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Earth and Ether

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Part Two

‘There is little that cannot be explained in a few sentences;

sentences that may take a life time to understand.’

What is consciousness? Where is consiousness? Who is conscious of what?

The conscious ‘me’ is clearly gifted a material body but is my body me? Clearly not, but there is evidence that the opposite is true. People have clinically died and remained fully conscious outside of the body. To explain this phenomena, consciousness must exist in another medium and that we call ‘spirit’ or loosely in scientific terms, ‘energy’. What type of energy we will come to.

The concept of spirit outside of matter, is central to many world religions. The Christian priest will attend a person dying or conduct an exorcism and a Tibetan Buddhist will say prayers over a cadaver for several days. Curiously, religious representatives do not attend births. Perhaps this is because there is no agreed moment in gestation when spirit enters the foetus but certainly it does.

In this Ven diagram, is a simple representation of how matter and spirit lock together and what they share in common. Where matter and spirit overlap is a particular energy which modern science has not yet been able to detect and measure, but which has been described extensively across time and cultures as, ether Chi, Qi, Prana, Orgone, Vril, or when in the earth, the tellurgic current.

This invisible energy creates a portal, a zone where there is connection between both matter and spirit, which I shall term ‘ether’. The stronger the ether, the easier it is for consciousness to move between matter and spirit. There is no scientific proof for this other than that humanity throughout history has devoted vast amounts of time and resources to achieve just this effect in it’s magnificent structures and modes of worship.

Depiction of Spirit Entity at Altimira, Spain

Forty thousand years ago homo sapiens sapiens conducted Shamanic rituals in cave dwellings. They created their connection with the spirit world by painting on rock walls. Through these superbly representative paintings, spirit was able to enter the cave and infuse each sentient being with it’s presence. There is also a theory that important star constellations were also represented in these paintings. Cave dwellers would have developed a close relationship with star patterns and apparent movement of the night sky when viewing from the mouth of the cave; itself a domed observatory.

Chi is present in all nature and certain places and times amplify it’s power. This can stimulate ‘extra sensory perception’ in humans and a gateway into our material realm for non-corporeal beings. To this end, throughout history, most civilisations have used and enhanced Chi by building sacred buildings and using their unique qualities as ‘places of power’, to use a phrase from the Toltec Shaman, Don Juan in Carlos Castenada‘s books.

In Ancient Greece, elegant statues of gods were placed in Temples to invite the god to be present in the statue. When the monotheistic religions arrived such ‘idol worship’ was forbidden. This fear is a sure sign of how powerful early churches realised living gods occupying statues to be.

Ancient people’s, who today we would call a, seer, prophet, priest, magician, mason, water-diviner or Oracle, helped in the construction of sacred edifices of all kinds. Temples, obelisks, pyramids, causeways, megaliths, dolmens, wells or hill figures and many others can be found today all over the globe, often unseen or unrealised. Many modern authors have studied global alignments of such sacred monuments based on sacred geometry, alignments, distance and time.

Chi is accumulated and or channelled through these structures. Whilst later burials often occurred in or near them, their main function was generally ceremonial and as places of initiation. To amplify the Chi very similar techniques were used based on geometry, astral alignments and tellurgic currents; all of which have the combined effect of accumulating and focusing Chi on the human heart, right brain and pineal and pituitary glands.

Many historical and current researchers have documented and explain aspects of this sacred knowledge. Unfortunately, left brain biased archaeologists usually support only those theories based on matter, historical records and anthropology, without reference to the living spirit that was once sacred to ancient cultures.

My point in this essay is that by introducing the concept of an invisible but omni-present spirit into our understanding of the past, the relationship between our sensory experiences and our right brained, feeling based consciousness, becomes clear.

The more Chi is present both within and without of a human being, the more easily such a person can slip through the mirror into a world beyond. Consider Alice’s famous journey into the mirror and the inverted playing card world of dreams; where right is wrong and wrong is right. Never trust a flamingo.

Less flippantly we might examine how personal direction of thought is directed outward using personal power or Chi. It is the means through which prayer is sent; through the ethereal veil to ‘God’ or Universal ‘Mind’. Alice created her Wonderland by going within or ‘down the rabbit hole’.

Finally, we should appreciate spirit is able to pass through the veil towards humanity, boosted by Chi. A highly experienced ‘Dowser’ or ‘Water Diviner’ in Scotland for instance, describes grave yards as being places of concentrations of earth energy or Chi. This connects the earthly grave with the spirit world to which our consciousness is always connected. The common story of ‘ghosts’ inhabiting graveyards is a good example of the ‘twilight zone’ occupied by all sorts including the disembodied. The particularly time of year for this veil to thin is of course, ‘The Day of the Dead’ in Mexico and ‘All Hallows Eve’ in Christianity. The displays in shop windows of evil ecrutements for children is not something properly understood in my view.

Examples of portals for the spirit, exist in very old houses, natural features such as caverns, springs, geological features such as magmatic intrusions and dikes, towns and cities like Jerusalem.

What happens in such sacred sites and countries connects through grids and alignments to other countries and even around the world. For much of recorded history, the Holy Land played out a spiritual discourse, such as those narrated in the Old Testament and New. This global effect was so strong that the Crusades set out to ‘take’ Jerusalem for Christianity and suppress to the ‘infidel’. The history of these brutal Medieval wars is well known and yet continues to play out, often with the same disregard for the sanctity of life.

One might wonder what it is about this particular part of the globe that makes it a spiritually significant region for the monotheistic religions.

When the prophet Jesus the Christ is described in the Bible as ‘walking on water’, like many biblical narratives it has multiple meanings; some for the initiated and some not. Between the earthly and spiritual planes is what I have described as an ‘etheric’ plane. Ether similar or identical to Chi; it’s exact nature still defined by effect rather than cause.

It is said that Jesus ‘walked on water’ is a metaphor for the transition from the material into the etheric plane. The water represents ether and the body of Christ is his astral, not his physical body. Like much of spirituality, such things can be experienced and mastered during life; so as to ‘store treasure in Heaven’.

One of the functions of this ability to transcend our material bodies is to enable communication of the highest kind between spirit and mortals. Earth has been visited and given benign advice by angels and prophets many times in it’s history and these form the basis of mystery schools and mysticism but unfortunately much of the glory of such knowledge has historically and to this day, fallen victim of the self interest of religious leaders.

A left brain thought bias in the West leads many to consider only logically constructed thoughts, and yet some of the most important decisions we make in our lives originate in the right side of our brains. How we think is as important as what we think.

Finally, one must acknowledge that in the material world and it’s spiritual equivalent, there are tendencies to descend into chaos as well as to rise to perfection. The spirits that facilitate this amongst mankind are the angels and demons respectively. Through their benign and harmful machinations, human life has evolved into it’s present state of scientific materialism and atheism.

What is happening in this present time of uncertainty and human suffering is in my view, a product of ignoring the possibility and presence of non-material realms and those places and times that invite personal and collective ascension.

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War Without End

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Obviously violence between neighbouring countries should not happen, but when diplomacy fails, it does. This essay questions the best methods to mitigate the escalating war in the Middle East.

The day for Israel to robustly defend itself was October 7th 2023, but instead many Israeli citizen’s and soldier’s lives were sadly lost and hostages were taken, a failure it admits. The attack came from a country that Israel had occupied, surrounded with high walls, was accessed only through caged tunnels and sealed with check points. The war did not start on this day as some commentators suggest. It started in 1948 and even earlier.

In response to the attack the Israeli government declared it’s aims to eliminate Hammas and recover the hostages. My first question would be, is this vengeance or defence or both? Politically, military objectives need to be achievable and achieved as rapidly as possible. One year on, this has not happened. New aims on new fronts have been opened against the Houthis, Iran? and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Confused?

Diplomacy solves differences peacefully, war does the opposite. Diplomacy addresses grievances, war ignores the grievances resulting in grievances remaining; witness the conclusion of the First World War and the burning embers that ignited the Second and the inconclusive end of the Second World War that put thumbs on triggers in the Cold War.

Historically, few violent, subversive political organisations such as Hammas and Hezbollah have been eliminated by force. In recent history, ISIS have re-emerged after ‘defeat’ and in the 20th century, the IRA re-emerged using a new name.

