all the silly, childish, petty political arguments will continue for years, and for more years beyond, until women remember, followed by men, that a woman is a miracle and her heart lies in God. She is here to love God, passionately and truly...

Most intellectuals and most artists belong to the same type. Only the strongest of them force their way through the atmosphere of the bourgeois earth and attain to the cosmic. The others all resign themselves or make compromises. Despising the bourgeoisie, and yet belonging to it, they add to its strength and glory; for in the last resort they have to share their beliefs in order to live. The lives of these infinitely numerous persons make no claim to the tragic; but they live under an evil star in a quite considerable affliction; and in this hell their talents ripen and bear fruit. The few who break free seek their reward in the unconditioned and go down in splendor. They wear the thorn crown and their number is small. The others, however, who remain in the fold and from whose talents the bourgeoisie reaps much gain, have a third kingdom left open to them, an imaginary and yet a sovereign world, humor. The lone wolves who know no peace, these victims of unceasing pain to whom the urge for tragedy has been denied and who can never break through the starry space,who feel themselves summoned thither and yet cannot survive in its atmosphere—for them is reserved, provided suffering has made their spirits tough and elastic enough, a way of reconcilement and an escape into humor. Humor has always something bourgeois in it, although the true bourgeois is incapable of understanding it. In its imaginary realm the intricate and manyfaceted ideal of all Steppenwolves finds its realisation. Here it is possible not only to extol the saint and the profligate in one breath and to make the poles meet, but to include the bourgeois, too, in the same affirmation. Now it is possible to be possessed by God and to affirm the sinner, and vice versa, but it is not possible for either saint or sinner (or for any other of the unconditioned) to affirm as well that lukewarm mean, the bourgeois. Humor alone, that magnificent discovery of those who are cut short in their calling to highest endeavor, those who falling short of tragedy are yet as rich in gifts as in affliction, humor alone (perhaps the most inborn and brilliant achievement of the spirit) attains to the impossible and brings every aspect of human existence within the rays of its prism. To live in the world as though it were not the world, to respect the law and yet to stand above it, to have possessions as though "one possessed nothing," to renounce as though it were no renunciation, all these favorite and often formulated propositions of an exalted worldly wisdom, it is in the power of humor alone to make efficacious.

And Satan spoke unto a certain prince, saying: 'Fear not to use the sword, for the wise men have deceived you in saying that the world would be destroyed thereby. Listen not to the counsel of weaklings, for they fear you exceedingly, and they serve your enemies by staying your hand against them. Strike, and know that you shall be king over all.' "And the prince did heed the word of Satan, and he summoned all of the wise men of that realm and called upon them to give him counsel as to the ways in which the enemy might be destroyed without bringing down the wrath upon his own kingdom. But most of the wise men said, 'Lord, it is not possible, for your enemies also have the sword which we have given you, and the fieriness of it is as the flame of Hell and as the fury of the sun-star from whence it was kindled.' " 'Then thou shalt make me yet another which is yet seven times hotter than Hell itself,' commanded the prince, whose arrogance had come to surpass that of Pharaoh. "And many of them said: 'Nay, Lord, ask not this thing of us; for even the smoke of such a fire, if we were to kindle it for thee, would cause many to perish.' "Now the prince was angry because of their answer, and he suspected them of betraying him, and he sent his spies among them to tempt them and to challenge them; whereupon the wise men became afraid. Some among them changed their answers, that his wrath be not invoked against them. Three times he asked them, and three times they answered: 'Nay, Lord, even your own people will perish if you do this thing.' But one of the magi was like unto Judas Iscariot, and his testimony was crafty, and having betrayed his brothers, he lied to all the people, advising them not to fear the demon Fallout. The prince heeded this false wise man, whose name was Blackeneth, and he caused spies to accuse many of the magi before the people. Being afraid, the less wise among the magi counseled the prince according t pleasure, saying: "The weapons may be used, only do not exceed such-and-such a limit, or all will surely perish.

