Archive for April, 2008

About the Business Cycle

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

A business starts when an isolated craftsman makes a unique product with his unique tools for his unique customers. To find out what the customer needs the craftsman and the customer start a dialogue. They are inventing new possibilities. Out of the process of invention new tools and new approaches emerge.

In the next stage craftsmen share their trade and move to the next level, a company. They sell and share experience to and with their clients. In a company specialization takes place. People are selling or taking care of infrastructure. To make specialization work a dialogue is needed. Specialists create their own language and don’t understand that their colleagues and their customers are doing the same. If the mapping of all the language does not take place the company will look like the Tower of Babel. It will end its activity in a conflict caused by mis-understanding.

If the dialogue is successful the company standardizes its services and creates a product. It moves to a new level, the factory. In a factory not only the processes are standardized but also the language. Specialists are replaced by software, machines and cheap labor. The employees are not users of tools but are controlled by tools. The replacement does not happen without conflicts. It causes a battlefield between two opposing powers, the employers and the employees.

By carefully analyzing all the processes, getting rid of all the waste, the employees are finally totally replaced by programmed machines. The factory moves to the level of the Utility. It becomes an invisible repeatable process. The process only shows itself to the human when it is out of order. Humans are totally dependent of utilities and a fatal error simply stops society. This generates an extreme level of collective stress.

In the next stage new craftsman emerge. They use of the new invisible, hidden, infrastructure to create new products. The cycle starts again.

Many companies are now transformed into factories and utilities. Cheap labor is provided by the new economic powers China and India. The standardization of the processes is accomplished by the implementation of packages. When the dialogue in the company is disturbed the implementation of the package results in a financial and social disaster.

The jump to the level of the factory generates a conflict and the shock of the conflict lowers the performance of the company. The transition to a factory is hard to sell to the employees and the middle managers. The reduction of the performance is not appreciated by the customers also. The customers want a predictable and gradual improvement of the performance.

Many companies are not suited to move to the level of the factory. They are providing a service. The specialists, knowledge-workers, are constantly innovating their processes.

The specialists are not helped by a standardized process, a method. Methods are not a mechanism to control. They are an educational instrument. When people learn a method they acquire experience. They make mistakes, learn and adapt the method. A dominating not adaptable toolset stops the innovation in a company.

Innovation cannot be stopped at the human level. Users start to look for an alternative to move on and abandon the dominating central infrastructure. They create work-environments of their own and connect them. The effect is a highly unbalanced infrastructue.

This has happened when the PC was introduced and will happen all the time when a new user-friendly toolset appears. At this moment many new collaborative toolsets appear on the Internet. They support the new craftsman, the knowledge-workers, in the service industry.

Many toolsets are available on the market. They are dominating, highly specialized and disconnected. The toolsets support different types of craftsman, different types of companies, different types of factories and different types of utilities.

They don’t support the dialogue to reach mutual understanding, collaboration and innovation. This causes unnecessary conflicts, stress and finally a total blockage of every activity an employee wants to start. The result is de-motivation and finally apathy. The employee just does what he is told to do. He is transformed into a machine.

We need a toolset that supports the gradual movement from the level of the craftsman to the level of the utility. This will create the harmony so many people are looking for.

About the Renaissance

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

The Renaissance was a Cultural Movement that spanned roughly the 14th through the 17th century. It started in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spread to the rest of Western Europe.

 After the Dark Middle Ages, controlled by the Church of Rome, aimed at the Inside (Spirit and Soul), many people wanted to discover the Outside.

The Renaissance is the Age of Discovery. It is the time of Columbus.

T704836_23The printing press, invented in 1450, made it possible to distribute all the new knowledge all over the known world.

The new knowledge is in reality very old knowledge. Renaissance means re-birth and the Renaissance is the re-birth of the knowledge (and wisdom) of the Greek and the Romans.

This knowledge was forbidden and destroyed by the Rulers in Rome. It came back because of renewed contacts with the Arab Culture. At that time Arab Culture was at the top of its cycle.

Art (Leonardo Da Vinci) and Science (Copernicus (1514)) exploded. Both of them were funded by the rich merchants (Medici, Venice).

Scientists started to experiment and used advanced tools (Microscope, Telescope) to study the external world and the internal world (the Body). They looked with their own Eyes and not with the Eyes of the Bible.

renaissanceperIn the Arts the Perspective was invented. Artist used advanced tools (“camera’s) to support their own eyes to project the outside world on a flat surface.

Another Re-Birth was the Reformation (Luther, 1517). The Bible was translated in many languages and distributed by the printing press to many people.