In my view, the Zionist Israeli government have used questionable methods to ‘eliminate Hammas’. Tanks and artillery are traditionally not suitable weapons to fight an enemy in an urban context; especially one with a tunnel complex and ruined buildings forming defensive postions. The end of the Second World War saw Allied infantry troops fighting their way to Berlin, street by street, house by house; difficult and high risk tactics to clear whole cities of the enemy, but effective.

picture credit: BerlinExperiences 1945

Let us consider the second aim of the Israeli’s. The most politically astute days and months to save the hostages were immediately after they were taken. One year on, the task is far less likely ever to be achieved. On top of this, the protests by families of the hostages and undermine trust in their own government which will spread and breed wider disorder and protest.

Killing disproportionate numbers of civilians and destroying infrastructure such as hospitals and schools, is more likely to increase the ranks of Hammas fighters than reduce them, and time will tell if this is true.

At the same time, Israel has been slowly losing support from allies and other countries around the world, not for it’s aims but the manner in which is has attempted and failed to carry out it’s aims. Many observers around the world and in particular South Africa, have condemned the disproportionate loss of civilian life caused by the IDF.

I wish to point out confusion over the word used to describe ‘terrorists’. It is a term that carries considerable emotional weight without clearly defining what it is.

My definition is;

Terrorism by individuals or small cells, is lethal attacks on infrastructure and civilians during peace time in order to produce fear in a population for political motives. The IRA in the UK and ETA in Spain are examples of this from the C20th.

Terrorist tactics, when used on a large scale during peace time or war, becomes guerilla warfare.

A large well armed group using guerilla tactics in open warfare to attack opposing military forces are guerillas (meaning small war). The Mujahideen in Afghanistan fighting against the USSR and the Vietcong, North Vietnamese Army war with the USA are examples of this. Although they have inferior numbers and weapons guerillas can defeat a stronger opponent by attrition, local knowledge, basic instead of sophisticated logistical support and high, politically inspired, morale.

Open warfare is when a State declares itself at war against a specific enemy. Battles are fought by National forces as instructed by the government of each country. Organised land, air, sea and space forces confront similar enemy forces and seeks to overcome the enemy with maximum force in the shortest possible time.

The reader is invited to decide which definition best describes the Houthis, Hammas and Hezbollah, and the IDF. Contemporary leaders sometimes describe guerilla or even national armies as terrorists and in my view, this is more an emotional appeal for support than accurately describing the threat.

The tactics of terrorism and sometimes guerilla warfare have historically failed because brutal tactics particularly against civilians, wanes political support. Israel is currently failing in it’s objectives in my view, and is losing political support from within Israel, from it’s closest allies (including the Biden administration of USA) and the United Nations.

Israel was admitted to the United Nations on 11 May 1949 and participated in it’s aims.

Now it has fired upon an UNFIL base in Lebanon causing injury UN operatives. The political contradiction is obvious and has outraged many nations, including allies of Israel.

Israel insists it is ‘defending itself’ which may convince many of it’s authority in religious Jurisprudence and International Law, but it is dangerous to confuse defence with offence. Anyone who has played chess or watched a team sport game, knows this.

The military advantage of defence is that cover and observation is achieved using pre-prepared defences. A small defensive force can repel a larger offensive force as proved historically by the history of castles and fortifications within Europe and the Middle East.

Israel is currently using a ‘Defence Force’ to attack it’s enemies to prevent them from attacking Israel. This shows that defence and attack are indeed questionable terms.

The British Army carry a card to remind them of the Rules of Engagement;

You can always act in defence of yourself, your team mates and civilians.

You can always return fire when fired upon.

Do not engage a target of opportunity without permission, unless you are in imminent danger.

UNFIL in southern Lebanon also have no authority to attack except when fired upon. In the Rwandan genocide between April and July 1994, nearly one million Tutsi and moderate Hutu were murdered whilst the international community and United Nations Peacekeepers stood by. But UNFIL were placed in Southern Lebanon as a buffer between Lebanon and Israel; in effect a ‘human shield’. Why Hezbollah are allowed to occupy this buffer zone is clearly questionable.

There is a case that the Old Testament ethic of ‘an eye for an eye’ describes proportionate use of violence, and is not a justification for vengeance. This interpretation is not commonly heard or debated. The word ‘vengeance’ is an elephant in Embassy meeting rooms.

The Israeli Government tactics in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon have so far failed in their objectives. For reasons described in this essay they are in my view, likely to continue to produce poor results, escalate violence rather than reduce it and reduce support for its cause amongst its allies, particularly the USA.

Specifically, there is loss of moral justification when civilians, peacekeepers and aid workers are killed and excuses such as ‘a mistake’, ‘inadvertent’, ‘targetting the enemy’, ‘we told them to move’, ‘the fog of war’ all risk accusation and investigation of war crimes. Weapons in the 21st century are surgically accurate and guided using real time intelligence.

Many observers have pointed out that there is no justification to using 2000lb bombs to destroy a building occupied mainly by civilians; whether bad people share the building or not. However the Israeli government ‘excuse’ themselves, there is, I believe, a better alternative not discussed publicly, perhaps for security reasons.

The IDF have specially trained soldiers in counter terrorism called the Mista’ravim. They are specialists in working undercover to capture or assassinate high profile enemy targets. Many Hammas leaders, if captured alive, could have been used to negotiate the return of Israeli hostages. This opportunity has been lost as well as the chance to show the professionalism of it’s special forces and sincere desire to protect civilians.

The Mistaravim picture credit: Jerusalem Post

Special Forces all over the world, acting on intelligence from local proxy sources and real time surveillance, are trained to enter buildings with the element of surprise to rescue hostages.

There is an argument that the IDF does not have sufficient special forces to search for the hostages. If this is the case, then an appeal can be made to it’s allies to support these rescues using allied specialist units. One hundred teams working together, could have swept Gaza and it’s tunnel systems before now and would have prevented the need to destroy infrastructure such as hospitals, on the scale that has occurred. A cynical observer might query the motive for not using this tactic.

The reader is invited to view the videos on social media that many parties have posted, and form an opinion as to what ethical rules parties to this war operate under and who is enforcing them.

If the world is watching an escalating war without rules, then we are all in danger; as the First and Second World Wars proved, should we care to remember.

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The Human Mirror

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Everyday life can be intoxicating. Events carry us along as though we were riding a giant merry go round in an exhilarating Fun Fair. We spin and spin in the whirlpool of coloured lights and sound. We catch glimpses of people riding other horses and try to connect with a wave and a scream. And occasionally, we catch sight of a loved one stood watching on the side.

Perhaps fish have a similar experience in the wonderful underwater world of spectacular coral reefs. But if you were able to ask them about water, they would deny all knowledge of it.

picture credit: Wilkins Safety Group

The human Fairground shares this same irony. The people of earth, mostly deny there is anything other than matter and the pleasures that, if we are lucky, it facilitates. Surely there can be nothing better than an ice cream and holding hands with a loved one.

Yet we know as we age, that life is not like a fairground at all. We can have upsetting experiences from which we have no defence. We can fall and perhaps never get up. Just as the fish are subject to water temperature, tidal surges, currents and long periods of calm; so humans are at the mercy of unseen forces.

The point is a simple one. That there are many levels of experience. The simplest and the most common is to believe that human life is one of sensual pleasure. Some religious people reverse this and live a life of abstinence, without realising that they must be as attached to going without pleasure as others are to pleasure.

Today both scientists, philosophers, intuitive s, artists and mystics explore the idea that in parallel with ‘normal life’ is ‘spirit’ or ‘energy’. Einstein expressed this in his formula E = mC2 in other words, matter can be exchanged for energy and visa versa. It’s not really anything new. Indigenous people around the world and the ancient civilisations have and continue to connect with worlds of ‘spirit’.

To realise this is equivalent to the fabled fish becoming aware of water.

picture credit: Caring For Pets

Spiritually aware humans travel two paths. In the material world they have to learn to achieve some kind of tranquility, which is hard. In the spiritual world their aim is the same and lessons from the former can be applied to the latter. This is described in the Hermetic Law of Correspondence; ‘As above so below, as below so above.’