What though some suffer and die, what though they lay down their lives for the testimony of Jesus and the hope of eternal life--so be it--all these things have prevailed from Adam's day to ours. They are all part of the eternal plan; and those who give their "all" in the gospel cause shall receive the Lord's "all" in the mansions which are prepared. . . . We have yet to gain that full knowledge and understanding of the doctrines of salvation and the mysteries of the kingdom that were possessed by many of the ancient Saints. O that we knew what Enoch and his people knew! Or that we had the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon, as did certain of the Jaredites and Nephites! How can we ever gain these added truths until we believe in full what the Lord has already given us in the Book of Mormon, in the Doctrine and Covenants, and in the inspired changes made by Joseph Smith in the Bible? Will the Lord give us the full and revealed account of the creation as long as we believe in the theories of evolution? Will he give us more guidance in governmental affairs as long as we choose socialistic ways which lead to the overthrow of freedom? We have yet to attain that degree of obedience and personal righteousness which will give us faith like the ancients: faith to multiply miracles, move mountains, and put at defiance the armies of nations; faith to quench the violence of fire, divide seas and stop the mouths of lions; faith to break every band and to stand in the presence of God. Faith comes in degrees. Until we gain faith to heal the sick, how can we ever expect to move mountains and divide seas? We have yet to receive such an outpouring of the Spirit of the Lord in our lives that we shall all see eye to eye in all things, that every man will esteem his brother as himself, that there will be no poor among us, and that all men seeing our good works will be led to glorify our Father who is in heaven. Until we live the law of tithing how can we expect to live the law of consecration? As long as we disagree as to the simple and easy doctrines of salvation, how can we ever have unity on the complex and endless truths yet to be revealed? We have yet to perfect our souls, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel, and to walk in the light as God is in the light, so that if this were a day of translation we would be prepared to join Enoch and his city in heavenly realms. How many among us are now prepared to entertain angels, to see the face of the Lord, to go where God and Christ are and be like them? . . . Our time, talents, and wealth must be made available for the building up of his kingdom. Should we be called upon to sacrifice all things, even our lives, it would be of slight moment when weighed against the eternal riches reserved for those who are true and faithful in all things. [Ensign, Apr. 1980, 25]

I rest my head on his shoulder, feeling his heart beating against me. I wish I could gather time around us, slowing the minutes, making them last a lifetime. “I was born on the island kingdom of Ghedda,” I whisper. This is a story I never told even to you, Habiba. I tell it now only because I cannot bear to leave him without the truth, knowing only half of me. I raise my head and meet his eyes. “That was more than four thousand years ago. I was the eldest daughter of a wise and generous king.” Aladdin stares at me, his eyes soft and curious, encouraging me to go on. “When I was seventeen, I became queen of Ghedda. In those days, the jinn were greater in number, and the Shaitan held greater sway over the realms of men. He demanded we offer him twenty maidens and twenty warriors in sacrifice, in return for fair seas and lucrative trade. I was young and proud and desired, above all else, to be a fair ruler. I would not bow to his wishes, so he shook our island until it began to fall into the sea.” I shudder, and Aladdin draws me closer. “I climbed to the alomb at the top of the Mountain of Tongues, and there offered myself to the Shaitan, if he would only save my city from the sea.” My voice falls to a whisper, little more than a ripple on the water. “So he took me and made me jinn and put me in the lamp. And then he caused the Mountain of Tongues to erupt, and Ghedda was lost to fire. For he had sworn only to save my people from the sea, not from flame.

He remembered an old tale which his father was fond of telling him—the story of Eos Amherawdur (the Emperor Nightingale). Very long ago, the story began, the greatest and the finest court in all the realms of faery was the court of the Emperor Eos, who was above all the kings of the Tylwydd Têg, as the Emperor of Rome is head over all the kings of the earth. So that even Gwyn ap Nudd, whom they now call lord over all the fair folk of the Isle of Britain, was but the man of Eos, and no splendour such as his was ever seen in all the regions of enchantment and faery. Eos had his court in a vast forest, called Wentwood, in the deepest depths of the green-wood between Caerwent and Caermaen, which is also called the City of the Legions; though some men say that we should rather name it the city of the Waterfloods. Here, then, was the Palace of Eos, built of the finest stones after the Roman manner, and within it were the most glorious chambers that eye has ever seen, and there was no end to the number of them, for they could not be counted. For the stones of the palace being immortal, they were at the pleasure of the Emperor. If he had willed, all the hosts of the world could stand in his greatest hall, and, if he had willed, not so much as an ant could enter into it, since it could not be discerned. But on common days they spread the Emperor's banquet in nine great halls, each nine times larger than any that are in the lands of the men of Normandi. And Sir Caw was the seneschal who marshalled the feast; and if you would count those under his command—go, count the drops of water that are in the Uske River. But if you would learn the splendour of this castle it is an easy matter, for Eos hung the walls of it with Dawn and Sunset. He lit it with the sun and moon. There was a well in it called Ocean. And nine churches of twisted boughs were set apart in which Eos might hear Mass; and when his clerks sang before him all the jewels rose shining out of the earth, and all the stars bent shining down from heaven, so enchanting was the melody. Then was great bliss in all the regions of the fair folk. But Eos was grieved because mortal ears could not hear nor comprehend the enchantment of their song. What, then, did he do? Nothing less than this. He divested himself of all his glories and of his kingdom, and transformed himself into the shape of a little brown bird, and went flying about the woods, desirous of teaching men the sweetness of the faery melody. And all the other birds said: "This is a contemptible stranger." The eagle found him not even worthy to be a prey; the raven and the magpie called him simpleton; the pheasant asked where he had got that ugly livery; the lark wondered why he hid himself in the darkness of the wood; the peacock would not suffer his name to be uttered. In short never was anyone so despised as was Eos by all the chorus of the birds. But wise men heard that song from the faery regions and listened all night beneath the bough, and these were the first who were bards in the Isle of Britain.