For the first time people outside the Church could read and study Religious documents and compare them with Scientific Evidence  from Greece, Arabia and Rome.

columbus_taking_possessionThe need to convert others to the Christian faith was huge. Many expeditions, Crusades,  were send out to unknown territory to find convertible humans.

The missionaries used the old fashioned trick learned from the Huns to force people to accept  the Faith by violence. Millions of people were tortured and killed.

At the outside of the Christian Empire the Arabs were attacking all the time. They were also very wealthy.

The search for Gold stimulated the weapon-industry of the west.

Not only the weapon industry flourished also the transport industry (Maps, Navigation, Big Ships) made a lot of progress.

The combination of both of them (The Navy, “War-Ships”) helped the West to Rule the Sea.

mercatorProduction in the Renaissance was carried out by the Guilds, a Cooperation of Craftsman. They were almost in total control of every craft in the big cities.

The Renaissance (Creation) is part of the Cycle of Western Culture.

In this Cycle it was preceded by the rule of Roman Church (Control) and followed by the Industrial Revolution (Social).

The rebirth was fuelled by an Expansion Phase (Fire).

In this phase not only Arabic Culture expanded and rose to a high point also the new rulers of the West (Celts, Germans), the descendants of the Huns, created new Kingdoms and build the Cathedrals. The Cathedrals contained all the occult knowledge of that time (Sacred Geometry, The Spiral, The Light, The Four Forces,.).

On a macro level we see an interesting pattern.

The phase of Fire (Expansion, Practice, Summer, Sensory, …) fuels the phase of Creation (Up, Spirit, Idea, Eye, Winter, Mythic,…).

Ideas are put into Practice or Practice generates Ideas. The combination of Sensory and Mythic (A Game) is called Invention or Exploration by Will McWhinney.

The game of Exploration is an Infinite Game. Infinite games are about continuing the Game.

Going Back to Jump to another Level is also a pattern that is visible in the most advanced theory about ecologies promoted by the Resilience Alliance (RA).

The Ecology of the Roman Church dominant in the Dark part of the Middle Ages collapsed. It collapsed because of many factors.

In this time the Plague killed millions of people. The Climate was very instable (An Ice-Age) and the new Kingdoms of the Huns and Celts were heavily expanded. They started to fight for dominance.

According to the theory of RA a collapsing ecology reverts to a previous stage to rise again.

What does this say about Innovation?

Innovation is fuelled by an earlier (expansion) stage in history. It is triggered by a collapse of an Ecology.

If we look at the current state of the world we see a Collapse (a Compression) of the World Wide Ecology. It will certainly generate a stage of Ideas and Creativity.

This is needed to solve the current problems. In contrary to many ideas about Innovation the only way to solve the problems is to Look Back and Learn from History.

We can learn from the Control Stage of the Middle Ages where one paradigm was enforced. At this moment Science is enforcing again one paradigm, the paradigm of Control, Abstraction, Technology, the Computer, Statistics and the Factory.

They were created during the Industrial Revolution that was aimed at creating Unity (Every Thing is the Same).

At this moment we are moving into the stage of the Center, Balance and Harmony.  In this stage we always jump to a new level of Conscioussness. In the last Center-Stage the Religion of the Islam was born so the chances are high that a new World Religion will appear or re-appear.

People that explore contradicting paradigms are excluded from the scientific community. This community controls the world of Inspiration just like the Guilds were controlling the crafts in the Renaissance. To innovate we need Freedom of Paradigm.

We can learn from the Idea stage of the Renaissance. It teaches us that a Union of Art, Science and Spirituality is needed to support real innovation.

We can also learn from a comparable phase in the Cycle, the phase of Harmony. In this phase the old is completely destroyed by an invasion of people outside its territory (The Huns).

The West is trying with all its force to block a huge part of the Earth (the “Under-Developed” countries) to take part in its innovation. It creates (Economic and Legal) Walls just like the Roman Empire and the Chinese Empire created Walls to protect their territory from the Huns and The Celts when they were in their end-stage.

The Under-Developed countries are of a Lower Culture. Perhaps these cultures carry something the West desperately needs. In these cultures the collective is more important than the individual. In these cultures the sick, the poor and the old are still taken care of.

Funny.

I believe this was the message Christianity wanted to bring to the World.

Something went wrong in the West don’t you think?

LINKS

About the Perspective

Lectures about the Renaissance part 1

Lectures about the Renaissance part 2

Lectures about the Renaissance part 3

How Akhenaton started the Age of Aquarius at the Wrong Moment

Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

mosesAkhenaton (1300 BC), married to the beautiful Nefertiti, reformed the state religion of Egypt in a very rigorous way.

In that time the main deity was named Amen. Out of the blue Amenhotep adopted an old deity called Aten and changed everything.