This knowledge is not new but perhaps is in sharper focus now than any other time in recent human history, at least in the last thousand years. The rather hollow platitudes of most religions and their exponents are giving way to ideas of ‘spirituality’ and ‘energy’. There is silent revolution taking place. Forces unknown are lifting humanity from it’s experiential squalor through such means as naturally occurring energy in the earth and the heavens.

In this ‘spiritual realm’ are what we might term ‘thoughts, messages, knowing, feelings’ and all the untouchable, invisible intelligences that suffice our daily inner experience.

picture credit: Medium

In the science fiction film The Matrix, there is a character called ‘Smith’. He identifies as an algorithm or programme that can replicate itself in any other programme in the Matrix; depicted as a world of illusion as already lives in computers. This programme is immensely powerful and frightened only of the love and truth contained in the hero character, Neo.

We should ask ourselves how real our lives are and ponder on that which we find. In the modern world we sometimes feel mesmerised by the power play of politics and the cultural, religious and social conditioning that we accept as is ‘normal’. It’s what we learnt in our first seven years of life.

Yet there are very destructive spiritual forces that operate against our best interests and try to take over our ‘normal’ world in the same manner that Smith acts like a malignant programme in a computer. This is revealed today as the organisations made up of the powerful and wealthy elite, whose conscious or unconscious function is to spread chaos and division in the populations of the world.

An example would be the political movement known as ‘Black Lives Matter’. Whilst most reasonable people support any and all communities and social groups subject to unfair and degrading treatment by others, we have to ask who created BLM, and who is funding it? Why were those who self identify by the colour black selected to become an activist organisation and not, for instance Hispanics, Asians, Indigenous Peoples and any other of the racial or social group who are wrongly discriminated against. Surely, common sense says that all lives matter, equally?

Any thought engineering whirlpool becomes meaningless the more it is given rational consideration. ‘We all matter and we all support each other’ would be a sentiment closer to the ideal of universal mutual love that most rational people support.

Beyond the ‘moral high ground’ that is so readily occupied by the ‘politically correct’, we might observe a more sinister motive; to separate ethnic groups so that they fight each other. Hatred and destruction triumphs in the guise of goodness.

Such ‘Smith’ programmes are increasingly prevalent today. The most obvious is the war in the middle east at the moment. Culturally and spiritually, those fighting each other have more in common than they have differences. The ongoing dispute of today must have been clear to the British when they ‘gave’ Palestine to the Jews and Zionists in 1948. The Palestinians did nothing to deserve to be ejected from their homes and land. At the time the gesture was doubtless made on a wave of sympathy for the Holocaust survivors but over decades has revealed itself to be a recipe for disaster. Again, we observe a malignant programme which was readily absorbed like a black suited, self reproducing ‘Smith’.

This process is not just visible in world politics and human discourse. There are many ‘natural’ disturbances and weights seeking to counterbalance and overturn human society. Examples would be astronomical, astrological and environmental changes that are producing enormous stress within human societies; particularly to those without the power to protect themselves from harm.

I believe that these malignant ‘thought forms’ or ‘evil spirits’ can be overcome by the spiritually aware and empowered. Beyond any identification with a particular religion or political persuasion, the power of love in the spiritual dimension is very capable of overcoming hatred.

Kitab Al Buhan – Demons

Like the human body, spirit has and is an immune system. Whilst disease (or unease) may attack repeatedly from many directions, a spiritual person enveloped by love is indomitable. Not only that but as love is universal, it too can replicate and stretch out to every cell in the Universe and protect whatever disturbs celestial harmony. Right now it has an Herculean task, and incumbent upon every human being is to pay attention and respond.

picture credit : A-Z Qoutes
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The Road to Hell

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…is ‘paved with good intentions..,’

Dualistic thinkers (thinking using opposite terms such as black and white) have a problem with the idea of good and evil. Most spend their lives seeking goodness and avoiding evil. It’s a well intended strategy and one promoted extensively by Christians. Jesus the Christ spent forty days and nights resisting temptation by the ‘prince of the world’…the Devil.

The problem is, life is not so simple as good and bad…would that it were! Would that Western thinkers looked over the shoulders of Eastern philosophers who believe that there is no such thing as pure goodness, nor pure evil. (The corollary is that there is no Heaven and no Hell which is also true but perhaps the subject for another essay.)

In the Yin Yang symbol, which is central to Eastern philosophy, good contains a little touch of evil and evil a nudge of good. Sometimes goodness may just be a thin shell containing a large quantity of evil and visa versa. An example might be the Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in the second World War. The world would be a better place if that technology had never existed. What you see, is not always what you get.

The past can provide valuable lessons but here I shall use some examples of ‘dualistic thought’ from current Western political debate; there is a tempting assortment to choose from!

The first woe is, ‘Generalisation’. Politicians are by definition, strategists; taking a broad view and delegating attention to detail to minions. They are therefore prone to declare noble ‘aims’ to please voters, such as to ‘reduce inflation, help the vulnerable, create jobs, improve public services’ etc. etc.

What is not presented for examination is how this aim is going to be achieved.

As an example of using the wrong ‘means’, the previous government in the United Kingdom made an election commitment to ‘stop the boats’. This referred to undocumented migrants crossing the English Channel in dangerously unsuitable boats. This aim was presented as ‘good’ because there had been boats sinking and people tragically drowning. The government’s intention was ‘good’; to save life. If the means to stop the boats was challenged, the questioner was accused of wanting people to drown; they were supporting evil over good. The argument was totally dualistic and as a result over simplistic.

Pretending to be a benign policy without hiding the real reason

The absurdity is that any problem solving plan can be justified as ‘moral’ and ‘benign’ whether it was likely to work or not. It just needs a ‘good’ intention or aim and expects never to be challenged on any other grounds.

The detailed plan to ‘stop the boats’ intended to send failed UK asylum seekers to Rwanda. The plan included breaking international law and expense that did not match the benefit. Worse still it was based on an untested assumption that those willing to risk death by drowning would be put off by a comfortable flight across Africa to free food, health care and accommodation in sunny Rwanda. Asylum seekers from Rwanda would probably not be so pleased as it’s not a safe country by most definitions (but that was a level of complexity too deep to examine). The final cost of this plan was the same as putting up each asylum seeker in the Ritz Hotel in London; an option the Ritz would probably have declined.

My point is that however absurd the detailed plan, the government would repeat it’s justification by asking, ‘do you want people to continue to drown in the English Channel?’ as if that were the only option to achieve their well intentioned aim. Of course it was not the only option but presented as such. In the end the plan was abandoned and hundred of millions of pounds metaphorically thrown into the English Channel at a time when the lack of money in the countrie’s coffers was also a problem.

The new Labour government are now desperately trying to balance the books by not giving pensioners an allowance to heat their homes over the coming winter which they agree is regrettable and may cause death ( i.e. an evil ) but is justified by a need to balance the country’s books (i.e. a goodness )

When politicians are not generalising they present details to prove or disprove a generalisation. A prime example appeared in the news this week during the televised debate between candidates for the forthcoming presidential elections in the U.S. of A.

In this debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Trump purported that migrants were eating the pets of American citizens in Springfield, Ohio. The response of Harris was the only rational one, which was to giggle. Apparently, this story was currently feeding the confirmation bias of social media zealots, which included a person who considers himself fit to rule the world. Fact checkers and local officials confirmed that the story was not true. But this does not stop those repeating it, who wish it was true.

The problem for those caught up in such an argument is that there may have been just one instance of starving migrants cooking up a street animals on a cold and windy night to feed their children. In the world of political debate not using numbers or arguing over whether numbers are true or not, allows generalisations to pass critical examination because even if there is only one instance, the general statement becomes true, even if totally misleading. It’s a gift to politicians.

picture credit: Peakpx

At the beginning of this essay I referred to eastern philosophy as tending to take a holistic view of events, rather than focus on a particular set of facts. In Surah Al-Khaf in the Holy Quran, Moses meets a figure not named but described as a righteous servant of God possessing great wisdom. Moses watches him damage a humble fisherman’s boat and protests despite being sworn not to question any thing he witnesses. In time, an army passes in need of such boats and ignores the damaged one. The fisherman is able to repair the damage and keeps his boat and his livelihood. There follows other stories where actions are ‘evil’ at first sight, but as circumstances develope, are shown to have been benign.

In conclusion, our world at the present time is full of major choices about which we hear politicians of all persuasions expounding strong views. As humble citizens we have little say in these matters and have to trust those promoting ‘good’ and denouncing the ‘bad’.

