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Olympics in Flames

31/07/202425/08/2025 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

”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 14^th. 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?

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.

‘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.

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 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.

Hot Cross Males

29/03/202412/05/2024 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

There is a tradition in England to bake special buns at the end of the Christian period of Lent. These are characterised by a white cross symbolising the cross on which, they believe, Jesus the Christ was crucified.

We are familiar with one of the meanings of the word cross is ‘annoyance’. Insignificant in itself but keep it in mind as you read on.

When I was a young student of architecture in London, we had lectures on the philosophy of architecture. I was greatly influenced by an American anthropologist named John Steel, whose philosophy of life in general appeared innovative and exciting to me. He said, for instance, that we should be wary of using right angles in our designs. He sited the geometry of astrology where an angle of 90 degrees indicates a clash, as does 180 degrees. In contrast, the angles of 60 and 120 degrees are harmonious.

I set about designing with architectural plans based on equilateral triangles. Other tutors cited the work of the great American architect Frank Llyod Wright who used this grid extensively. His buildings are greatly valued today for their harmonious relationship with nature and an ambience of content.

In the Chinese order of landscape and building design known as Feng Shui, the corner created by a right angle is called a ‘poisoned arrow’ and needs careful mitigation.

What this is leading up to is an invitation to consider the universal symbol of the cross; two lines that cross each other at right angles. It might be that it is not so benign a symbol after all; if only because it is a depiction of the causing extreme death of a human being.

The symbol of the cross is of course far older than Christianity, whether on the diagonal, vertical or the many other variations.

We should also remember the variation of the spinning cross known as the Swastika and it’s modern association with Facism. The spinning cross was a symbol of the sun for ancient cultures all over world. The Nazi’s reversed it’s direction in a doubtless, intentional Satanic reference because they studied and practiced spirituality for it’s power.

Jesus the Christ called himself ‘the light of the world’ and ‘the son of God’; but we rely on translations for this and it is possible that he came as the solar deity whom the ancient Greeks named Appollo. If modern day Christians are uncomfortable with this association then they are invited to read deeper into this subject.

Whether or not any of the above is absolutely true or relevent is not my thesis. Suffice to say that the crossing of straight lines is generally, a male and solar symbol.

Historically, much of mankind’s evolution over the last millenia, has been male or solar in character and I would argue that it is natural we would expect history to be filled with accounts of male humans fighting; war, opposition.

What was desperate to happen, in terms of human evolution, was the rise of the complimentary feminine principle known as the Divine Feminine. For we are not so bound by our religious dogmas today as to deny that God is equally female and male. The old stereo type of a white bearded ‘nice guy’ needs to be put into the ‘no longer believable box’. Humans were made in the image of the Divine male and the Divine female. Their physical bodies hold more in common than difference meaning the two genders have more in common than difference and are complementary in nature.

The power and relevance of the divine feminine appears in ancient Egypt. Their pantheon is a full of female gods as well as male. Isis and Osiris almost share the same name and are depicted, just as Mary and Joseph, with a divine child from their union.

This balanced recognition of Divinity as a whole ‘yin and yang’ complimentaryness should have informed all of human endeavour to the present day but sadly, the alpha-male energy jumped ahead of the game.

There were exponents of this Divine androgeny based on ancient Egyptian texts, the Greek Cabala and Jewish Cabala and Hermiticism, but they had to operate as a secret society. They were the Rosicrucians whose symbol was a vertical cross with a rose at it’s centre. The meaning is clear; that of a combination of male and female Divine energies forming a Unity.

At a similar time came another religion based on the house of Abraham, Islam. Whilst today many Islamic cultural dogmas (such as dress codes) are based on tribe and tradition. In countries like Iran, enforcement of dress codes if enforced more for male power than to solve any problem. Early Islam was a beacon of feminine influence in society at many levels such as architecture and art. Sufi poets aspired loving feelings towards a soft and nuturing, Creator. Islamic architecture is renowned for it’s flowing depictions of nature and it’s geometric patterns. Courtyards and landscapes were intended as earthly depictions of paradise and were characterised by soft flowing waters and fountains. The contemplative, reflecting, geometric ponds in the Alhambra Palace and castle in Spain, were invitations for reflection and enjoying the solar heat from the cool embrace of shadowed courtyards.

Islam was and is, fundamentally, a lunar religion, still represented today by it’s use of the lunar rather than the solar calendar and it’s use of the crescent moon as a symbol.

