The Bill

01/04/202102/04/2021 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

There is presently being considered in the UK parliament a ‘Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill’. It is wide ranging in it’s intended effects. So much so that citizens are worried and they are asking questions are;

Are these new legal powers necessary and if so are stricter legal powers the best way to achieve the intended result?

In other words, is shooting the cockerel the best way to have a lie-in?

It is coincidental that the timing of these proposals coincided with a public vigil for a murdered woman, Sarah Everard. Sarah was tragically murdered, allegedly by an off duty police officer, whilst walking home.

The vigil was held in Clapham Common in South London. Unfortunately there were ugly violent scenes when police enforced the Covid regulations, which ban such public events. The confrontation had been foreseen. Prior to the vigil, an organisation called ‘Reclaim These Streets’ approached the police and then the High Court. The High Court told the organisers to sort it out with the police.

The question has to be asked, how ‘negotiations’ failed to find a solution that eliminated the risk of confrontation and violence.

picture credit: thedailymail
comment: how the media encourage dualistic thinking

People with an iota of problem solving sense and mediation skills, will know that if you set up two sides with conflicting agendas, they will always disagree with each other.

The BBC News webpage comments; For almost a year, the ambiguities and omissions within the coronavirus restrictions have left both the police and the public grasping for answers as to what is possible in public. It’s so complex we’ve even seen people fined for walking while holding a cup of tea.

The Covid ‘regulations’ are already a cause for antagonism between the public and the police. The police are having a hard time maintaining public confidence in their impartiality and fairness. The Police are currently lumbered with issuing Enforcement Notices, fines of £200, under the Covid Regulations.

Personally, I can see good reason to remove the police from the enforcement of Covid rules.

Police are principally responsible to protect the public from those breaking criminal law. They stopped being responsible for lost dogs and parking on double yellow lines long ago, so why are they involved with Covid rules?

One possible solution would be to create a new temporary role of ‘Covid Enforcement Officers’. This process of specialist enforcement officers has already been successfully with non-criminal offences, such as parking fines. Police used to issue parking fines decades ago. Then Traffic Wardens were created for this purpose and currently used ‘Parking Enforcement Officers’ have the role.

The Home Office might be able to recruit volunteers to enforce Covid Rules, given the large number of community spirited citizens who have already put their names forward for public service during the emergency. Alternatively, or as well as, the Home Office could pay CEO’s in the full time role. Alternatively or in addition, the Home Office might use the services of those currently paid to ‘furlough’ at home. This at least would be a better use of tax payers money. The role might also be given to a strictly selected portion of those ‘homeless’ and living in hotels at public expense and even released prisoners. Both groups who might well rise to the being awarded public trust and benefit for the rest of their lives for some experience of employment. My point is that there are many avenues to explore before dismissing the role of CEO.

Let us next examine the subject of public protests during the Covid state of emergency. It cannot be denied that where there is a public protest planned over an issue of current high public interest, there is good reason for respecting public feelings. If the government restricts the human right of protest it runs the risk of appearing draconian. When the government and rule of law is perceived by citizens to lose the high moral ground, ‘policing by consent’ becomes difficult to impossible. We see this in Hong Kong and Myanmar at the moment where protest has effectively been made illegal.

The problem for the British government that the vigil in Clapham Common posed, was for a potential ‘mass Covid spreading event’ to take place. This was the fear and Police had a duty to prevent such an outcome. They would be sure to be blamed for not using their powers should there be a subsequent localised outbreak of Covid infection.

The problem solving method used was for both sides to line up against each other like in a medieval battle. Even the High Court ran from this confrontation. All were victims in my view of the process of dualistic thinking or ‘either or’ solutions.

The way I would look at this problem is that it is not only a ‘police’ responsibility. In most problem solving processes, problems will be found to be widely shared. Who might the other stake holders be?

Just of the cuff I would suggest that the problem was owned by the organisers, those attending, the Park Authorities and the by-laws, the National Health Service (local hospitals), Human Rights organisations, the Courts, scientists of the health and social variety, the local MP and London Mayor’s Office, Legislators and the Home Secretary.

The only intervention the government could conceive was a new law, because that is what governments do; a classic case of ‘digging the hole deeper’. This is how they intend to make the present police powers more stringent;

The Bill being proposed wishes to prevent public protest that creates “serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community”.

The lack of any nuance to this ‘nail – hammer’ thinking was, in my opinion, is woeful. If the complexities of solving a problem are embraced, then solutions are abundant.

For instance in the case of this public vigil by, say one thousand people, it can be be managed to achieve the clearly set out objective…to let people have their moment of remembering peacefully and without disproporthionate harm to themselves or others. After all, if strangers mix inside a supermarkets without creating mass Covid spreading events each day, then a single outdoor event is considerably less risky. Experience of public gatherings outdoors, including when not socially distanced, has shown that mass Covid events do not take place afterwards. This was shown to be the case at recent public protests in the USA such as the Black Lives Matter marches or the infamous storming of Capitol Hill.

Aside from the spread of infection it is hard to see why any peaceful outdoor protest should culminate in;

“serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community” if managed properly.

There are clear Covid rules of social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing and the attendees would willingly follow such rules as they Sainsbury’s where public disorder is not considered an imminent threat.

A vigil by definition, is a passive affair where people sit or stand with candles and placards to express their feelings of solidarity, sadness and, in this case, discontent that a young woman’s public murder makes many women feel unsafe.

Imagine how a Problem Solving / Protest Management Meeting that I am envisaging, might have taken place. There would be numerous attendees with multiple points of view but with a overlapping and shared desired outcomes. The aim of the meeting will be to express and examine all views in a spirit of co-operation to solve a shared problem. The fruit of such meetings is that solutions can be just as impactive as force, but in a subtle and almost invisible way.

So if you were the Superintendent of Parks, would you not be a good person to involve in how to make this peaceful event as safe as possible whilst supporting the Human Right to protest? You could provide detail maps of the park showing entrances and exits, toilet facilities, how previous public events had been managed, first aid and other emergency considerations (normal for large gatherings), catering etc. etc. in as much detail as you need and that’s just the Park Keeper.

The Fire Service say they could provide sand bags for people to sit on at the required distances…good idea…and safe bins to dispose of used candles. The local press and police might hire a drone to take photographs from above. The police use it to monitor events and the press get some great photograhps. Those attending are told that by staying on their sandbags they images will be spectacular visually, whilst respecting privacy and not spying on indiviuals. Instead of a grid, an local artist might design a shape for the sandbags and candle holders, like a flower of rememberance. You get the idea. It’s soft management designed to delight not draw battle lines.

The Covid Enforcement Officers might have produced some posters which will be clearly displayed at the entrances to the Vigil Arena, reminding attendees of the Covid safety rules and the fines for infringement.

I could list the inputs of each party but you get the picture. Towards the end of the meeting the person representing the local police, shares that there is intelligence that the an anarchist organisation are planning to attend. There is a history of them creating public disorder and damage to property. A few mug shots are shared.

Are These People Mourners or Political Activits?

The Police therefore commit to having 200 riot trained officers on hand but out of view, in case of “serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community”. They confirm that there are existing laws under the Public Order Act, Criminal Damage Act and Breach of the Peace to make arrests and allow the vigil to continue peacefully.

Dame Cressida Dick, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, is at the meeting and says that she intends to take part in the Vigil. Everyone applauds. Apparently, several other celebrities and leaders of Human Rights and Women Safety organisations are also going to take part. There is decided to be a VIP area next to the area designated for the Press.

