the Academy and mini-biographies
Here we go . . .
the Principals: Ra and Tara
Tara the harsh strict Queen, but magnificent and powerful. A Goddess. An Empress. A Pharaoh.
Ra the benevolent and omniscient voice of Consciousness from throughout the Heavens.
Head of Faculty: Mercury, Thoth, Hermes. Hermes Trismegistus.
We’ll give him a name like Dr. Jim Thoth (the Jim is for James, mimics “Hermes” if pronounced in the Spanish way, “Ha-Mess”). Dr. Thoth obviously has multiple doctorates, clearly from more than one institution, and likely a number of honorary degrees on top of the ones he earned himself. Explanation of all that on request.
Society of Allies: Helios
Society of Corrupts: Maldek
Head of Helios: this position cycles, currently Dr. Koot Humi (Kuthumi)
Head of Maldek: Luke Ferros (Luciferos) or Dr. Luke Ferrum the Iron Hand
Faculty Members (all doctorates): Mitra, Zoroaster, Koot Humi, Saint Germain, Francis (of Assisi), Ramses/Ramos/Moses, Lao-zi (Master Lao), Confucius (Master Kong), Gautama, Akhen-Aten, Athena, et al. Department Heads identified at a later time.
Each teacher is working on a specific service project. One of those assigned projects is to create a new board game model, to update Monopoly and Parker Brothers’ The Game of Life. It’s high time for a game with new rules, a new playbook for a new world.
Board Members: the Buddha family, Mara and Peter and their clan of siblings
The Academy is a private institution, owned by Queen Tara who also serves as one of the Principals, operated by the powerful and wealthy Buddha family, a secretive group that doesn’t normally welcome publicity.
In case the metaphor is eluding you:
Tara is Terra, the Emerald Queen of Earth. She owns this World. She is also one of the primary Executives.
The other Executive is Ra, Consciousness. We are all Consciousness inhabiting dense material form. So everything in this world, and every human in this world, is part Consciousness and part Matter.
We are her subjects, subjects in Tara’s Realm. Our bodies are made of her substance and therefore our consciousnesses are wholly immersed in her material. The word “material” comes from the word “matter.” Even the word “matter” comes from Tara, Ma-Ter, the Mother (Ma) Earth (Terra).
Before you get bent out of shape by the inclusion of the name Luke Ferros, allow me to reassure you that he is not going to be a one-dimensional figure or a caricature. Luke has provided an invaluable service to the Academy. Remember, Luke was a member of Helios and likely a member of the Faculty before he decided to break out, maverick that he is, and be a founder of Maldek. I’m not certain of this, but Luke’s work might well have been instrumental in, if not the invention of, at the very least the promotion and dramatic amplification of the Love Ray. Since I’m writing the story, obviously I can write it any way I like, but I prefer to stick to facts. So clearly some research is in order.
So Dr. Ferros decides on his own to break away from Helios and become founder of Maldek. He is likely released from his duties at the Academy, but he is still in contact with the other faculty members who were his friends. Dr. Ferros undoubtedly maintains at least occasional contact with Dr. Thoth and the current head of Helios, Dr. Kuthumi.
If we were concocting this story back in Greek times, clearly the Principal of the Academy would be Zeus. Zeus, in case it hasn’t occurred to you, is a variant of Deus, which is identical to the word Theus, also spelled Theos, the root of Theosophy and Theology. Also the root of the male given name Theo.
Back to the article entitled Love: A Force of Nature, the endocrine gland which is the conduit for the Love Ray is the thymus. Consider this: Thee and Thy are variants of how we address each other. You, Thee, and Thy are the 2nd person. Nowadays, Thee and Thy are considered quaint and outdated methods of addressing another person. However, the 3-letter construct The is the most common word in the English language, so we are not just going to dismiss out-of-hand the value and importance of that construct. Consider also that the Head of Faculty, Dr. Thoth, decided to include the Th construct twice in his name. So let’s give this little construct the benefit of the doubt, and unassuming though it may first appear, that little sucker carries some major weight and power and import.