Decisions are for reasons suggested above, and in my view, never such a clear cut choice. We assume we make choices based on hard facts, reasonableness and clear routes to known consequences. I contest this assumption and suggest we take a more pragmatic view, summed up in the simple word ‘maybe’.

The Dreaming

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Theatre is a valuable metaphor to help us understand how our perceptions operate. Stories have the unique ablility to press the play, fast forward, rewind and stop buttons, in our heads, for the dimension of time holds no power over imagination. Weirdly our physical ‘reality’ has a similar quality, as the Shakespeare quotation above infers. Our experience of the world is as a stage set, with backdrops, painted scenes, actors and special effects…whizz! bang! hoopla!

Can we deny that there is an illusory quality to our experience of the world, a fakeness that was recognised even four hundred or so, years ago? Elizabethan England was vivified by magic, notably by those who were masters of illusion through magic, poetry and prose, such as John Dee, Francis Bacon and of course, William Shakespeare.

Magic is ‘other worldly’ and sorcerers manipulate what others believe. Our minds have a frailty which is both our power and a weakness. Mind slips in and out of our control. It is called waking and dreaming and the two are interchangeable, morphing at the mere echo sound of cricket’s cough.

Modern psychologists will describe a person who fades out of our contemporary collective theatre of the imagination as psychotic, but are we not all, at times, cretins in the same bowl of soup? Is this not a modern world of illusion, experiencing super-charged storytellers, on-line, in cinemas, in the media, television; spinning a world wide web of illusion.

When we dream at night we experience alternative realities most vividly. Impressions form in our minds that we recognise but in the way we perceive a surreal painting or story. As an ‘Alice in Wonderland’, the whole geometry and order of life is tipped on it’s head, stirred, shaken and rolled out as a disturbing dream.

Such states can control us in our waking and sleeping, but it is possible to step out of the magnetic loop in which we are contained. ‘Lucid dreaming’ is the experience of waking up whilst still dreaming. Physical objects exist such as a light switch, but when flicked the light does not come on. Many drug induced experiences are states of mind that are both illusory and real. The latter are more likely found in indigenous cultures such as the legendary Don Juan in the books of his pupil Carlos Casteneda. Such experiences involve energetic beings and powers way beyond anything we might call ‘physical reality’.

Shaman in traditional communities inherit ‘second sight’ and the means to constructively use drugs, such as ayahuasca and peyote, from their forefathers. There are recognisable separate realities occupied by conscious but disembodied entities, which offer insights not available on You Tube. The encounters by adepts and students are predictable and repeatable, so rationally, are not vague dream impressions.

Much of the work of C.G. Jung explored this area of experience and established the concept of archetypes; powerful entities that resonate as mathematical constants that do not change with time or place.

On the other hand, there is our waking experience in which repeatable rules apply. We are able to manipulate the world and agree with others about our perceptions, even if we may sometimes disagree. In this ‘reality’ we can also repeat experience in the same way that a scientist can repeat an experiment and get the same result. But again, this ‘reality’ is nuanced by an undercurrent of dreaming. We experience ‘day dreams’ where our train of thought occupies our attention in place of our immediate sensual experiences. Children are particularly susceptible to daytime dreaming and much of their play is in their imagination, a world in which they usually reject adult interference!

From these examples we may appreciate that dreaming is not binary; our minds do not switch it on or off. Waking and sleeping are both areas where dreams operate.

In ‘waking’ our egos develope ‘areas of interest’ which are the well trodden paths of our fascinations. Such compulsions are triggers of past memories of excitement and pleasure that control us mostly unconsciously. For instance, when we go to a sports stadium to watch the team we have supported all our lives, we are in our own ‘heaven’. Our senses align with pleasant memories that we wish to re-experience, even as we park our car. If our team loses we experience displeasure, even though our lives have not really been affected; it’s just a dream turned into a nightmare. The faces of the losers tell it all!

So human experience bounces between pleasure seeking and displeasure avoidance. Gamblers enter a deep rut from which it is nearly impossible to escape. The ‘comfortable’ in society are risk averse seek a circular life, as in the classic comedy on UK Television sitcom, ‘Ever Decreasing Circles’.

Those who challenge ‘responsible’ comfort zones are the artists and drug users. Artists ‘create a stir’ by fashioning a form that breaks the rules. Drug users do the same but within very personal boundaries and without guidance as a consequence, which can cause harm and mental illness.

The mind is complex and we should expect to encounter one special trick that it plays on us, whether dreaming or awake. This is ‘projection’ and acts unconsciously. Within our unconscious mind is that which we have little or no control. During our waking state we might project a ‘complex’ from within that part of our mind. This is best expressed by the adage, the ‘pot calling the kettle black’. We criticise a shadow aspect of our character most strongly when we see it in others. It’s an opportunity to self realise and can become less ‘compulsive’ through self reflection and if appropriate, self control.

The autonomic nature of dreams is remarkably similar, projecting as in a film, elements of our own character in the play’s cast.

Whilst a comfortable physical reality is beguiling, it can be experienced too literally and believed too much. We are born into material bodies to overcome the limitation of being purely ‘Mind’ and one might expect such a transition merits a determination not to waste life by just staring out of the window.

After the use of our physical bodies, I believe we will once again return to ‘pure Mind’ or ‘God’. Without a physical body our mind is no longer able to observe the physical world or be informed by the physical senses.

Whilst in a body we are like a person who has learnt to swim in water; which we might experience as an ocean. Without a body we become that swimmer using all their skills learnt by swimming in that physical ocean. Within this ocean are small islands, which remind the swimmer of the physical world but are mere dream impressions and memories; just as in they physical world there are small islands which are not real.

picture credit: Aquabumps

This Ocean is what the Aboriginal Australians call, ‘The Dreaming’

and that, as they say, is another story.

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The Party is Over

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The Last Supper?

A dictionary definition of the ‘standard of living’ is ‘the degree of wealth and material comfort available to a person or community’. It is not clear from this short description what is included in the concept other than a level of ‘comfort’. We might think that globally people have adequate essentials of life; food, shelter, water, health…but we know wealth is not evenly distributed.

It follows that not everyone on planet Earth will enjoy the same degree of ‘comfort’. There is an extended range from ‘in dire need of comfort’ to ‘having comfort in excess’.

When watching news reports of natural events that have devastated communities in countries with a low standard of, one feels for the victims. But looked at another way, these communities as used to living with little more than the basics. Their frail houses can be rebuilt. If they are lucky, aid tides them over until crops can be harvested again. What I mean is that this is not total devastation. Such people are survivors because they live simply. Inuit hunters, when given quartz watches, threw them away. When asked why, they replied that they were unable to repair them. It’s a wise principle. Round the world sailors know their boats intimately for the same reason.

In contrast, the ‘city dwellers’ of the world are not survivors. If farm land turns into a desert, as happened in the ‘dust bowl’ in 1930’s United States of America, mass hunger and even death within ‘sophisticated’ populations will result. They are, in the words of the Beatles song, “Urban Spacemen”.

picture credit: science.smith.edu

Most people are aware of the global threats to the citizens of planet Earth in the twenty-first century. We have had a ‘pandemic’ and more may follow, we observe the alarming effects of climate change and it’s consequences such as food shortages and habitat destruction, we have localised wars erupting in different parts of the world and mass migration because of all of these things and others.

When Elon Musk talks of moving to other planets, he must be inferring that there is a strategy to sustain the homo sapien sapiens after global catastrophe. Good luck getting a ticket to ride.

We know that humans have survived global catastrophe before. There are meant to have been at least six global disasters wiping out most of life, but not all. The underground cities found in places like northern Turkey are evidence of how a small number of humans survived.

Kaymakli Underground City Turkey

This time though, high tech city dwellers who casually dial up for food on their phones, are not likely to make underground cities. With half of the world’s population living in cities, the question we should be asking ourselves is, ‘how can we prevent disaster?’

We can all make a difference by taking personal responsibility for the likely causes of a catastrophe. One individual can change the world, however rarely you hear this affirmation. There is a story of a child throwing a stranded star fish back into the sea. When questioned what difference the action made the child answered that it made a difference to the starfish.