In this hypothetical scenario the event takes place and the Anarchist ‘rent-a-mob’ do make an appearance. They are ‘kettled’ away from the vigil into an area that the Park Superintendent recommended which is surrounded on three sides by high fences. Flood lights had been secretly positioned their and their switching on allows for CCTV surveillance to begin and the press to get some good pictures. The police keep them there until the vigil has ended and the park is clear. Two anarchists are arrested are, both for previous offences using outstanding warrants.

My conclusion is that any public protest with warranted public interest and sympathy, should be allowed to take place under Covid regulations, and the Regulations should be amended to permit this. It is for the committee of interested parties to decide what level of public interest and support exists, not the courts or the police.

In summary, when the only parties involved are cast as protagonist and enforcer, the result will tend towards the violent scenes sadly witnessed on Clapham Common. Giving the enforcers more powers to enforce is no solution, and leads to the very thing purported to avoid, that is;

“serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community”.

So in answer to the question at the top of this essay which was;

Are these new legal powers necessary and if so are they the best way to achieve the intended result?

…my answer is no. The existing laws were sufficient for the nine arrests made at this vigil. Next time, organisers should seek the help of the ‘partnership approach’ to public protest event planning. Use it or ignore it at your peril.

Whose’s Afraid of the Big Bad Conspiracy?

01/03/2021 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

The Gunpowder Plot was possibly conceived and attempted by a group of provincial Catholics in England against King James I. They met secretly to plan an execution of the protestant King by blowing up the House of Lords. The plot was thrawted on the 5^th November 1605.

The Cambridge English Disctionary defines a ‘plot’ as;

‘a secret plan made by several people to do something that is wrong, harmful, or not legal‘

We might then define a plot as; ‘a plan with evil intent’. But in the 1960’s a new word was used to define a plot; ‘conspiracy’.

The Cambridge English Dictionary now defines ‘conspiracy’ as;

‘the activity of secretlyplanning with other people to do something bad or illegal: ‘

The difference between a plot and a conspiracy is not clear from these simple definitions.

Please bear with the writer for one final definition as this essay is building up to something which affects us all. What is meant by the term ‘conspiracy theory’ and should we dismiss such theories as ‘conspiracies’?

The Cambridge English Dictionary definition of a theory is;

‘a formal statement of the rules on which a subject of study is based or of ideas that are suggested to explain a fact or e7*-89vent or, more generally, an opinion or explanation: ‘

A conspiracy theory is therefore not a description of truth, although some may take it to be so. It is a ‘suggestion’ which is being applied to explain facts. This may be in a way previously discounted as new facts emerge or are reinterpreted.

Conspiracy theorists are easy prey for derision because of this confusion between a theoretical and and accurate description of an event. Wikipedia describes this well;

‘The term (conspiracy theory) has a negative connotation, implying that the appeal to a conspiracy is based on prejudice or insufficient evidence.’

The notion of a conspiracy theory has itself become the subject of biased logic, when it is derided out of hand without a fair hearing. An example might be it’s use as a term of derision by the United States CIA. They used and perhaps coined it, to discredit disbelievers in the findings of the Warren Commision. This was set up to investigate the assasination of President Robert Kennedy.

The use of the term as an emotional form of ‘mud slinging’ by those convinced to be on the side of rational argument, shows how the accusers can sometimes be as misguided as those they accuse of bias.

When bad things happen, such as a plane crash, there is often ambiguity due to the absence of information from a thorough investigation. Theorists have to match a set of facts with a most likely explanation of what happened.

During the sequential investigation process, various theories will adapt to facts. Eventually investigators will propose a theory that fits the facts more closely than previous theories.

Scientists produce theories which are reviewed by their peers and proven beyond doubt before being adopted as a scientific ‘law’. Einstien’s Special Theory of Relativity is a good example of a theory that could not be proven in his time. Einstien used mathematics to determine the proof of his theories but because the technology of the era was not able to test the theory by experiment, it was long after his death before his theories were proven.

Is it fair that conspiracy theories are given a reputation for being innacurate merely for being supposed to be conspiracy theories. The use of the term as derision is in itself troubling because logically, there is only ever one correct interpretation of events and a so called ‘conspiracy theory’ may be that one. Just as aircrash investigators reach a logical explanation of events so may conspiracy theories, eventually be revealed as true.

The State, or organisation within a State, which attempts to deny events that the theorists are getting right, puts loses trust.

Conspiracy Theories gain considerable credence by focusing on events for which there is no evidence to disprove the theory. For instance, you might suggest that Aliens are already on the planet Earth and have been for a very long time. The subject is so ‘taboo’ in modern societies that governments conspicuously share very little of what they know. Rationalisations are made to ‘explain away’ what witnesses have observed as being something else. For instance a moving light in the sky is explained to be a ‘weather baloon’. If the serving press officer admits on You Tube decades later that this was what he was told to say rather than the truth about a real crashed Alien craft, who are the public to believe?

We live in a time when information is being smoke screened as ‘fake’. We do not know what to believe. It used to be that books and newspapers, that is the written word, were trusted to report the truth. Authors and journalists would lose their reputations and careers if they printed as facts, something which was not from mulitiple, trusted sources. Since the rise of the internet and the general ease of access to all kinds of ‘information’, it is hard to determine between the real, the fake and the absurd.

This phenomenon has been compounded by a growing public distrust in ‘experts’. This is despite the fact that the training and experience of experts means they are right most of the time. After a small amount of research, it is possible to believe you have discovered a truth. What is commonly discovered is that after a large amount of research, you begin to doubt.

Conspiracy theories suffer from this ‘instant expert’ phenomenon and exploit the doubt of reasonably minded people. Complex events, such as the events of 9/11, require observers to be air traffic controllers, communication experts, pilots, air force strategists, architects, engineers, demolition experts, emergency reponse planners and practioners, intelligence officers, politicians, journalists and investigators. There are certainly more areas of experties than these but the point is that investigating the event and it’s motives are highly complex and require meticulously unravelling. Complexity can itself become a smokescreen to baffle the casual observer.

Even simple questions such as, ‘how could two aircraft be used to bring down three buildings?’ are ignored. When there is a pronounced silence from people who should and might know, or worse they start disappearing, citizens should become suspicious.

Fortunately the so called ‘free world’ is open to scrutiny at many levels and Freedom of Information Acts in countries like the USA and UK testify to this. However when clauses are written into these Acts that prevent the release of information publicly for ‘reasons of national security’ there is a window for suspicion to open.

The whole story around ‘Wikileaks’ is a testament to how there will always be room for alternative intepretations of facts or what is termed, ‘my version of the facts’.

If your government derides conspiratorial theories just for being ‘conspiracies’, ask yourself the question, who is hiding what? Perhaps by hiding the truth harm is being caused to citizens of that country? If your government acts in secret and causes harm to it’s populations by an act or ommission or failure to be timely in either or both, is that a plan, plot or a conspiracy?

For instance:why is the Gunpowder Plot so called? Gunpowder is inanimate and does not plot. Surely this was a conspiracy planned by the Spanish Catholic monarchy against the Protestant English monarchy? Or are we not meant to say that?

Is There Anybody There?

14/02/2021 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / 1 Comment

A ghost walks into a bar and asks, ‘do you serve spirits?’

Humans have currently been obliged to believe in invisible beings, viruses. We believe that the Corona virus is everywhere as if it were a spirit. The only difference is that with a microscope you can see viruses and know that they exist.

The similarity of this belief to the ancient understanding of the spirit world is uncanny. Modern science has not been able to prove ‘spirits’ exist, therefore we are encouraged to believe that they do not. But logically, not being able to prove something exists, does not prove it does not exist. Perhaps the observer has the wrong sensing equipment or it is not sensitive enough, or too sensitive?

