Codebreaker scores success in search for the Holy Grail

For 250 years, the cryptic inscription has exercised the minds of Britain's finest theologians, historians and scientists, including Charles Darwin, Josiah Wedgwood and, most recently, the Second World War code-breakers of Bletchley Park. But an anonymous American researcher was credited yesterday with the best stab yet at what the letters D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M. - carved on the Shepherd's Monument at Lord Lichfield's Shugborough estate in Staffordshire - might actually signify.

The answer appears to be "Jesus (As Deity) Defy" - a message left by an 18th century Christian sect Priory of Sion, which was forced to keep its views secret since the Church of England thought they were heretical. On first impressions, this rather perplexing answer may disappoint those who believed the letters pointed the way to the final destination of the Holy Grail, the cup Jesus is said to have used during the Last Supper. But Shugborough Hall was holding on to its hopes last night, since the Priory of Sion was the spiritual successor to the Knights Templar, who were known as the keepers of the Holy Grail.

A nuclear physicist takes a unique look at our universe according to God and Einstein: Seeing God in the Physics Lab

Consider: In one mix of protons, neutrons and electrons I get a grain of sand. I take the same protons, neutrons and electrons, put them together in a different mix and get a brain that can record facts, produce emotions, and from which emerges a mind that integrates those facts and emotions -- and experiences that integration as joy. It's the same protons, neutrons and electrons. They did not get a face-lift, yet one combination seems passive while the other is dynamically alive.From where does this consciousness arise? Just which proton is feeling the joy or anguishing over the pain as I stub my toe on some unseen object?

Thunderstruck and dumbfounded, I awoke this morning to find that my America had been stolen. Not the election; the nation.

I've been studying this election for months, friends will tell you that my head was always in the stats. I was so assured of victory that preparing for a loss was out of the question. I wasn't ready for it. I drank vodka tonics last night until I stopped feeling anything, an anaesthetic for the cruel surgery that bloodied the headlines. We all know about an Ohio promised to Bush by Diebold, districts running out of ballots for the long lines, blacks purged again in Florida, and nefarious machine crashes in Iowa and New Mexico, and partisan hackery in Milwaukee. These all could have helped to steal another election, which is only a single manoevre in the game to steal the country, a political, cultural and spiritual crime of the worst kind.

I can stand proudly today, however, to resist the suicide of consciousness we're witnessing; there's a steely knife being held just above Lady Liberty's jugular, there's poison pill in her hand and a fucking sale at W**Mart. The constitution is being gathered for kindling and civil society has been plucked from the crib and shaken. We can resist this destruction of fair governance, destruction of the biosphere, and destruction of the curiosity of the soul. We can hold accountable those who have sullied the great works of simple heroes who have held their lives to the line for the sake of freedom. We can resist by ceasing, immediately, to buy into the control drama of the pillaging marauders of virtue, who claim values as 100,000 are slaughtered in Iraq, the poor are marginalized and sold off to the 'private sector,' quote-unquote minorities whom are sidelined and written out of the protective book of American justice, and the ecological abatoire that is corporate rule. We must resist George Walker Bush. He is not my president, I will not obey him, and I revolt against the theft of the spirit of fairness and equity which was once the shining light of American democracy.

I will work, in my own way, to stop the suicide of mass-consciousness by saying NO again and again to the death-culture of war, the idolatry of money, the trance of elitism and the arrested objectivity of the media. I pledge, as I hope we all will, to recognize the deep beauty of all people, beings, and ways of life; even if any of these threaten mine, for all creation is sacred, and while I will staunchly fight the regime, I know the people behind it are as miraculous as we all are, even as their actions defy goodness... even if they are truly personifying that thing called evil. Love thine enemies, someone said long ago...

America is stolen, Liberty is in the final seconds before death and if we choose sleep over wakefulness, our conscious mind is in utter, black and abysmal peril. But, if ever there were an alarm to us all of the desparate nature of our natures, this is it. This is the dark night of the mystics, the pivoting point of the revolutionaries, this is an indiscretion intolerable and who shall answer to it but those who want a renewal more? That is we; craving, working, fighting and praying for a single global heartbeat of peace. Our desire to transform shall answer the deeds of the faithless. The meek shall inherit, and strong love will overcome ignorant hate and move mountains.

I know, one day not far off, I will awaken to a world transformed by love, and the creative, voluntary disobeyance of tyrannical governments. I know the headlines will once again tell of true heroes who resisted the tempting surrender to temporal, virtual entertainments. I know that one day, no one will bother with the sale at fucking W**Mart and will be busy in true betterment of their lives. I know, because I and many will work for it, and no work goes unrewarded. I know, one day, the wine on my lips will be celebratory for the achievements of dedicated, tireless people who care beyond measure for children, for the planet, for one less bomb and one less extinction. So, let's wake the heaven up and get started...

We must not fail, we must march, we must yell, we must love radically, we must create and evolve, we must defend and endure! Resist this occupation, let your thinking mind and feeling heart be the revolution, and for the love of God and Country, be vigilant and strong to the point where we cannot be resisted any longer, and the Earth is whole again.