Every holiday, every sending of goods and foodstuffs around the world, every activity that involves burning carbon based fuels is, however slightly, connected to the tornado or mudslide or nuclear waste release. Governments appear powerless to prevent destructive human behaviour whilst natural disasters will happen with little encouragement.

Have we believed the ‘cornflake family’ myth that television presented as a social aspiration in the 1960’s? The clichéd happy family. Whilst the USA was busy consuming 25% of the world’s resources, the rest of the world was struggling to mimic the same mistake of non sustainable lifestyles.

picture credit: Resilience.org

A Swedish statistician, the late Hans Roslin described a process of increasing global wealth very lucidly in a TED lecture titled ‘Global Population Growth’ using IKEA boxes. He suggested a general rise in the standard of living even if that was merely a transition from flip flops to a bicycle and from bicycles to holidays abroad. Improved birth control and higher wages lead to smaller families, which stalls the global population rise at 9 or 10 billion, and it may then fall.

The argument is interesting but worryingly fails to take into account the ‘threat’ aspect in a ‘strength, weakness, opportunity, threat’ analysis. What is the point of building a brick house for you family is the sea level rises and floods the land? The threats to an improved global standard of living are so complex in quantity and quality that they can only be left to self adjust in a radical manner…meaning disaster.

China and India and other countries are set on ‘industrialisation’ at any cost and critics in the West are not in a strong moral position to criticise. Something has been attempted to build a cockpit in this out of control vehicle, namely the annual COP talks.

If governments bring about the promises they make at the ‘Conference of the Parties’ (COP) talks – to create a viable future for earth’s future inhabitants – so much the better, but this is by no means certain. The levers and pulleys needed for change on a global scale should have been pulled decades ago and, sadly, were not.

What you will not hear from COP is the conclusion that the economic concept of ever increasing ‘standards of living’ was always a myth because it was unsustainable on a global scale. No single planet can support infinite demand using a finite resources. The COP party conferences are, in my view, overseeing the end of the last supper of consumerism and comfort.

‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do.’

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Olympics in Flames

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”Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

Puck’s line to King Oberon Act 3 Midsummer Nights Dream William Shakespeare

This was going to be an essay titled ‘The Party is Over’ but then the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony 2024 stopped me. It was too extraordinary to ignore and in fact, contained the same messages. I wish the Olympics, the athletes and the people of France and the World come together in love at the conclusion of the Olympic 2024 as was surely the original intention of the games. I express no religious or political views other than universal love. If you do not have ten minutes please slide down to the final conclusion.

The gods on Mount Olympus would have watched the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony 2024 in Paris, with a conflation of amusement and horror.

Personally, I found it pedestrian, disjointed and more than at little weird, and I was not the only one. For a country renowned for its consummate sense of good taste, design, style, and pazzazz; what in Hell  happened?

I shall express views here which some will find far fetched, even disturbing. However, this sideways analysis might explain why standards fell so low.

Those who have read Dan Brown’s book or seen the film The de Vinci Code, will appreciate the power of symbols. The main character played by Tom Hanks, is an academic ‘symbolist’. He unravels symbols as a trail of clues that lead to the truth and this is what I believe was happening at this Olympic Ceremony.

So are there ‘clues’ in the ceremony and if so, what truth is being disclosed?

The Olympian gods used to look down on humanity and create situations. If you were a modern organisation, similarly determined to influence the thoughts and feelings of 29 million remote viewers around the world, this ceremony is the perfect vehicle. Being performed in the ‘city of lights’ was surely an invitation the Illuminati could not refuse?

The Illuminati picture credit: National Geographic

I recommend personal research to discover the motives and means of the Illuminati and other cabals, but their aims might be summarised as; ‘to achieve a Global Order through the removal of personal and national freedoms’.

So when you hear on the news that the fibre optic cables serving the high speed trains to the city of Paris have been sabotaged, you wonder why? Curiously, a week or so after the attack, the media are still describing this planned event as ‘vandalism’. No organisation has yet claimed responsibility. You might wonder what reporters are avoiding saying and who has told them not to say it. Was a planned and co-ordinated attack to created fear? Fear of death is the currency of cabals as we witnessed in the recent global pandemic where, again no originator has come forward or been found.

‘Let them hate us as long as they fear us.’ Caligula

Fibre optic cables carry vast quantities of information over long distances. They send light through gross matter. Cutting off this supply in the four cardinal directions was like cutting off light to the City of Lights; the city of the Sun King, Louis 14th. So similarly ‘cut off from the world’ was Louis, when he moved the Royal Court away from the Parisian minions to Versailles, where he could enjoy a privileged  hedonistic lifestyle.

The leaders of the secret societies were closely involved with and led the French Revolution. They would have introduced the ‘Phrygian Cap’ as headgear for the revolutionaries; a symbol of Mithras represented by the bull.

Close observers of the Olympic Opening Ceremony would have noticed the golden head of a bull next to the five Olympic rings at the flag raising ceremony. Should we conclude that Mithras and Revolution is alive and well in modern France?

picture credit : Israel 365

The Roman Empire nearly adopted the Mithraic religion as it was popular with it’s soldiers and Mithraic temples can be found under many churches. In myth the bull’s spine sprouts corn and the blood is the wine of animal life. Christianity was chosen as the preferred Roman religion but the similarity of this Mithraic myth to the Eucharist should not be overlooked.

Light is a common symbol of spirituality and Jesus was not the only one who proclaimed to be the ‘light of the world’.

‘How thou art fallen from Heaven, son of the morning’ Isaiah 14:12

There is an old Testament character named Lucifer who the Church Fathers decided to eclipse by conflating Satan and Lucifer and Ahriman as the same beings

But Lucifer, the ‘Light Bearer’, is important today as he represents an ‘imbalance’ of spirituality, a powerful overload of light. We should not consider spirituality as being only goodness, as it can be too weak or too powerful and when either occurs it produces bad things.

Lucifer was responsible for the loss of the ‘third eye’ represented as the ‘brow or Adjna Chakra’ in Yoga and a Cobra in Ancient Egypt. Without this sensibility humans descend into illusion and delusion. The figure of Marie Antoinette in red in the Ceremony, represents how humans have collectively ‘lost their heads’ or rational thought and are fixed in the bright red base chakra of animal and tribal desires.

Balanced spiritual energy is a good thing, but when it becomes imbalanced it is not. Gautama Buddha discovered this after living an indulgent life in royal splendour, then aestheticism. He found little of spiritual value in either. He became enlightened when he followed what he called ‘the middle way’, which is the philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism today.

In the ceremony, Venus was represented by Beyonce as a feminine spirit of light and beauty with an enchanting voice; as with the Sirens in the voyage of Odysseus. But it was a narcissistic delight in self reflection that audiences were presented with and not the Venusian sacred mirror of ‘self reflection’.

The decent from balanced spirituality into base narcissism is present around the world in social politics today, not least in France where the left and right wing extremists, with no thought of a ‘middle way’ compromise, have recently taken over the government of the country.

The political values of the French Revolution, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity or Death” were chapter headings in the ceremony as it appeared on television.

The above background information, is intended be some explanation of the following analysis of the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony 2024. Many have reacted to the ‘weirdness’ in the ceremony as something they could not relate to. The French people had given away their tax payers money and freedom of choice to those who created the ceremony; in other words they had given away their power.

You might ask who decided not to have an audience in the Olympic Stadium for this ceremony, as is traditionally the case. The loss in revenue from ticket sales was clearly a loss out weighed by whatever gain you must imagine. Instead of a climaxing parade of athletes before a cheering international audience, bookended by icons of national pride as in the Beijing and London Olympic Games opening ceremonies, there was nothing.

The world was given a ceremony mainly for the global television audience. The consequence was to separate people into individuals or small groups, such as those Parisians poised on balconies over looking the river. Bystanders had a partial view of the ‘ceremony’ unless they watched it on their phones. The revenue and energy created by sporting event stadiums was sacrificed on an unknown altar.

Performers were perched on buildings as individuals, groups of dancers, musicians, circus artists, singers and actors. Without the power of a telescopic lens and amplifiers, these figures were diminutive both visually and inaudible; a subtle expression of ‘disempowerment’ of the people; ‘divided we fall’.

Human performers made small by large buildings – foolish or just poor design?