If we take a more rational approach, based on the acceptance that what the ancients believed, may still be true today, we can explore the existence of spirits further.

A friend of mine found himself, many years ago, in a monastery in Tibet. He casually opened a cupboard and was shocked to be staring at a human skull. He closed the door hurriedly and moved on. He returned the next day but the skull had been removed. Had he been seen by a spirit in the skull? The Sumerians of 3250 B.C kept a spirit in their homes, tempted there to occupy a statue, figurine or sometimes – a human skull.

I recently watched the ‘Magic Flute’ by the Master Mozart. The music is wonderful but my principle interest is the story. The first scene in Act One shows three witches destroying a serpent that has captured the hero, Tarantino. The opera sends him through an initiation process from darkness into light. He is able, when necessary, to annul the influences of evil spirits by playing a magic flute.

My own interpretation of the flute is that it symbolises the energy centres of the human body known as seven chakras. The flute plays a seven note scale by vibration of a column of sound and is similar to the hollow human spine in it’s construction.

Such control of energy within the human chakras affects our moods, feelings, physicality and state of mind. When mastered the adept in Tantric Yoga completes the journey from darkness into light.

Tarantino’s companion is a humble bird catcher. He represents the ‘ordinary’ man who goes through live mechanically. He fails the initiation tests preferring wine, women and bird song.

Let us move on to consider spirits outside of the story book, real live spirits. They love to do human things and are generally envious of the joys humans have from living in a physical world. The ancient Greek gods appeal to us because they behave as badly as humans. Lepricorns and other nature spirits adore dancing in rings in the moonlight to fairy fiddles. They look into our dimension with envy for they too enjoy nothing more than ‘wine women and song’.

Just as the ordinary human is enslaved by the five senses, so are spirits enslaved to us. The Genii in the story of Aladdin is in service, not a master. But secretly they long to occupy our living bodies for the same reason that God created the physical world – experience of physicality.

Sometimes they do – when someone is intoxicated for instance; which is the esoteric reason for alcohol being forbidden to Muslims. An intoxicated person often changes character quite noticeably and their bodies have super human strength, causing the North American Natives to name alcohol ‘fire water’.

Carl Jung concluded at the end of his life, that psychological complexes were outside of the human mind. When someone is ‘not themselves’ we should take this quite literally. Many Shamanistic rituals such as Voodoo, concern the removal of malign spirits or the placement of unwanted spirits for malign effects. Even modern Christianity has continued belief in the efficacy of exorcism and certain sensitive priests are trained in it’s practice. If it did not work, surely it would not have continued into the present day.

When a spirit is invited into a body as a Faustian ‘pact with the Devil’, the human party assumes magical powers. They may use these powers for entertainment as a magician or more worryingly, to gain political power. Should we accept the extraordinary rise of Adolf Hitler in 1930’s Germany as at least in part, being due to his thirst for occult powers? Why else did he send expeditions into Tibet and Antarctica, if it was not to gain occult power?

You might wish to believe that the modern psychiatric view that external beings are manifestation of our own minds. A vision of an etheric being by a single observer may occur when there is a conflation of the inner and outer worlds in that persons perception.

‘That way madness lies’

To which my reply is both yes and no. Yes, because all of our perceptions are no more than stimulus, decoded by bodily senses, into electrical pulses which are streamed into the brain. They are no more real than the images on our television sets are real. No, because the Universe is so large that there must be consciousness outside of human minds.

Part of the vanity of humans is the conscious or unconscious belief that we are alone. If we have never seen a spirit then it does not exist, is the false logic. It is false because there are many things we do not see that we use everyday. Our eyes only perceive a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. We use infra-red ovens in the kitchen without a thought of whether infra-red energy exists. We use the effect and that is proof enough.

So it will come as a shock to humans when beings from other planets in our galaxy, appear on Earth, shaking the hands of heads of State. In doing so they will also shake the belief systems of every society, family and individual to the core. Present dogmas of belief whether in religion or politics or science, will be realised to have been at fault all along. For this reason governments seek to manage the time and place of this information. But it must be revealed and I sense that the present pandemic is building a global consciousness of cooperation that has never existed in history.

Accepting that consciousness exists outside of the human body, whether in spirit form or in another corporeal body, is the next step for humans.

The Old Testament describes how our forefathers experienced gods thousands of years ago but like the magic of the micro wave oven, they did not understand the causes of the manifestations.

Ping

Instant Experts

04/02/2021 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

As knowledge expands through the centuries and decades, one might be forgiven for believing that, eventually, all that is possible to be known, will be known. It might be as a new dam which, after much rainfall, is full.

But like all oversimplified analogies, this one is flawed. As scientists discover more, they discover an infinity of new things. They have a job for life, for their subject reveals more, the further they explore. Hikers experience the same as they approach the apparent crest of a hill, only to discover more peaks beyond, what they call ‘false horizons’.

So, why are modern societies so confident? Well it is my contention that there is a part of the human psyche that is uncomfortable with the idea that it has only partial knowledge. I am referring to the ‘ego’ or ‘small self’. Ego’s have a tendency to take the easy route in life. They are for ever looking for the reward which requires little or no effort. Even dedicated scientists have been known to falsify their observations to promote their theories.

The present adulation of ‘celebrities’ in modern cultures is an example. An ordinary person, as we all are, may become celebrated for winning a competition or race or athletic achievement or something as banal as singing a song. The media and social glitterati turn on this flash of ‘success’ like sharks triggered by the scent of blood. The sometimes reluctant but usually eager victim, is propelled into a new world of abundance and admiration. Parties, limos, sex, money, drugs, interviews and media celebration all describe a voyage from the ordinary into an inflated fantasy world.

The truth behind this ‘yellow brick road’ is that this ‘celebrities’ are no different to any one of us. The only way out of ‘celebrity’ has sometimes sadly, been suicide.

Many fictional characters encapsulate the myth of ‘knowing all’ and the power that brings. A well known example is Arthur Conan Doyle s detective, Sherlock Holmes. Mr Holmes has a super human gift of observation and deduction which puts him way ahead of those not so empowered. Holmes is what today is called a ‘super hero’ because he wins every fight, whether physical or mental. He represents an aspect of the ego that all egos aspire towards; to triumph in every endeavour. When Holmes succeeds again and again, we are programmed to believe that this ‘hero’ is indomitable, all knowing, all conquering.

But Conan Doyle was clever enough to make the character of Holmes in some way, fatally flawed. Holmes lacked emotional intelligence and perhaps compensated for this by using drugs. Even the Ancient Greek heroes such as Achilles, demonstrate after many victories that no person is perfect and die at the hands of their adversaries.

We would do well to remember this today as we observe a new cult of ‘knowing all’ emerging. The true experts in a subject, such as academics and professional practitioners are being degraded as fast as the fools are being upgraded.

Whether you are talking about Presidents or Street Cleaning Operatives, people are being persuaded that they possess the super human powers normally reserved for ‘the experts’.

This illusionary level of confidence has even infiltrated the curriculum in schools. Children are being promised elevated careers way beyond their abilities. The premise appears to be that anybody is capable of anything. If this were true then only the top jobs would be good enough for young people. Filled with false expectations, they go willingly to University and pay for the privilege. At the end of the course, as their application forms are returned from the promised ‘top jobs’, they finally are given a spoonful of reality.

It is an old adage that ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ and yet this truth is forgotten or ignored today. Persons are deciding to build their own houses and argue with their architects. They diagnose their illnesses and argue with doctors. They become international Statesmen based on bluster and the blood of others.