He not only changed his name (his old name was Amenhotep IV) but he also erased Amen from all the inscriptions of the capital Thebes and built a new capital to the north of Thebes called Akhetaten, the place where Aten rises.

The powerful priests of Amen (or Ammon) did not like this move and revolted. The priests of Aten were expelled of Egypt and fled to Palestine.

The leader of this expedition was the high priests of Ahktnaton called Ra-Mose. The mother of Ahkhnaton was Tiye. She was the daughter of the Chief Minister of his Father, Yuga.

bust_of_nefertiti1In 1939 Sigmund Freud published a book called “Moses and Monotheism“. In this book Freud argues that Moses was the High Priest of Akhenaten. Yuga, the father of his wife is the Jewish patriarch Joseph and his high priest Ra-Mose is the Moses of the Old Testament.

In Moses and Monotheism, Freud claims that Ra-Moses only led his close followers into freedom and that they subsequently killed Moses in a rebellion.

Freud explains that years after the murder of Moses, the rebels formed a religion which promoted Moses as the Saviour of the Israelites. This religion was a mixture of the worship of Aten and Zoroaster (Mithras). Maitreya is the Hindu-variant of Mithras.

The Roman Emperor Constantine created the New Testament of the Bible. He used the widespread Cult of Mithras to introduce Christianity in the Roman Empire.

The cults of Mithras and Maitreya expect a return of an enlightened teacher on Earth.

aquariusHis coming is characterized by a number of physical events (lowering of the sea level, strange weather conditions, decline of nature, war and other disasters). At this moment we are living in the Kali Yuga literally the “age of darkness“.

A complete cycle takes a precession of the equinox, 25. 200 years. All the epochs together equal 12,000 years in the ascending phase and 12,000 years in the descending phase.

The lengths of the periods maintain a 4,3,2,1 ratio to each other. This means that the end of the Cycle (the Dark side, Amen, Kali Yuga) is situated in Pisces and the new cycle starts with the Age of Aquarius.

mozesStephen Mehler wrote From Light into Darkness (2005) and The land of Osiris. He has researched the ancient wisdom (Al Khemit) of the original civilization of Egypt.

According to Mehler the original culture of Egypt believed in a cycle that consists of five stages.

The first stage was called Aten (The Light) and the last stage that started around 3000 BC was called Amen. This is the stage of the Darkness.

In the first stage humans are highly conscious and are capable of many capabilities like travelling in time and space with their Light-Body.

This stage is related to the old continent of MU (the Land of Dreams). The Light of Aten was the Light of Enlightment, the Spirit of Creation.

During the stage of Amen Religion was created and the priests became an important power. The priests invented the Gods and used rituals and rules to manage the masses.

The Roman Emperors did the same with Christianity. It was transformed from an inspirational movement of the followers of the Light (the Gnostics) to a very intelligent way to continue the Roman State.

At this moment Spirit and Soul are on their return. They show the coming of the Age of Aquirius.

For until now unknown reasons (perhaps the influence of his mother who came from “India”) Ahkhnaton started the new cycle of Aten when the cycle was not completed. He revolted at the wrong time. He wanted to bring the Light in the time of Darkness and was stopped by the Institution of the Church of Ammon (Materialism).

After his death the priests almost wiped out his existence. It took a lot of research to reconstruct his life. By accident (does it exist?) he send the 12 tribes of Israel to their Homeland and by his High Priest Moses started the Jewish Religion that generated the Christian Religion that was also stopped by the new Priests of Ammon (The Roman Empire).

At this moment many people in many religions are waiting for the new Maitreya to come who will restore the stage of the Light.

Ahkhnaton was a King-Poet. Some scientist believe he is the biblical King Solomon. Ahkhnaton/Solomon created The Great Hymn to Aten.

How manifold it is, what thou hast made!

They are hidden from the face (of man).

O sole god, like whom there is no other!

Thou didst create the world according to thy desire,

Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts,

Whatever is on earth, going upon (its) feet,

And what is on high, flying with its wings.

The countries of Syria and Nubia, the land of Egypt,

Thou settest every man in his place,

Thou suppliest their necessities:

Everyone has his food, and his time of life is reckoned.

Their tongues are separate in speech,

And their natures as well;

Their skins are distinguished,

As thou distinguishest the foreign peoples.

Thou makest a Nile in the underworld,

Thou bringest forth as thou desirest

To maintain the people (of Egypt)

According as thou madest them for thyself,

The lord of all of them, wearying (himself) with them,

The lord of every land, rising for them,

The Aton of the day, great of majesty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hymn_to_the_Aten

LINK

The Final Proof of the Theory of Freud