Those who were clearly happy or at least good at pretending were the various circus and street performers along the route. They at least added enchantment to proceedings; especially the hired ‘global celebrities’. However these Venusian / Sirenesque qualities, come at a price to the observer as already described.

Only by being tied to the mast of his ship could Odysseus avoid a spiritual death on an island of enchantment and delusion. Is that our world today?

The ‘Minions’ or non-privilege populace, were depicted by cartoon characters who proceeded to sink their own submarine, much in the way humanity is today destroying it’s own space craft; planet earth; cheerless and disempowering messages for us all.

Humanity can not complain that it is has not been warned. The Book of Revelation in the New Testament gives warning of the apocalypse and one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse appeared in the Olympic Ceremony riding a metallic White Horse. Wikipedia informs us that;

In John’s revelation the first horseman rides a white horse, carries a bow, and is given a crown as a figure of, conquest perhaps invoking pestilence, or the Antichrist.

picture credit: Hindustan Times

‘Conquest’ we can understand as victory in war and ‘pestilence’ something like the recent pandemic. The arrival of an ‘Antichrist’ is not an anti-Jesus but inverted Christ consciousness; love thyself instead of love others.

Nuclear war has been threatened by politicians and humanity would be the lesser for the intense light of the nuclear explosion – matter into energy. Are we being prepared? Spiritual and or physical death was shown to us repeatedly in the ceremony using various symbols.

A river was chosen as the central location for the ceremony. Rivers are a symbol of the journey from life to death and the Ferryman on the River Styx is perhaps the best known. At the beginning of the ceremony, three children (innocents) follow the light bearer (a football star) underground, the place of Hades or the Underworld denoted by shelves lined with human skulls.

The innocents (you and I) are given the Olympic torch which they pass onto a hooded figure in a rowing boat who takes them back into the world of light or from death into life.

Spectacular laser lights on the bridges and stages announce spectacularly that Lucifer is present above ground.

The use of the bridges that cross the River Seine must have been an enormous disruption to the daily travel of Parisians so there must also have been an overwhelming case for deciding to allow this disruption and disempowerment of ordinary Parisians. What was the benefit?

Were we being invited to remember in the recent history of these bridges that one was the location for the death of Princess Diana? The Pont d’Alma ‘underworld’ road tunnel is capped today with the symbol the Illuminati, a flaming cauldron; which incidentally is a copy of that held aloft over New York by the Statue of Liberty.

The Sacrifice of Diana the Huntress

Another Royal death featured in the ceremony was that of Marie Antoinette. Actors appeared at the windows of the Conciergerie. This is a building which served the French Revolution by confining 2,370 prisoners, including Marie Antoinette, prior to horrific public execution by guillotine. The Ceremony could have chosen to avoid this macabre place in the interests of good taste, but instead chose to celebrate the horror.

If you are not convinced by these symbolic references, the next is so obvious that many Christian religious leaders have taken offence. They feel that the story of the Last Super in The Bible was mocked and their faith was being deliberately undermined. The long table on the bridge and the peculiar array of sexually ambiguous characters seated beside it employed frenzied cat walking and dance. The display, for many, was a celebration of sexual licence and depravity and even included children to whom Satanists are particularly attracted as a source of energy. The hermaphroditic characteristics of the figure on the left of Jesus in Leonardo de Vinci’s last supper is discussed in Dan Brown’s book referred to earlier and perhaps inspired the theme…is it Mary Magdelene?

To fulfil the imaginary prophecy of these orgiastic encounters, a near naked Dionysus appears wrapped in fruit on a plate as if about to be consumed by the depraved celebrants. Dionysian rites in Roman times were indeed not for the faint hearted. Was this parade endorsing such rites as an end to modern times?

Using the theme of ‘romance and love’ there were scenes in library where three sexually ambiguous young people made eyes at each other and then a rapid exit into a private room and purposefully closing the door. Families might wonder if a ‘ménage a trois’ is something to celebrate in an Olympic Opening Ceremony if is so, why?

In events such this ceremony, Satanists include symbolic messages for fellow Satanists around the world, in the way the newspaper advertisements once were used for covert communication. They will have been alerted to each message by a principle subversive technique, which is ‘reversal’ of the ordinary such when South Korean athletes were introduced as North Korea. Diplomatic telephones started to ring. An apology was demanded ‘for the next time you organise an Olympic ceremony’. Agreement was made but was ‘human error’ really involved?

The Universal Sign for Distress at Sea

The most glaring reversal was surely taking the audience out of the stadium for the ceremony. Disguised no doubt as ‘innovative conceptual thinking’ and ‘this is France’ – as President Macron explained- the losses appear to be greater than the overt gains. Why would you prefer funeral paced boats in the rain to the traditional carnival of athletes in previous ceremonies in the dry?

Light into darkness is a theme enjoyed by Satanists and the Olympic Ceremony would not have disappointed them. Whilst in a stadium the encroachment of night is gradually balanced out by artificial lighting, this effect is almost impossible to produce in a city. The clear ‘light of day’ passed into dark obscurity. One conceptual theme was actually called ‘obscurite’ meaning ‘darkness’.

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil,

Who put darkness for light, and light darkness,

And put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter,

Isaiah 5:20

A few days ago, You Tubers were posting Paris at night with large areas in black out. Electricity had been cut off. The only illuminated building was the Basilique Sacre Coeur in Montmartre. There has also been further ‘vandalism’ to fibre optic communication cables in other parts of the country.

In conclusion, if only half of these interpretations are close to the truth, I believe we are being given a warning of future problems, by those who are about to create them.

The stark warnings are;

People are being misled through their dependence on the internet and media.

Life will become more difficult because humanity is destroying the planet.

Humanity will have to become ‘Christ conscious’ (love thy neighbour) or there will be wars.

There will be a world government to achieve these aims.

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Snakes and Ladders

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The great game of life in which we are mere pawns, operates on many levels. Like fish in a deep ocean, they select a depth in which to live; many in the shallows, some midway and a few in the deep. Where fish live is principally determined by their nature. As humans however, we can choose how deep we go.

In past times many people would never leave the village in which they were born. Today, when travel to the extremes of the Earth is possible, there are still those who live their lives without exploring the world. The opportunity for exploration of the mind is also rarely taken, probably due to this same inertia.

In olden times board games were played such a dominoes, draughts and chess in order to pass the time and stimulate these inert minds! These brilliant teaching devices have sadly, over time, been relegated to the nursery. Presumably they are mistakenly thought to be so shallow that they are suitable only for children, (as if children are shallow!).

A good example where this has happened is the game called ‘Snakes and Ladders’ in England or ‘Chutes and Ladders ‘ in the U.S.A. It is thought to have originated in India some two thousand years ago where the game was called Moksha Patam meaning ‘path to enlightenment’ and Gyan Chauper. The player journeys up the board until reaching the final square which symbolises enlightenment.

The Muslim version was used in the Mughal period in the late 17th and early 18 th centuries. The board is divided into one hundred squares (10×10) representing the one hundred names of Allah.

‘Snakes and Ladders’ was renamed and brought back to England by the British at the end of the Raj around 1890. This Victorian version ditched the ‘enlightenment’ element and seized upon the ‘high moral virtues and low moral vices’ depicted and the consequences of both; virtue rewarded and vice punished! Interestingly, the English phrase ‘back the square one’, probably derived from this game.

The Victorian interpretation of the game persists but for the natural philosopher one may find deeper meanings and interpretations. For instance, the players move step by step or square by square in a monotonous way. The sobering expression, ‘a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’ contains this truth.

We can see that the first step on the ladder is the same as the last. Like a marathon runner who collapses at the finish line, the journey has been a seemingly endless repetition steps, like the words of a mantra repeated ad infinitum. Enlightenment does not happen in flash as many imagine.

There are few ‘easy rides’ in life where one is gifted beyond one’s wildest dreams the game does present a few, much to the joy of players! Ladders, which literally express the ‘step by step’ principle, boost pilgrims up to higher squares as a gift, something which we know does happen occasionally in real life, which is called luck.

In the ancient version of the game there are fewer ladders than the snakes. Life in those times was believed to contain more misfortune than good. In modern times the reverse has probably become true although that can change!