The origins of this illusion are those employed by the ego when things begin to go wrong; deceit, threats, grabbing, bullying and other methods of gaining power over others. Many dictators today have achieved their position through these means. They continue to use them to remain in power for an indefinite period with extraordinary self delusion that the people like them. Any challenges are fought with a ferocity of a cornered animal for indeed, such people have cornered themselves by taking a false and harmful path.

The was a study by two academics which observed what is termed the ‘Dunning Kruger Effect’. The crux of this study is that people do not understand that they do not know things. It is the nature of how humans acquire knowledge and associated skills that in the beginning they find the subject rather easy. It is not until much later that say, a surgeon, realises the hidden risks, false avenues and areas of the unknown in their specialisation.

People who are not trained initially acquire a false confidence simply because it is impossible for them to know their short comings. A couple building a house might proceed with crayons and a cornflake packet to design their ‘dream house’. They sink their entire savings into the project. As the build progresses they make mistakes that are hugely costly and are driven into deep despair. These mistakes are of course well known pitfalls to professionals and would have known how to avoid making them.

Life teaches us the hard way for the arrogance of the ego by cutting us ‘down to size’. False pride and self confidence built on self deception, succeed in the beginning but slowly the mistakes and falsehoods creep in.

In life we learn that there are no true heroes. We are all vulnerable in our weaknesses and only become strong when we realise this. Instead of being a ‘know all’ we are better advised to ‘know how little we know’ in other words, adopt humility in everything we do.

Until our prizes, awards, honours, celebration, adulation, high office in affairs of state, are given to the meek rather than the bold, society will have the ‘instant experts’ and flawed heroes of that it deserves.

Real heroes are those who work within their limitations and admit mistakes or ignorance. They may not even achieve very much but what they have done has been done honestly.

Listen carefully to your politicians and leaders and see how often they express realistic aims tempered by humility. When a leader promises all and rarely delivers or admits to mistakes, use your vote.

Carrying the Sky

12/12/2020 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Question: how many stars can you see in the daytime?

Answer: One

That star is, of course, our sun and yet sometimes we overlook it’s splendour and magnificence. It becomes one of those many blessings that we take for granted when we consider ourselves poor.

The thief left it behind

The moon at the window

Basho

This poem was written by a mendicant monk in Japan after a thief took his only possession from his cave – his begging bowl.

Both the sun and moon represent powerful forces in our lives. They dominate our lives and loves in the most subtle of ways.

If you live in a part of the world where the appearance of the sun is unusual, then a ‘nice sunny day’ is one for being outside, perhaps even ‘sunbathing’. Deep in our beings we have a natural dependency and love of the healing rays of the sun that we wish only to be in it’s presence.

So strong was this connection in ancient times, that the Sun was regarded as a god by many cultures. The ancient Egyptians named him ‘Ra’. In their paintings and hieroglyphs, Ra is depicted spreading rays down to human figures, usually the Pharaoh. At the end of each ray is a hand sometimes holding an ‘Ankh’ or symbol of life.

One pharaoh called Akhenaten, ordered that the old Egyptians gods should no longer be worshipped expect for ‘Aten’. He referred to himself as the ‘son of God’ and is depicted with his wife, Nefertiti and children as a ‘holy family’, a theme later echoed by Christianity. Akhenaten even moved the capital city called Akhentaten. The temples had no roofs to allow in Aten’s rays.

He was not the last to conceive of a ‘sun city’. Louis 14^th bathed in the name of ‘The Sun King’ and adopted the sun as a symbol of his reign. He moved his royal court and government to the Palace of Versailles in 1682, from where his presence shone for all the gaze and wonder, at least until the solar eclipse which was the French Revolution.

The tradition continued into modern times when the French-Swiss architect, Le Corbusier designing a ‘radiant city’ or ‘Ville Radieuse’.

He too was had Utopian ideals but this time it was the common man who would bath in the all powerful rays of the sun. High rise buildings would be aligned in straight lines and wide spaces to allow light to spill into living spaces through large windows. All rooms were designed according to the proportions of the human body, as did the Ancient Egyptians, evidenced in the works of the mystic and scholar, Schwaller de Lubiz.

My point is that the Sun God has shone on mankind for thousands of years and it should not be hidden in ‘plain sight’.

If mankind needed a reminder, then the moon makes a perfect counter balance to the sun’s majesty. It has no light of it’s own yet can reflect with great brilliance in the night sky. The moon has an enduring power over humankind as a symbol of our ability to ‘reflect’ on ideas. This enables us to absorb and process ‘light’ as what we call ‘inspiration’ and underpins most of human development.

At some point in time, after the belief of Royalty being the sun God’s representative on earth, modern humans accept the reality that they, ordinary people, can do this as well.

Not only have we internalised the moon, but so may we swallow the sun.

‘The sun is in my heart

and I am ready for love,’

So sang Gene Kelly in the famous film, ‘Singing in the Rain’.

The place of abode for the sun is traditionally in the heart. The Indian Hindu mystics place the sun just below the heart in the ‘solar plexus’ chakra and it’s proximity is significant. The essence of ‘life’ is contained in the chambers of the heart muscle. It’s protein molecules are designed never to stop working – like the nuclear fission process in the sun; at least for the length of life of the human body. If a heart ever stops it can be powered back to life with a large charge of electricity from a defribilator.

Go sweep out the chamber of your heart.
Make it ready to be the dwelling place of the Beloved.
When you depart out,
He will enter it.
In you,
void of yourself,
will He display His beauties.

Mahmud Shabistari

I have quoted this beautiful verse before in my blogs as these lines, in my view, give humans all the information they need. They tell us that something is wrong in our hearts; they need to be swept out. Just as the skies fill with clouds and obscure the sacred sun the sacred moon, so too our hearts become obscured.

We get an idea of the size of the cleansing required in the psychological story of Hercules and his fifth labour;

The fifth labour (0f Hercules) was to clean the stables of King Augeas. This assignment was intended to be both humiliating and impossible, since these divine livestock were immortal, and had produced an enormous quantity of dung. The Augean stables (/ɔːˈdʒiːən/) had not been cleaned in over 30 years, and over 1,000 cattle lived there. However, Heracles succeeded by re-routing the rivers Alpheus and Peneus to wash out the filth.

Excerpt from Wikipedia

Note how the livestock are described as having ‘divine’ and ‘immortal’ qualities normally reserved for Kings. It is clear that even the cattle knee deep in their own dung, can aspire to being divine. Naturally, the cleaning takes place using the power nature, in this case water, a symbol of clarity, purity and power. Would it be too speculative to suggest they are the powerful arteries and veins of the human heart?

The Ancient Egyptians believed that Ra, the sun, was present in the heart of every human being; each human contained a small sun. They carried this divine power until death when the soul or Ra, departed the earthly body and returned to heaven and the afterlife.

This tradition is remembered in the Christian tradition as the ‘resurrection’ and in Islam as the ‘Mi raj’ or ascent of the Prophet Mohammed (s.a.s.) to heaven.

Note in this early painting the human headed horse on which the prophet (s.a.s.) sits. It is called the Buraq which means in Arabic ‘lightning’ or ‘bright’ with thanks to Wikipedia.

So we may reasonably conclude that we have revered the sun and the moon as symbols of our interior lives. We sometime express these divine principles in our buildings, our cities and our environment.

The sky is the most unchangeable, immutable presence in our lives and deserves contemplation and absorption where it can spin and shine for ever, if we let it.

Bring me sunshine
In your smile
Bring me laughter
All the while
In this world where we live
There should be more happiness
So much joy you can give
To each brand new bright tomorrow

lyrics by Sylvia Dee for Morecombe and Wise’s theme song

Centre

14/11/202031/12/2020 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

The Beautiful Centre

The Centre is a special place that contains as many mysteries as explanations…but what kind of centers do I mean? Well, the center is in our body-mind unity and extends between the centre of the Earth and infinity. Let us start with ourselves.