But what separates human consciousness from the consciousness of animals? Humans are alone in the animal kingdom in understanding the concept of tomorrow. Unlike animals, we constantly ask ourselves “What if?” weeks, months, and even years into the future, so I believe that Level III consciousness creates a model of its place in the world and then simulates it into the future, by making rough predictions. We can summarize this as follows: Human consciousness is a specific form of consciousness that creates a model of the world and then simulates it in time, by evaluating the past to simulate the future. This requires mediating and evaluating many feedback loops in order to make a decision to achieve a goal. By the time we reach Level III consciousness, there are so many feedback loops that we need a CEO to sift through them in order to simulate the future and make a final decision. Accordingly, our brains differ from those of other animals, especially in the expanded prefrontal cortex, located just behind the forehead, which allows us to “see” into the future. Dr. Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, has written, “The greatest achievement of the human brain is its ability to imagine objects and episodes that do not exist in the realm of the real, and it is this ability that allows us to think about the future. As one philosopher noted, the human brain is an ‘anticipation machine,’ and ‘making the future’ is the most important thing it does.” Using brain scans, we can even propose a candidate for the precise area of the brain where simulation of the future takes place. Neurologist Michael Gazzaniga notes that “area 10 (the internal granular layer IV), in the lateral prefrontal cortex, is almost twice as large in humans as in apes. Area 10 is involved with memory and planning, cognitive flexibility, abstract thinking, initiating appropriate behavior, and inhibiting inappropriate behavior, learning rules, and picking out relevant information from what is perceived through the senses.” (For this book, we will refer to this area, in which decision making is concentrated, as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, although there is some overlap with other areas of the brain.)

Then Faust descends into the realm of the Mothers — the spiritual world; he succeeds in bringing up with him the spirit of Helena. But he is not ripe enough to unite this spirit with his own soul. Hence the scene where desire stirs in Faust, where he wishes to embrace the archetype of Helena with sensual passion. He is therefore thrust back. That is the fate of everyone who seeks to approach the Spiritual World harboring personal, egotistical feelings; he is repelled like Faust. He must first mature; must learn the real relationship between the three members of man's nature: the immortal spirit which goes on from life to life, from incarnation to incarnation; the body, commencing and ending its existence between birth and death, and the soul between the two of them. Body, soul and spirit — how they unite, how they mutually react — that is the lesson Faust must learn. The archetype of Helena, the immortal, the eternal, that passes from life to life, from one incarnation to the other, Faust has already tried to find, but was then immature. Now he is to become ripe so that he is worthy to truly penetrate into the spirit realm. For this purpose he had to learn that this immortality comes to man only when he can be re-embodied repeatedly within physical existence — have new lives extending from birth to death. Therefore must Goethe show how the soul lives between spirit and body, how the soul is placed between the immortal spirit and the body which exists only between birth and death. The second part of Faust shows us this. Now can Goethe compress all that Faust has achieved since the time of premonitory striving, the time when he despaired of science and turned away from it, till he gained his highest degree of spiritual perception. This he does in the chorus mysticus which, by its name alone, indicates that it contains something very deep. Here, in this chorus, is to be condensed in few words — paradigmatically — that which offers the key to all the world mysteries: how everything temporal is only a symbolism for the eternal. What the physical eye can see is only a symbol for the spiritual, the immortal of which Goethe has shown that he, when entering into this spiritual realm, even gains the knowledge of reincarnation. He will finally show man's entrance into the spiritual kingdom coincides with the knowledge that what was premonition and hope in the physical is truth in the spiritual; what was aspiration in the physical becomes attainment in the spiritual world.