Let us think about ladders a moment. Today we might understand them fractals.

picture credit: Complex Fractal by Bukoslav on Deviant Art

It is possible to keep connecting ladders, each new ladder being like a new rung in a higher scale. The sliding combinations of ladders on Fire Engines illustrate how greater heights can be achieved in this way. Ladders have a mysterious quality of being ‘infinite’; disappearing into the clouds like the pantomime ‘Bean Stalk’ which sprouts upwards as a magical fractal. The clouds into which the ladders reach, are commonly depicted as where the ‘giant’ gods live; such a ‘god’ corresponding to the mathematical notion of the infinite expanding for ever beyond the highest number.

Grace from heaven, the ‘golden buzzer of enlightenment’, showers upon life’s winners when they reach the one hundredth square first.

You might expect modern scientific understanding to cancel any insight beyond the moral platitudes, but I would suggest science too embraces the quality of ‘ladders’ in a microscopic dimension.

Imagine you are looking down a microscope at a string of DNA in a human cell. We know that it appears like a double spiral ladder with magical rungs that contain infinite quantities of information. These genes stay alive for thousands of years and can be retrieved from an ancient human tooth for instance.

Take this image of a spiralling formation and magnify it many hundreds of times and it will produce an identical image of our solar system spiralling through space and time.

The cycles of the sun and it’s planets also contain information by which astrologers have always been able to predict the future. Solar systems describe this pattern for billions of years, just as DNA lasts well beyond a humble human life span.

Curiously, and perhaps by coincidence rather than connection, modern geneticists describe the existence of ‘junk’ DNA in humans. It is about 97% of all of a our DNA and suggests a large area of knowledge yet to be discovered – possibly not ‘junk’ at all! In parallel and at another rung on the reproduction of infinite expansions, there is an estimated 94% of dark matter in the Universe which is also beyond current understanding.

So much for ladders; let us now consider the ‘slippery snakes’. People with a phobia of snakes often describe them as being ‘slimy’ perhaps because of the way they slide on their bellies. In actual fact snakes are smooth and dry to the touch. The common phobia towards snakes and reptiles probably accounts for why the ‘wicked tempter’ in Genesis, is depicted as a snake. Humans fell from Divine favour and were burdened with freewill, an aspect of the snakes and ladders game that makes it so exciting.

Just as ‘evil’ angels fell from Heaven, so the snakes on the board game take players down the path they so diligently ascended. There are no ‘thank Heaven holds’ that climbers grip onto when in trouble; it’s just ‘go to jail and do not pass Go.’ We have all probably experienced that feeling at some point in our lives. It is wise to introduced children early to this feeling so they recognise it when it hits them in later life!

Here’s a thought. Did the ancients in India know about digital and analogue information? If the ladder is a digital 101010101, then the snake is a complementary analogue wave. We know today that light has this contradictory quality of a particle and wave, and it is extraordinary that the ladders and snakes mirrored this long before modern science.

Life gives us no choice but teaches us that experiencing of ladders and snakes on our ascent are inevitable. If we think deeper than the moral Victorian versions of the game, then there are extraordinary truths. In a spiralling universe, of which our own bodies are microcosms, we can see that opposites unite each other;

we are both light and dark

we are both knowledge and forgetting

we are both climbing and falling

we are both Heaven and Hell

This understanding appears in the ancient Hermetic laws of Hermes Trismegitus. One of these is ‘Polarity’ and the dual and complimentary nature of opposites.

“Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.” —The Kybalion .

This is clearly depicted in the caduceus staff of the Roman god Mercury as a double helix of snakes coiling around a staff towards a pine cone representing the pineal gland in the brain. Today this symbol remains one associated with physical health and well being and appears on ambulances in many countries.

In Hatha Yoga, the counter spiralling Ida and Pingala Nadis wind up and down around the spine like snakes and enable the Kundalini energy to rise and activate the pineal gland; thereby entering the heavenly domain depicted originally, above the snakes and ladders board.

If Moksha Patam and other ancient games continue to be appreciated as shallow past times, then in my view, we will all be ‘back to square one’ quicker than you can slide down a snake!

It is comforting that there are increasing numbers of people who are willing to dive deeper into the games and the stories of the nursery in order to find the hidden treasures from ancient times.

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The Zen of Tennis

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Some of the best humour occurs in very formal situations in which laughter is forbidden. The exploits of the character of Mr. Bean played by Rowan Atkinson often use this device to create impossibly funny situations. It is like steam in a kettle desperate to burst forth but has to be strictly repressed. When there is a release and realisation moment caused by not using the thoughts which we consider ‘logical’.

Humour is a great tool to ‘lighten up’ human beings. Laughter can lift the burden of everyday life bringing a moment of mental and physical ‘enlightenment’. Such a release and realisation is called satori in the Zen Buddhism; a moment of profound personal realisation.

Stressful situations or periods of life can become overwhelming and confusing. Life brings problems; either seen or unseen, controllable or uncontrollable. It is sometimes hard to understand what troubles us and how to overcome it. One of the functions of ‘sport’, I would argue, is to present a simplified version of life on a ‘level playing field’ and scaled down. Then as a team or individual, the game is to obey a string of simple rules. Then we can demonstrate our personal skills to ourselves and others, and the winner is ‘successful’. A cynic would argue that sport is popular because it removes much of the complexity of the ordinary and promises rewards for very little effort by those who stand on the side lines. The players on the other hand are those most in line to gain benefit from the game.

In an attempt to examine this process in sport, I shall use tennis as an example. Professional players at Wimbledon this July will have to obey these rules;

The male or female players will wear all white clothing. They are permitted to rest between games and take light refreshments. They do not speak to their opponent and there are penalties for taking too long to serve and take rests. The rules of tennis are understood and adjudicated by an umpire whose decision is final.

The audience will sit around the court on tiered seats and must remain quiet and motionless during play; with mobile phones turned off.

So the stage is set and play commences. Professional players have achieved exceptionally high levels of skill but are prone to unforced errors which immediately earn opponents a point.

Like most physical games, there is an equal element of the psychology. Players remain ‘poker faced’ throughout the game. If they let emotion take over such as frustration, their mental detachment can be affected causing errors. To remain focused, players sit between games with eyes closed in meditation ignoring unwanted thoughts and distractions.

Players and audience will experience unexpected and unlikely events during play. The most extraordinary is called a ‘fluke’. An example is when a ball hits the top of the net and just falls over in a way that is impossible for the opponent to intercept and loses the point. What philosophers call ‘chance’ has played it’s hand. In Zen Buddhism this is called a ‘controlled accident’. Both skill and chance have combined so perfectly that the unexpected takes place. Or it might be that a bird lands on the court or the ball shoots off into the audience and is caught spontaneously by an alert tennis fan. The effect is one of surprise, as in a joke. The audience had no expectation of what was about to happen and generally, enjoy a moment of delight.

However skilled the player, sometimes chance can take over their state of mind either amplifying mistakes or skill. Suddenly, it is as if one player can do nothing right and the other nothing wrong. Despite the skill of the players, a players state of mind has broken through and taken control.

This state of mind could be described as a state of ‘constant readiness’. The mind and body have been prepared by constant repetition and the perfect moment. In that condition a tennis player becomes like a spring ready to uncoil. Sometimes a player will pick up the ball just before it bounces twice and flick it back with an impossibly clever placement in the opponent’s court. Or there is a high volley delivered by the player high above the head when facing away from the net. It’s rare and highly difficult to achieve and win the point but when it happens even the player making the shot should be surprised and inspired by what their mind / body has just done.

The match, like many individual sports, is like two Samurai performing sword play at an impossible speed and understanding of the unique moment.

One of the skills to be learned in the game of life is spontaneity. Through the application of skill unconsciously – that is without intention – a player can surpass their normal level of play and become quite brilliant.

In the book Zen and the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel, the archer must release the arrow without any intention to do so. This ‘unconscious’ technique can become so precise that the arrow can hit a bullseye even with the archers eyes closed. The event is made perfect by not having a response to it in the ego but letting it pass by without reflection; because reflection is not any part of what has just happened and spoils it.

If we let it, our own lives can become spontaneous and unscripted. Even within the many demands on our time, there will be moments – however rare – when we hit a bullseye. It’s a combination of doing the right thing at the right time, perfectly.

In modern life, holidays are intended to have this quality of ‘freedom’ but by definition, spontaneity cannot be planned. Sometimes the intended release from normal life can be spoilt by the literal and psychological baggage that we drag along with us.