We are born with a placenta connected from the centre of our bodies, to our mother. This physical centre remains true for the rest of our lives, yet our mind also has a centre as does our spiritual being. The centre of our consciousness is not necessarily in our heads. Acrobats, gymnasts, martial artists will all give you an explanation derived from their experience. To turn and tumble under complete control, our consciousness needs to be somewhere other than our heads. For the Karate adapt, the Hara is again the navel or the sacral chakra from where the body finds it’s centre. Control of the Hara fixes the practitioner to a single axis or centre of gravity and from this position a balanced and grounded attack can be made, or a defense.

The Dervish in the Sufi tradition spins on the left rotating foot whilst pushing with the other. The experience is to be removed from the visible world or ‘dunya’ and moved vertically on the axis of turning into another realm. The analogy is that the dervishes become like planets as they spin around the Sun, who is the guide, the Sheikh.

Psychologically, the process of becoming adult is similar. As children we tend to run out of control, wobble and fall, like spinning plates left too long. We need adults to check what we do when we edge close to the metaphorical cliff. We are not centred. In maturity we find our balance and with balance a centre. Unlike a pair of scales, the centre is in three or more dimensions, but the analogy works.

If we become too absorbed in a particular activity, such as work or family, or leisure, we neglect other parts of our lives. We indeed neglect our full potential as human beings because the art of being balanced is more important than excelling in one particular area of life. This is contrary to what modern societies tend to expect. We are encouraged to specialise and repeat patterns until we can execute a skill perfectly. This is the process taught to factory workers, concert pianists, teachers, parents or any other career or social position. Time spent on these activities usually is at the cost of other responsibilities. So it is that modern managers will consider the work and life ‘balance’ of employees. It is recognised that becoming a grand master at chess is all very well but creates a lesser human if other simple tasks are not understood, such as working the washing machine or understanding another human’s emotions.

One technique for becoming ‘centered’ is found in both Eastern and Western spiritual practice. The former emphasises the importance of concentration when awake and alert and not becoming distracted by day dreams. Concentration is sometimes taught by training the body before the mind. Students of Zen Buddhism will sit in Za Zen for hours whilst supervised by a master. No movement or involvement in a mental or physical distraction is tolerated. If an earth quake occurred the class should remain motionless. The point is that all that occurs in the world is an illusion that must not be taken seriously, even when catastrophe is imminent. Some deaths cannot be avoided by running, therefore sitting is taking ones noble and inner strength with one into Paradise.

In the West, monks and nuns will sit in contemplation, having already put themselves outside of the world. Although less emphasis is placed on ‘illusion’ the seeker is directed to concentrate on the Divine. The ‘God Head’ is and represents a fixed point, to which the seeker becomes attached in their whole being. By this process all attachment to the outer perceived world falls away as unimportant. The contemplative becomes centred by fixing consciousness to an unmoving presence.

This apparent ‘stillness’ is characteristic of the part of the mystery of the centre. The geographic poles on the spinning earth are not moving at one thousand miles per hour as is the case at the equator. They are the still place which encompasses all directions whilst being themselves directionless.

Throughout time and place humans have found it necessary to identify ‘centers’ outside their bodies.

As the word suggests, the ‘hearth’ in the home is both the centre of the ‘earth’ and the ‘heart’. It generally contains fire as a loyal servant to social well being and survival. It cooks food, warms water and the space around it, giving the householders good reason to gather around.

The village or town containing these homes, will also have a designated ‘centre’. It may deserve that title as a spiritual centre, an administrative centre, a social centre, a business centre, a defensive centre from invaders and other functions.

In ancient times the centre was marked with a significant natural feature such as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. So sacred is this ‘centre’ that three major religions revere it ‘s significance as the place where God created the world and the first man ‘Adam’.

In even earlier times societies were sensitive not only to the ‘spirit of the place’ but to a ‘cosmological order’. The ancient Egyptians had a canon of harmonies which Plato referred to in Laws which kept Egyptian society consistently for thousands of years. John Michell refers to this order in his book ‘At the Centre of the World’ p165;

‘The occurrence at different times throughout the world of similarly organised twelve-tribe societies, focused upon a rock, a sanctuary and a sacred king, can only be due to the influence of a common prototype, which must be that traditional code of number and proportion which constitutes the best possible more rational and inclusive image of essential reality’.

In other words, the centre of the sovereign nation is determined geometrical according to harmonious proportions. Stonehenge in Southern England is a good example of a centre conceived as a circle with twelve divisions. It connects visually with the Universe by alignment with the sun and moon, stars and planets placing the observer / worshiper, firmly at the centre of all things.

The supreme example of a geographic centre is the pyramids on the Giza Plateau which occupy the exact centre of the landmasses of the continents at 30 degrees north.

The geometry of Divine symbolism is a large subject if little understood in the modern world. Towns and cities are conceived for rational reasons of economy and function. If there is a sacred centre to a town it is because it’s ancient forefather conceived it so. In the United States of America the city of Washington is such an example of the application of sacred principles and geometry in city planning, but such examples are rare in the land that built according to ‘the grid’.

In not caring to create sacred centers in our buildings, towns, cities and countries, we are not caring to be ‘centred’ in ourselves. For we are intimately connected with the spaces we occupy whether they are inside buildings, inside the spaces buildings create or within the landscape and cosmos.

As an architectural student in the 1970’s some of my tutors disliked my use of geometry, symmetry and proportion in my designs. Organic shapes were also ‘taboo’. I was told very strongly to design using only right angles and grid patterns, presumably because they had been taught that themselves. They respected only maximising the performance of materials, ignoring the third of Vitruvian principles of architecture which are durability, utility and beauty.

As citizens of the modern world we have learnt only function and forgotten, or care not, to make our buildings and public spaces beautiful.

The change that has to come is for us to enter the centers of ourselves. When we speak from our hearts our social fabric will evolve to transform those places that we hold precious. That is, in my view, the direction for the citizens of the 21^st century, but first we must start within ourselves.

‘Go sweep out the chamber of your heart.
Make it ready to be the dwelling place of the Beloved.
When you depart out,
He will enter it.
In you,
void of yourself,
will He display His beauties.

Mahmud Shabistari 14^th century Sufi poet

1+2=3

01/11/202011/03/2022 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Science and philosophy are contrary subjects yet strangely complimentary; after all, they are both exploring the same thing…the Universe.

If philosophers are generalists then scientists study detail. Building up on detail, philosophers gain a knowledge and understanding of the way ‘things work’ based on ‘all and everything’. Inspired by generality, scientist drill down into new unexplored places.

But it does not have to be so polarised as that. We can be more ‘nuanced’ about their relationship. History shows us that science sometimes makes great leaps when scientists turn philosophers. Einstein’s General and Special theories of Relativity are an example of that. Innovators in the scientific community are often those whose interests and hobbies include the arts. Look out for the professor with the vivid bow tie and red shoes. He or she is the one most likely to be able to peep over the fence into the garden containing all things ‘artistic’. They may even have the key to the connecting gate.

Some of the greatest minds who ever lived are celebrated as both artists and scientist. Perhaps the best known example is Leonardo de Vinci and his stable mates in the Renaissance. To look after a forest you sometimes have to look down on it from the mountain top, whilst other times tending the specific needs of each tree, branch and twig.

Such a way of working is the way of a wise person. They will have seen a lot of life and understand that trees are trees, from whatever distance you view them. This ‘third place’ or trintessence, is the sacred child of both art and science. It is unique and special and often has no name and does not enter thought for that reason.

But it is vital to take notice of the fact that frequently there is a magic third element springing from the fusion of two complimentary opposites.