This ‘feminine principle’ was carried by returning crusaders and travelling troubadours to the Christian Europe as chivalry. Many of the Crusader knights learnt from Islam the importance of respecting women and the essence that women contained and expressed in enchanting, subtle ways. This sea change should not be underestimated as it continues to inform and revolutionise the feminine principle in modern societies; expressed as ‘feminism’ in modern politics but culturally is far more profound.

The ‘Round Table’ of King Arthur was a practical representation of the sharing of power amongst equals. This replaced the Alpha-male monarch of previous centuries who killed all who opposed him. The circle is a geometric form which expresses harmony and potential infinite expansion and/or introspection. It is a planet and a universe all at once and has none of the negative values associated with a cross. But most of all, it is the maternal womb and the expression of the greatest thing that the Divine Feminine has to offer; completion and life.

It is today, in many European and other progressive countries, that women have been given principle parts to play in the affairs of government and social order. Their plain speaking and intuitive understanding of complexity, is in contrast to the previous male dominated ways. As leaders they have become highly respected, such as Ursula Gertrud von de Leyen in the European parliament.

So may we this Spring season of renewal, view the ending of the male, solar dominated world (open to all to view across North America as a solar eclipse on 8^th April 2024) and welcome those gifts that the Divine feminine brings to us in abundance; the natural world, procreation love and an end to those hot cross males!

The Solar Eclipse; a moment for feelings or fiesta?

The Wizard of Light

13/02/202406/02/2024 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

We Are Off to See the Wizard!

Most of us live ‘out there’. We see and feel our skin as the join between us and ‘that’; whatever ‘that’ is. For more and more people, the outside world is being discovered to be ‘not what it seems’ or in common parlance ‘fake’.

Films like The Matrix trilogy highlight the idea that what we look at is no more than some sort of construction. But who is making this illusory world?

In medieval times, before psychiatry and psychoanalysis, it was a widely held hypothesis that a being called God made the world and us. God therefore, had to be responsible for the running of human and if that gave you a problem you had an option to pray. Prayer was the only way humans were able to feel they had a say in the matter or else they abandoned themselves to kismet or fate. Both are soft options and unrealised humans, like soft options.

Mystics however held a different view, from times well before the Essenes and their Star pupil, Jesus the Christ. Mystics never believed in the story of an all controlling, Commander in Chief, deity. Instead they experienced directly a love of ‘God within’. As beings made ‘in the image of God’ (the literal consequence of what we now call fractal geometry) we are indeed God or as the poet and mystic Rumi said, a fragment of the mirror of God that shattered into countless pieces. We are, in other words, a shell within which energy and Mind (which is not us) are facilitated.

Picture a movie projector plugged into the electric wall socket and a light shining within the magic box. Out of the eye of this box are projected moving images in a most compelling way.

Because of a certain suseptability within the human mind, our attention becomes fixed on the world ‘out there’. Our attention moves from ‘here’ and ‘this’ (Self), to outside ourselves and we are transported to wherever and whatever (ego). So ‘ordinary life’ revolves around us in a merry go round that we call ‘experience’. Indeed it is because of our growing addiction to this series of dream sequences, that life can become a blur. In modern times the spinning world appears faster than ever and in a way and as a consequence, many feel overwhelmed by a lack of clarity and control. But there is a mechanism by which we can halt the confusion.

The ancient Greeks had an interesting take on how the human eye works. Whilst today we describe the eye as a camera or receiver of light, the ancient Greeks understood it as a projector. They thought the eye projected light, but perhaps they were describing how the process of mental projection works? Could it be that they intuited the idea that we create everything we see?

Quantum physics tells us that we are able to affect what we see by being an observer. The conundrum of Schroedinger’s cat imagines two realities present at the same time. Until the human observer makes a choice, the cat is both alive and dead.

When Jesus the Christ preached, ‘you are the light of the world’ he meant that we hold the power within ourselves to be not only our own light (God), but able to illuminate the whole universe. We hold tremendous power and he demonstrated this with miracles. Moses did the same when one of his followers walked into the rising tide of the Red Sea to certain death…except instead reality shifted and the waters receded. Parting waters was one of the many spectacular ‘tricks’ in ancient Egyptian magic.