At first glance, the choice of 2 societies can appear simplistic. The white hats and the dark hats from 1960s Westerns on TV. Be aware that this choice is not made lightly, or naively, or superficially. Helios and Maldek are not monolithic, they are not absolutes. Any student or faculty member could conceivably belong to both societies, or start out in one society and then change membership midstream. There is an ethic at work here. Helios means the path of soul advancement. Maldek is the path of selfishness which is out-of-tune with the natural order, i.e. making habitual choices which retard the evolution of the self in this dimension, in this human form. All of us spend time in both arenas, and some of us (probably most if not all of us) spend entire lifetimes in each arena. Notice the distinction between selfishness which is out-of-tune, and loving emphasis on the self which is healthy and natural. We all need to feed ourselves with love and good things, that’s healthy. That’s not being selfish in the deleterious sense. It’s actually vital and necessary.
Students
The characters we choose for students need to reflect the variety of people in the world, providing a representative cross-section of humanity. People come in archetypes. There are various systems of defining archetypes we can draw from, like the Enneagram, the Tarot, the Michael system. Each student character in the story will be based on a specific archetype. For example, the nurturing giving motherly type, the archetype which usually populates the teaching and nursing professions, is a Type 2 in the Enneagram and a Server in the Michael system. The Type 2 Server will be given a name which matches the role, and because Type 2s tend to be associated with women, this character will likely be a woman. Of course, being a maverick and renegade, I like to shake things up, so I might make the Type 2 character a man instead.
Students are, unbeknownst to many of them, VIPs. Superheroes. Powerful beyond measure. Emissaries from worlds whose power can only be imagined, not comprehended. Plain Janes and Average Joes are secretly powerful beings from another world, under deep cover. Usually they are under such deep cover that they don’t even know themselves who and what they are. Clark Kent is the best metaphor. Diana Prince, Bruce Wayne, a lot of those characters are CEOs or billionaires or whatever. That’s not how it works. Most people live average lives. Our characters do not even know that they have a billionaire inheritance lurking in their ancestry, or lurking in their future.
Bringing these cute storylines back to the real world: almost nobody knows that, hiding within the human being, is the potential to be all-powerful. The ability to produce miracles. No one believed St. Germain in the 1800s. No one believed Joshua when he was performing miracles and telling everyone, and I do mean everyone, that they too have the capacity to produce miracles. Walking on water is not a metaphor, nor is turning water into wine, nor is feeding thousands of people with a small amount of bread and a small container of soup. Ask Babaji. Ask Sai Baba. Ask Carlos Castaneda’s mentors Don Juan and Don Genaro. Ask any member of the Faculty.
One of the objectives of the Academy is to educate people about this potential, this latent ability to outperform even our wildest dreams.
You see how incredibly important you, my dear Readers, are to this process? I would never have written this material on my own. This material is being written in real time on Substack as a New Post. I owe Julia a tremendous debt of gratitude for introducing me to Greg Olear, who is in our little circle, because Greg is also on Substack and his web page is what inspired me to look into this platform.
The Origins of the Character’s Names
Carlos is an homage to Carlos Castaneda, a kindred spirit.
Sheryl Running Horse is an homage to Sheryl Crow and Angel Pagan (Caballo Loco, “Crazy Horse”). She’s a pioneer, a Type 1 in the Enneagram, a warrior spirit. This character inspired by Roland’s sister viewed as a Type 1.
Cindy Maybeck, a college teammate of Sheryl Running Horse, is an homage to Bernard Maybeck.
Sheryl’s minor league roommate John is an homage to JFK. I needed an African spiritual leader, a woman, so I discovered a Zimbabwean named Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana
Nehanda’s classmate Robert is an homage to Robert Rimmer, but also RFK and Robert Heinlein for his book Stranger in a Strange Land. Of course, everyone in this story is part of me, how can it be otherwise, and Robert is a case in point. His name begins with the letters R-o and contains a total of 6 letters, just like the name Roland.
Saditha came out of nowhere, out of the blue. Her father was discovered on a list of names of Indian celebrities. I selected Patekar because of Pater, Paternalism. Her father is a paternal, old-world person.
Tom Matthews is a rough homage to Jim Mattis. Tom is a 3-letter men’s nickname like Jim, and Matthews is a homonym of Mattis.
Characters #1-4 (Carlos, Saditha, Nehanda, Sheryl): Mini-Biographies
Carlos
Carlos lives in southern California in an average working class tract house, balloon frame and stucco walls. He is a professional truck driver and still has every one of the Matchbox cars in his collection from childhood.