One only needs to refer to Christian theology and the coming together of the concept of the Trinity. It obeys the phenomenon that two ‘opposite’ forces conflate to produce a third mysterious new entity.

I remember my rather sanctimonious aunt leaning over from the pew behind me when I was a boy and asking what parts made up the Trinity. I replied parrot fashion; ‘Father, Son and Holy Ghost’.

But then I was the boy who drew a parrot on the chalk board in the class room with a speech bubble containing religious words. I have always had a problem with those who repeat words without understanding. Now in old age I can see that how the Trinity is created in not just Christianity but in the many mystical traditions that underpin religions.

The Father and Son are two huge archetypes from which all of creation emanates. The son sits on the right hand of God and the two make a very special SWAT (special weapons and techniques) team. Because God cannot enter the gross material world physically, he sends his ‘go to’ helper. Whatever incarnation the son may appear in (Apollo, Hermes, Ra and so on) he is always the same perfected entity who returns to earth on a mercy mission.

But the ‘double act’ needs something else, some other essence that ‘makes things move’. Examine the equation e=mc2. The energy (e) could be understood as the infinitely expansive Creator of all things including and especially ‘thought’. The material element (m) is the ‘Redeemer’ who comes to a physical Earth on a mission. The spectacular mystery is that both energy and matter obey a third rule and constant – c, or the ‘Holy Spirit’.

The Holy Spirit is represented as a dove. She is an untransmutable bird who visits all of those in need, as a helper and producer. Without the aid of the holy spirit, stuff would just not change and move on. Noah would still be in a flood.

She is the flux element that stabilises and goes beyond the relationship between matter and energy. It can do this because it is their product. How apt that the United Nations chose to have a dove on their flag. They brought together the energy and matter of warring nations in peace.

Pre-Christian theological and philosophical ideas encapsulated the same Trinity of archetypes, only using different names.

Plato realised that matter and energy combine in a third essence which was named the ‘aether’ or ‘ether’. This mysterious third element persisted throughout the centuries. It was embraced by the Alchemists as being the ultimate symbol and tool of perfection, the philosopher’s stone. Without this ancient concept of an invisible third element that pervades all things – even outer space – then early scientists like Sir Isaac Newton (an avid Alchemist) may never have germinated the seeds of modern scientific thought.

Today scientist’s view the ether as belonging to and explaining the existence of ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’. We are told that the former occupies 4% of the Universe we can perceive with our senses and instruments. The rest cannot be perceived or measured.

When philosopher’s understand that scientists are ‘in the soup’ over where the Universe is i.e. where dark energy lives, they can be excused for not offering an explanation. All that is dark as ‘e’ and ‘m’ exists in the area of their product as a constant. It is neither matter nor energy but a mathematical / geometrical immutable mystery.

To continue the list of ancient ‘trinities’, Osiris and Isis inhabited the Temples of Ancient Egypt. In their story that have a son who is Horus – a divine child sometimes depicted on the knee of his nursing mother as a baby. The infant child is a accurate depiction of the product of two energies. They produce an asexual, passive being without transgression, action or thought. It is the constant that held together successive dynasties in the land of Egypt for thousands of years. Horus the Divine child – inspired the constructions of matter such as the pyramids in such a way and as such supreme manifestations of thought and understanding, that their presence in the material world has an ‘eternity’ about them. That eternity is most purely expressed in mathematics, which is why the Pyramid of Cheops in Gaza is built with such precision. It is truly aligned to the points of the compass, particular stars including the sun, underground tellurgic currents and stands in the physical centre of the land masses of the globe. This is as close to being ‘constant’ as is ever likely to be achieved on this earth.

Perhaps the greatest two archetypes ever to unite, with their product being a ‘trinity’ is the Hermetic law of male and female. The Hermetics believe that not only does this duality exist on Earth but in every parallel dimension. We see nature using these subtly similar yet different archetypes to the full, not merely for sexual reproduction but at emotional, intellectual, and behavioural levels of existence. All animals such as mammals depend on their parents in their conception, incubation and infancy but eventually they ‘fly the nest’ and become a free independent entity. They are the same as their genetic parents and yet – as Charles Darwin observed – they are empowered by an improvement on their parents.

We are therefore each an expression of the ‘third essence’ in our own uniqueness as a being. Fired by the holy constant ‘c’, we each of us contain the possibility to transcend our material (body) and energetic (spirit) limitations. As infinite souls (c) we will never experience death and will move gently into perfection at the right hand of God. Human bodies are not designed for longevity but give just enough time for experience and reflection on what does not change in life; what is constant. That is why Zen masters feel the ecstasy of a falling leaf. In every Universe, leaves fall.

The tri-essence knows that it has a future greater than it’s individual parts, and for this reason has a good chance at realising perfection. This perfection is the great mysterious tunnel that souls follow into the constant realm of the ‘after life’.

It is a bourne from where most travellers do return, just to get one more bite of the forbidden fruit; one more chance to become greater than the sum of it’s parts.

000

0000

The Platonic Pyramid (above) is decimal. The top half of the pyramid is the Trinity. The lower part (7) is also sacred and another subject!

The Alchemical Trinity

soul (c)

body (m) spirit (e)

A Christmas White House Carol

12/10/202014/10/2020 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

It is Christmas Eve in the Whitehouse. The view across the famous lawns sparkles in the street lamps. Squirrels hop playfully from tree to tree in the thick snow and at the front door, a line of limousines wait patiently.

If we approach one of the snow hung windows we can look in and observe the scene. Bedecked with all kinds of seasonal decorations, the long mahogany table is encompassed by seated guests. At the head of the table is President Biden. His calm manner brings a sense of peace to the room and his family and guests converse quietly to one another. In the distance we hear the faint clash of kitchen ware as staff prepare to bring in a most special meal.

Suddenly there is a commotion on the steps of the Whitehouse! A tall cloaked figure is gesticulating frantically and pleading with the Secret Service to let him in.

‘Oh come on! Let me in, please. This used to be my home! Let me speak to Joe. I want to apologise for everything. I have been a bad, bad person but no more! Tell him I am here to see him…pleeease.’

Could this be Donald Trump? He is bent down on one knee with his hands together, as if in prayer.

If we quickly move back to look through the dinner scene window, we can see an aide whispering in the Presidents ear. Joe Biden’s jaw drops and his eyes stare into space. Without hesitation, he pushes back his chair and rushes out of the room.

For a few minutes nothing happens. The hooded figure on the steps, which is indeed, Donald Trump, has been allowed to step in out of the cold.

The guests sit bemused looking at each other before two embracing figures burst into the room. When Mr Trump sees the assembled guests he falls to his knees and sobs.

We must press our ears to the glass and listen carefully for he is talking, not in his loud manner, but softly.

‘Oh friends, dear sweet friends. Hear me just for one moment and then throw me out if you want to. I am nothing. I have been a bad, bad boy I know and I am so, so, so sorry. But since that awful Corona Virus thing which almost killed me, and the First Lady and had us both in our graves, which is all we deserved I must say, I have seen the light!

A gasp went around the room and then subsided.

I know I upset a lot of people. I know I did. But I didn’t know what I was doing because I only cared for one person all the time. I am ashamed to say that was not my beautiful wife Meliana. No, no, it was worse than that. It was me. I was proud, deceitful, ingratiating, ignorant, manipulative, vengeful, greedy…why am I telling you all my secrets? Because I was also stupid and I didn’t see you could see all those bad characteristics of my bad character.

But you know what? When I was lying in my hospital bed with tubes going into my lungs, an angel came to me.