I was in an airport a few months ago and jumped into a lift occupied by a young lady. She had with her three of the largest suitcases I have ever seen. I smiled and joked, ‘did you leave anything behind?’ She smiled back. People don’t normally speak to each other in lifts; I broke a rule and created a moment during a journey that was otherwise unmemorable.

Sometimes this gentle humour from those around us will prompt an insight into one’s true nature. It may take several experiences with the same message but eventually, there can be insight.

Ironically, it is children who enjoy the greatest moments of satori and it is that freedom of thought and action that brings so much admiration and delight to adults.

When I was in primary school, our teacher had left her class and a rain storm suddenly broke out. Without a thought the whole class ran out into the rain and danced ecstatically; free from the rules of ‘school’. It was a pure collective satori moment.

This story also expresses a special quality of Zen. This is the realisation of how the most ‘ordinary’ events, can provide the most sublime experiences in life.

A Zen monk was once asked, ‘what is Zen?’ He replied, ‘When I eat I eat, when I sleep, I sleep.’ The questioner was not satisfied with this answer and argued that we all do this. It is normal. The monk replied that when most people eat they are thinking of some other thing and when they sleep they are dreaming.

Zen pupils are introduced to this idea through such formal teaching methods as the Tea Ceremony. Each action and object involved in the ritual is a crucible for realising those things that do not fit into the ‘normal’ and ‘expected’ and ‘overlooked’ or ‘unconscious’ within the routine. It might be a fly entering the room or a lizard falling from the ceiling or a crack in the lid of the tea pot. If you are late for the ceremony and find yourself standing nervously outside, the teacher will judge you on how the moment you choose to enter. That moment will ideally not interrupt the ritual – especially because the choice was spontaneous. The right choice might prompt inner delight, the wrong choice, later admonition.

So the hum drum experience of sport and indeed life, in which moments of deep personal insight occur uniquely, is made richer by the spontaneous and non-reflected moments. Ironically, the more formal, the more repetitive and hum drum the situations we experience are, the more likely the satori moment will just happen.

Just watch and be amazed.

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Not My Body

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It’s a Buddhist thing; when you realise that you are not your body. The proof is that if you were unlucky enough to loose a leg, you remain the same conscious individual; complete. Many people are permanently identified with the meat and bones which they were given to complete a life time. This illusion contributes to a general fear death in the population. But from a spiritual perspective, death is completely safe! For the more spiritually aware, death is merely our energetic body leaving the physical body.

Some of the best evidence for the reality of our non-physical higher Self or Soul, comes from those who have died and come back. These ‘near death experiences’ describe the early stages of the transition we call ‘death’. If we accept this, then it becomes easier to allow the possibility that our soul will enter another body for another life on Earth.

For the Soul, the cast off body feels like a well loved overcoat that is left on a train. But in fact the Soul is more at ease without a body; feeling bliss. Those who describe their near death experience felt reluctant to return, but they were guided to complete what they need to do here.

The Holographic Universe

At a even more subtle level, this world can be experienced as a rough representation of a more sublime parallel dimension, because it is digital hologram. As far fetched as this may sound, contemporary physicists are presenting evidence supporting this theory and Michael Talbot explores it in his book ‘The Holographic Universe’. This dimension is what in the Bible is called Heaven and you would therefore expect there also to be it’s opposite. According to David Icke, there is indeed a malign parallel dimension which has broken the law of non-interference by influencing a Cabal of human institutions with the aim of world domination. In order to know what this Hell would be like it is similar to the film ‘Hunger Games’ and parts of this movie have already started in Gaza and Southern Sudan.

The process of our body growing old also prompts serious reflection on what we really are. Most elders ‘feel’ they are a much younger age than their body. From this we might deduct that the natural process of physical ageing does not affect our Soul. Indeed, if we are open to the idea of life , then we might after death we might give credence to the idea that we leave our bodies every night when we sleep. It is the body that needs to regenerate at night, not the Soul. These experiences outside our bodies we can recall as dreams. The Soul has the wonderful ability to go anywhere, as demonstrated by Saints and Prophets throughout history.

To move from this sublime thought to the modern western world, there is a debate about gender which cast some light on the subject of souls and bodies. Some souls feel to the opposite gender to their body, which might be a memory of a previous life where we might have have a body of the opposite gender. A crude solution is ‘gender reassignment’; physical surgery and chemical manipulation. But just because this is possible it does no mean it is wise, in my view. Psychological and spiritual understanding is more important than appearances and gender roles in society. As is said, ‘know yourself’. In Jungian psychology all men contain a female persona and the reverse in women. Our relationship with our opposite gender characteristics within ourselves will produce inner peace for the Soul, rather than the personal and social conflicts which identification with the body creates.

The body is after all, never a problem in itself. The more honest we can be about our bodies, then the sooner we can be less concerned with self image. In Naturism, men and women walk around naked and enjoy the principles of equality, fraternity and liberty. Problems created by the ‘deadly sin’ of lust are not involved as nudity is not sexual in many contexts. Those who cannot control their lust are likely to be trapped in their bodies and are in a Hell – the other state of consciousness to the Garden of Eden. The terrorist group ISIS as an example of souls in Hell, destroyed ancient statues of the human body in the name of religion, whilst importing devout Muslim ‘brides’ and abusing them mercilessly as sex slaves.

The feelings of ‘shame’ in nakedness that Adam and Eve felt are not natural but are produced by controlling social and religious rules and dogma. These treat every person to be no better than the least. Therefore, everyone is treated as being unable to control their lusts. Islam embraced the rule of tolerance and understanding towards sex and gender equality long before modern liberal societies understood the benefits of this ideal.

The Holy Quran insists on ‘modesty’ in dress. There are no specific ‘dress rules’ so different cultures have decided what is ‘modest’. If modesty is understood to mean ‘covering up’, this has to mean covering the whole body. But where to stop ‘covering up’ is a missing detail in this guidance. Why do men not wear face veils for instance? From a moral perspective, the whole issue of modesty is irrelevant if men and women were to control their lust as is their higher spiritual duty. Surely dress codes serve society best when they express the Divine beauty within and without? The human body was, after all, designed by Allah.

The beauty of the Greek gods wonderfully expresses the human body without shame and self consciousness. These gods are powerful symbols of the complete human condition. The ancient Greek myths and legends describe at a psychological level, how to master one’s Self within a single lifetime.

In a different interpretation, the word ‘modest’ may also or instead, be forbidding displays of high self opinion and excess wealth. Such an interpretation would hit hard in many wealthy Arab countries!

These ideals remind us that we should not be distracted by this physical world because it does not last; only our Souls exist perpetually. Vanity, whatever one’s social rank, is always transient, as in the last lines of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’;

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings!

Look on my works ye mighty and despair,

Nothing besides remains. Round the decay,

of that colossal wreck, round and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Compared with the fruitless pre-occupations of the Guidance Patrol in modern Iran, inner cleansing and self improvement is the most noble spiritual objective, involving no judgment by or about others.

One of the principle Hermetic laws is that every aspect of creation is male or female. The Alchemists depicted the duality of the Sun and Moon as expressing this. The Sun is the radiant expanding male principle, known as Yang in Eastern philosophy. The presence of the sun gives rise to the reflecting moon, or Yin, which expresses the complimentary feminine characteristic of absorbing, contracting and most importantly, reflecting.

This ability of reflection is what distinguishes humans as unique. Although all of nature is ‘aware’ in various ways and differing degrees, only humans are able to properly ‘reflect’ internally. We can remove ourselves from what we observe. We can be independent observers whilst participating. This ability inspired the scientific method. Through this extraordinary ability we reflect the same characteristic as God or Mind who is after all the ‘Great Observer’.

Without the physical world God cannot know itself. Every galaxy, every human and every atom contains this ‘awareness’ and can create and destroy in the same manner as God or Mind which is knowing itself through human experience in the physical dimension. In this view, matter becomes a difficulty but necessary means to experience of the Divine.

From this stand point we might appreciate that what we call ‘my body’ is no more than aeons of star dust, condensed into biology and energised by Mind. This Divine unity enables an experience which we call ‘life’ although at no point can we ever truly put our finger on it and never will.

Ozymandias

‘The lone and level sands stretch far away.’