Carlos is a lover of science fiction movies and story worlds. Also a big fan of Disneyland since childhood, he visited all his life. His favorite movie franchises (see —> Disney, Roddenberry, Rowling, Lucas and Katz):
Star Wars
Back To The Future
Men in Black
The Last Starfighter
The Adventures of Pluto Nash
Galaxy Quest
The Emerald Forest
Total Recall
Indiana Jones
Star Trek
We don’t know yet his Enneagram Type: perhaps a Type 2, a Server in the Michael system.
Carlos is a Renunciate, a 4th Level Initiate. In this way, he takes after his eponymous source, Carlos Castaneda. Carlos has experiences related to his home state of California, like the wildfire incident.
Arrival at 5th Level is Graduation. 5th Level is Graduate Level, Faculty Level. Superhuman level, homo radiens level.
Saditha Patekar
Saditha is a social and political systems engineer. If the Story for this Book goes to Jerusalem, she will become a lead character. She is also an economics student and is integrating the Golden Age economic system and structure, an amalgam of the best of capitalism and communism-socialism.
Saditha is a Pirate and a pioneer, but we don’t yet know her Enneagram Type. She might be a Type 8. Saditha lives in the Middle East, we suspect, and she is Muslim. We believe she lives in a desert compound, probably in a country that is not unduly oppressive to women, like India or Jordan, anyplace with Indian residents. Her struggle with her father, who represents religious fundamentalism and the patriarchy, is a central theme in her life and in her character development.
Nehanda
Nehanda is a visionary. We think she is a Type 5 in the Enneagram, a Student-Investigator. In her home community in Africa, in her family tribe, she would be considered a carrier of the spiritual tradition, like the family tribal mystic or shaman. Nehanda is a country girl, living outside a rural village with a communal water well in a dirt floor hut. At some point in the story, she may get access to a cell phone or the internet, but so far, she does not have access to modern technology of even modern conveniences. Until her introductory trip to Costa Rica, she had never even had contact with modern anything.
Nehanda might have Christian or Muslim parents, or one of each, at this point uncertain.
Africans are very expressive and assertive, so a Type 5 is a good counterpoint to Ladysmith Black Mambazo et al. Low-key, more like Johnny Clegg.
Nehanda is a sustainable, earth-friendly and earth-centered Housing Design expert.
• natural and nontoxic materials (wood, stone, sheet rock, glass) in home construction
• discussion of indoor lighting: halogen, fluorescent, incandescent, LED. Industrial settings, warehouses: Mercury lamps, sodium lamps, lighting which is “warm”, meaning healthy for the eyes and the body.
• Earthships, Sheep Dung Estates, Cohousing, shipping containers (metal box? how about softening interior with wood or sheet rock)
• has contacts with Project: Water nonprofit building her town well
Nehanda might also be a Bio-Products and Sustainable Products and Healthy Living expert; she might share Eco-friendly Products expertise with Carlos.
• my business card: soy-based inks, recycled content paper, think reuse recycle sustainable ingredients
•“organic” meaning plant-based plastics, bio-plastics, John D. and Rudy Diesel
• linen and healthy-feeling clothing
• the Earth now has 6,000 million people. Too many people for this planet. Climate change is just the impact of so many people that they are having an effect on the weather and climate right now. Overpopulation and indiscriminate-unregulated-irresponsible use of fossil fuels technology is the cause of climate change.
Sheryl Running Horse
Sheryl is a Type 1 in the Enneagram, a Warrior-Activist. She has been passionate about baseball her entire life. She has some similarity to Brandon Crawford, because she knew since she was young that she would be a professional baseball player in the Major Leagues. Her introductory story segment touches on the highlights of her professional baseball career.
Sheryl’s heritage is Native American, which will factor into the story at some point.
Sheryl is a food addict, which she must get a handle on if she is to keep her good standing as a professional athlete. She will be introduced to BLE and become a member-adherent, if not a devotee, that remains to be seen.
unnamed Chinese character
Tom Matthews
If Tom even exists, he will become an integral part of any Jerusalem storyline. So far, he is merely a concept without a voice, we don’t have a mini-biography or backstory. No background yet. The beauty of a U.S. Marine Colonel or Commandant is obvious, establishing a military character introduces the presence of the military in the Book. After reading Call Sign Chaos, I want that person to be a U.S. Marine, because the Marines guard the White House, they guard U.S. embassies in foreign countries, and that presence will be vital.