There was a pause for dramatic effect and Donald looked blankly at the window as if deeply moved by the memory. He continues;

Well two actually and they sat at the end of my bed looking at me as if to say, ‘we know what you are like and we want to help you change.’ I listened to them for hours. They showed me lots of things, terrible things that I have done, there on the hospital ward ceiling like a movie. I behaved so badly. I hurt everyone including this beautiful – sooo beautiful – planet by not listening to those climate change scientists. And the way I put down the great President Obama and the wonderful – so kind – Obama Care plans he had for poor sick people which I just trashed all the time and promised to get rid of. I was so unkind. Even to the tax collector of the United States of America, I thought I could pull the wool over everyone’s eyes and have more money for myself. Money, yes, money and lots of it.

Well tonight that has all finished. I have just come from meeting all the staff who work for me in Trump Tower. I gave them all wonderful amazing presents and new clothes for their children and theatre tickets and anything they asked for, because they worked for a monster, yes they did, who didn’t even know their names or shake a hand and say thank you, ever. Well that has all gone. I am telling you now that that Tower of Babel is going to be sold and the proceeds given to the sick children of America. Every single one of them so help me God!’

You could see from the shocked, but caring expressions on the faces in the candlelight, that the speech had affected each of them to the core. President Biden called for another chair and a new place was laid at the table. A rather stooped figure sat on the chair and smiled in a way no one had seen him do before.

It was a happy smile straight from the heart of a man who had come to value truth and the simple virtue of being himself and loving all other beings, more than himself.

Who Orders the New Order?

23/09/202031/12/2020 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

A ‘normal’ state of affairs in a society is always a vague concept. We know that what is ‘normal’ in one year or decade, will not necessarily so in the next. Changes in technology, education, religion, health, cultural diversity, incomes and expenditure, world events such as weather patterns, personal expectations and many other factors, influence how societies morph. In this essay, I am going to use one of these, education, as an example of how ‘normals’ become established and how they can change for the benefit of all.

A common cliché is the ‘new normal’ – as if this makes anything clearer – which it does not. By definition a ‘normal’ state of affairs has been in place and unchanged for a substantial period of time. If it had not then it would be just ‘new’. Normal should appeal to persons of a ‘conservative’ outlook; they resist change on principle, even if the change is for the better.

Taking the long term view of the current changes in Western societies, it is likely that the next ‘normal’ will be very different to anything in the past.

Whether that is a ‘New World Order’ as politicians have been predicting for the last hundred years or more, remains to be seen.

If we can adapt our expectations and thoughts to a ‘new order’ that has been voted for and accepted by society, then there will be more gains than loses for everyone. If the control comes from anywhere else, then it will be impossible to predict what that strategic outcome will be. It is most likely however that that objective will not be in the best interests of the people.

People living in countries where they still have the power to influence those who govern them, must first determine what it is they want. History informs us that one of the most basic rights is the have an the same opportunity at success as our neighbours. Inequality of opportunity creates disparity at all kinds of levels, no just wealth. Anyone who does not succeed following this rule has only themselves to blame if they do not gain as much as their neighbour. The lazy, inept, greedy, fantasised and any other human weakness you care to name, these people will achieve few privileges but will know they only have themselves to blame.

The attempt at an alternative means of assessing pupils’ grades failed in my view because it was not sufficiently a radical change. Today Universities think they need to select bright students when in fact they just need fee paying students.

The ‘merit’ system of the mid 1900’s, assumed that Universities should offer free places to the brightest students. This was generally 4% of the brightest students each year. Society paid, but gained in the long term because it gave a level playing field of opportunity to young people from all social backgrounds. When students left University they entered society as future managers and leaders.

Since the Tony Blair government stated a new aim of half of all young people gaining degrees, the whole game changed.

Surely such an aim produces too many chiefs and not enough Indians? Today young people with degrees have found it challenging to find work, let alone one that offers them to fulfil their personal potential.

Degrees issued to so many people, lose their inherent value, simply because of the law of supply and demand. Employers are now are looking for candidates who have a degree and something else.

The whole process of gaining good A-levels in order to be accepted by a University appears to me to be of little relevance.

If Universities took a fresh look at what they offer in the current ‘Covid’ restricted environment, they might become more radically innovative. The traditional University campus and it’s associated support activities all have to be located in buildings. The students expect some sort of accommodation and transport facilities such as parking for cars and bicycles.

It is not surprising that Universities need large incomes from fees and government. Yet, the introduction of ‘remote tuition’ – a product the Open University in the United Kingdom has offered for decades – is a ground changer.

If Universities moved out of campuses where the whole Universities culture is no longer needed, fees could be drastically reduced. With less travelling by staff and students, there is a saving to the environment and days for work and study. Other benefits will be easier child care and part time working.

Universities will be not be limited on offering places for courses because they will not be counting seats in lecture theatres. There might be a three hundred on a course that in the ‘old normal’ was limited to say, thirty.

Why should a place in University be decided by how well a student performs in examinations? They might have high potential in the work place but not shine at academic subjects and in the examination theatre. They might have a less than perfect understanding of a language, such as must be common in foreign students, and yet have high potential once that weakness was allowed to be overcome. I knew a Ukrainian woman who spoke Russian and studied Law in an English University for which I give huge respect.

There are many other physical and mental ‘disabilities’ which students encounter temporarily or permanently which Universities should be the first to respect. Offering places purely on academic success, is in no way respectful of what a person can achieve if given the chance they deserve. Most employers in the ‘new order’ and not going to discriminate irrationally simply because it is against the law of the land. Remote studying suits such students very well as they can take the time they need at the pace they need.

What I am suggesting then is a revolution in academia where they students decide which courses they want to purchase independent of their previous academic performance. If the student is to be a ‘customer’ then like customers, they hold the power to get what they aspire to.

When I went to University I was awarded a place on how well I performed in interview and my rather poor A-level results ignored. I like to think I was assessed on my human potential rather than how well I remembered facts.

I have used the University admission system as an example of how the ‘normal’ in any organisation can be changed. Most importantly this change enables everyone to have an equal bite of the apple, independent of what sticks and carrots life has presented them with in their lives so far. It is true to say that ‘life is never fair’ but that is a reason to try and make it fair, not to give in.

The changes in societies currently taking place across most of the world can be blamed for personal failure but equally for personal survival and success. Those who are not brought down should be those who are most willing to throw the ‘rule book’ out of the window. Comfortable lifestyles from privilege and convention, one would like to think are most at risk.

The Puppet That Pulls the Strings

31/08/202003/09/2020 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

One of the seven principles of Hermetic philosophy, is the law of cause and effect. Sir Isaac Newton was strongly influenced in his development and application of the scientific method, by this law. It appears in one of his universal laws of thermodynamics as ‘to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’.

Can life be reduced to a sort of cosmic Newton’s Cradle, where impact at one end of a line of suspended spheres, sends kinetic energy invisibly through the line and appears miraculously at the other?

Surprisingly, in some respects, it can. When social groups are examined on a large scale, one psychologist found that they are highly susceptible to manipulation, ethically or not. His name was Edward Bernays and he was the nephew of Sigmund Freud.

Edward Bernays: would you buy a second hand car from this man?

Sigmund Freud – are you happy?

Freud wrote a book entitled ‘Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego‘. In this he examined how individuality and consciousness of the ‘I’ can be subsumed when a person identifies with a group. The larger ‘group’ consciousness becomes dominant to the extent that individual’s will acts in a way that they would not on their own.

Examples are everywhere, such as the group identity of the supporters of a football team. They will dress in the colours of their team and occupy a part of the stands where they can appear as a powerful group both visually and through by tribal chants. The power gained by the players when they score goals and win, is shared through this identification by the supporters. A normally disempowered ‘ordinary’ man will feed off the power gained by the group, causing extreme elation.

At it’s most benign this effect can be used in sports, advertising and public relations. At it’s most dangerous, it can be used in political propaganda to influence the minds of the masses to behave in accordance with the aims of a small group.

Examine the the governments of countries and institutions and you may discover a sleeping monster. On a whim, leaders are fully capable of influencing the mental processes and social patterns of the citizens of that country, without them being aware.

The roots of how this is possible lie in our ancestors, who organised themselves in tribes and hunting groups in and be more successful; especially when hunting large animals such as Mammoths. Although modern man has morphed away from this psychology into separate individuality, there are times when we regress.

Individuals will identify readily with various social classifications that can be exploited to divide the populace. Examples are race, class / cast, politics, education, religion, sexuality etc. The motives for doing this might be as ordinary as making them choose a particular type of soap bar, or as extraordinary as bringing them out onto the streets to protest and or riot.

Edward Bernays was interested in how governments could rise or indeed fall by this phenomena. He wrote in his book Propaganda;

If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it?

and…

They systematic study of mass psychology revealed…the potentialities of invisible government of society by manipulation of the motives which actuate man in the group.

Sigmund Freud attempted to explain why people engage in group identification. He proposed the idea that the thoughts and feelings of an individual are in some way compensatory for suppressed desires.

‘A thing may be desired not for it’s intrinsic worth of usefulness, but because he has unconsciously come to see in it the symbol of something else, the desire for which he is ashamed to admit to himself.’

In other words, our actions are spurred on by thoughts that come from our shadow selves, rather than for any conscious, considered reasoning. The conscious mind in most people, has a conscience which prevents negative behaviour through the emotion of guilt.

Whatever it is you are thinking, don’t do it!

But unconsciously there may be ‘commanding’ thoughts which dominate decisions and actions. In this way we are like children who have not learnt to filter information coming from the outside world. We just absorb impressions and later act out what is good or not. In this way a government could move it’s people to adopt ideas such as the mass slaughter of a minority population, which would be abhorrent to the conscious mind but unconsciously fulfil unexpressed desires.

It is extraordinary to think that these theories were created at the end of the nineteenth century. If proof was needed, the next century provided glaring examples such as the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany and the genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia and other countries.

Joseph Goebbels: Wimp turned bully picture credit: BBC.com

The leaders of the Third Reich used propaganda ingeniously. Joseph Goebbels produced films as a key means of engeneering the minds and thereby, opinions, of the population. He understood that in cinemas and theatres audiences can drop their individual critical faculties. They connect unconsciously with powerful messages that feed off repressed emotions and ideas, such as in this case the ‘problem’ of the Jews.

In Rwanda, the radio became a powerful tool for government propaganda which described the minority tribe as ‘cockroaches’ who needed to be eliminated. The old instincts of tribal mutual hatred, suppressed through the adoption of modern social norms, were allowed to become dominate and so powerful that neighbour would kill neighbour with a machete.

Freud wrote in his book Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego;

‘A group is extraordinarily credulous and open to influence, it has no critical faculty.’

The actions of the young men in the First World War is another clear example. Thousands signed up without hesitation to enlist in a war that would ‘be over by Christmas’. With hindsight this uncritical and unfeeling mass psychopathy across Europe and beyond, was absurd. Even the mitigating influence of the closely related European royal families of that time, were sucked into the mass psychosis of hatred and fear.

If we take these ideas and fast forward to the present day, many suggest that there is a small group focused global social manipulation, that has had over one hundred years to perfect it’s dark arts.

The, once hidden, now overt aim is to establish a world government and a disempowerment of it’s citizens through draconian laws and the use of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, mass surveillance, cyber robotics and enforced compliance with the State through removal of individual choice.

To achieve this requires deceit on a global scale. The internet and international media is the modern propaganda tool to achieve what one hundred years ago was unthinkable by peaceful means.

Does a secular society fear dying more than a devout society?

The repressed fear which is being exploited in 2020, is the fear of dying. Each person feels this fear whether they admit it or not. Death is something not understood today. It makes those left behind uncomfortable and deaths of loved ones are dealt with expediently. It is taboo to discuss death in anything but the most trivial way, with meaningless platitudes such as ‘he passed away’.

Death by natural causes is far more socially and politically acceptable than death by warfare. The appearance of a new virus, whether by fair means or foul, is something all governments expect and plan for. The Covid 19 virus was foreseen and plans were in place to use it as a means to suppress and perhaps cull populations. The smartest way to disempower people is to ruin the black economies and other economic enterprises that are not global. Then introduce technology based solutions that remove the last vestiges of personal choice, such as the cash-less society which has been happening in China.

You might have expected the citizens of Communist societies to adapt readily to strict government controls and sure enough, the Chinese leadership spearheaded the practice of the ‘lock down’ with ruthless efficiency. The Western societies had little choice but to follow the same solution even though it is opposite to their social freedoms.

Whilst isolation is clearly the correct way to deal with an individual case of viral infection, there is a logical argument that not all citizens need to be locked down at once. This was done to protect inadequate health services, not individuals.

Freedom is a hard won prize, but when the option is presented as ‘death’, freedoms have been handed over without a fight.

picture credit: CNN.com

This is how I personally see the end of 2020 and most of 2021. We will see a ramping up of the ‘problems’ substantiated by rising lines on graphs.

This will occur as the vast quantities of government ‘free’ money will begin to run dry. The problems of unemployment have only been postponed, not solved. The consequence will be an impossible situation for previously law abiding families. We can expect to see large scale public unrest driven initially by hunger. Looting and civil urban warfare, even in countries that have not armed their citizens in the way the United States has, will become a problem. The governments of the world will claim to have little choice other than to take away personal freedoms even more.

The United States runs an extra risk as it approaches it’s elections in November 2020. President Trump is also about to hit the railway buffers and he will bend the rules of democracy to remain in power, in the way he has shown America he can many times already. In doing so, citizens aware of the threat to their democracy and using their rights under the Founding Fathers Constitution may legally form militias and take on the government forces.

Would you buy a second hand car from this man? picture credit Newsweek.com

Whoever is controlling the puppet that you are, will be pulling your strings to make you jump as they want, not as you want. All you can do is pull back on the strings, and collectively that could be powerful.

Individuals will identify readily with various social classifications that can be exploited to divide the populace. Examples are Race, Class, Politics, Education, Religion, Sexuality etc. The motives for doing this might be as ordinary as making them choose a particular type of soap bar, or as extraordinary as bringing them out onto the streets to protest and or riot.

Did Condaleezza Rice start Black Lives Matter? Probably not. picture credit: AZ quotes

Edward Bernays was interested in how governments could rise or indeed fall by social manipulation. He wrote in his book ‘Propaganda’;

‘If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it?’

and…

‘The systematic study of mass psychology revealed…the potentialities of invisible government of society by manipulation of the motives which actuate many in the group’.

The, once hidden, now overt aim, is to establish a world government and a disempowerment of it’s citizens through draconian laws and the use of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, mass surveillance, cyber robotics and enforced compliance with the State through removal of individual choice.

To achieve this requires deceit on a global scale. The internet and international media is the modern propaganda tool to achieve what one hundred years ago was unthinkable by peaceful means.

picture credit: Houston Museum of Science, Death by Natural Causes Exhibit

Previous pandemics have wiped out half the populations of each town and village. When that is happens today, there is indeed a problem deserving the solution being offered.

Whoever is controlling the puppet that you are, is pulling your strings. Now is the time to start pulling back. You might be surprised to find out who is on the other end of the string!

Matters Blog

Original thoughts on a variety of subjects that matter to me

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