We know that in Ancient Egypt the so called ‘Emerald Tablets’ of the demi-god Thoth or Djbuti instructed all beings to ‘seek light’. This is not as simple a process as it sounds of course. The illusion of reality is strong and shadows and false figures have to be ruthlessly eliminated in what mystics call ‘the hero’s journey’. The archetype of the hero as a warrior on the physical plane is nothing compared to the life long war of mystics and seers for understanding of themselves or enlightenment. This inner battle is the true and only meaning of the Islamic ‘Jihad’, whereby the veils that cover the inner light are tantalisingly removed, represented by the dance of the seven veils and the tantalising feeling of the hidden essence.

It is important to understand how all of this can apply to our own modern lives. One of the great ‘inhibitors’ to the removal of the veils is, ironically, religion. I shall not name and shame any particular religion because they are probably all guilty in my view.

How religion interrupts and corrupts the ‘hero’s journey’, is by promoting the description of the world as being ‘out there’. Most distracting of all is the notion that the saints and the angels and the Divine are all ‘out there’.

We might smile at the Renaissance painting of an old man sitting on a cloud today, as the archetypal God, but such a distortion of reality is still widely believed. Prayers are offered ‘to God’ as if such a being has both the time and interest in our self obsession. ‘You get on with it!’ one might hear a Divine voice command dismissively. Certainly in Christianity, humans were given ‘freewill’ at the beginning in the Garden of Eden, as a punishment rather than a gift. This Divine curse means we are always ‘on our own’.

If it sounds like heresy that God may not listen to prayers, then you are probably missing the point. Prayer was never intended to benefit a Universal Mind because God is by definition, complete in every way. Prayer is a mechanical process whereby a human mind can open paths to the human Soul, using those words that are not of one’s ego. Muslims are compelled to pray five times a day because it stops the ego in it’s tracks and can send our concentration inward. The body is bent in submission and the forehead (brow chakra) touches the ground. The arrogance of the ego is positioned (in Sajda) lower than the heart chakra, where Soul resides.

This process of ‘submission’ is found in most gnostic practises as a way of overcoming the constant demands of the lesser self (ego) and becoming aligned with the higher self (Self).

The words of the prophets to ‘know thyself’ are a hint to what today we might call ‘therapy’ or ‘psychoanalysis’. But these will not take you to a destination. They are principally an unveiling of an archetypal journey which is to travel inward to one’s higher Self, with skip in your step.

Body, Mind, Spirit and Heart on the Golden Road to the Wizard of Self
*picture credit Pacific Standard*

The Silence of Words

27/12/202327/12/2023 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Words have both sound and meaning and it is these aspects of words that I shall explore in this essay. My case shall be that there is a subtle and hidden level of meaning contained in the abscence of words as well within words; a fact we tend to ignore in our conventional Western tradition.

A child, when it is born, has no words in it’s head. It has not heard human language and it’s world is without word. It is an obvious yet obscure fact that every human infant is capable of learning any spoken language. It listens, and then one miraculous day – ‘da da’ – it speaks.

From that moment on this organic computer learns what we call an ‘operating system’ based on a language; amazingly, any language. This is all very marvellous and yet in the future our language inhibits meaning, rather than expands it.

At a certain stage in life, we might reflect and realise how words dominate our perception. We have become slaves to both the external and internal chatter of ‘things’. Words run away with themselves in our heads and much of the time we might wonder who we are and who is in charge.

Slavery of the body by another is a very old problem but slavery of the mind is even older. Early philosophers like Socrates, were sent to prison and even forced to commit suicide on account of their desire to cut through the prison bars of language and thought.

Religious and philosophical minds have, at various moments in history, produced a key to unlock the chains that hold us enslaved. In the West, this was done by encoding ritual using a language people did not understand.

In Catholicism this was the Latin language spoken by bilingual priests. Sadly, in recent times church elders have allowed religious incantations to be delivered in the vernacular. The congregation, who previously had been held rather in awe and suspense by the mystery of Mass, suddenly had this balloon popped and replaced by the humdrumness of ‘understanding’. Mystery was unwrapped like presents on Christmas day.

Only those with a deeper calling, such as Christian monks and nuns, are told to move their consciousness away from the meaning of the incantations and ‘just say the words with your mouth’ and ‘keep your consciousness on the presence of God.’ The mystical revelation was that words deceive by reducing mystery to common ‘understanding’. No one explained this to the uninitiated.

In contrast, Islam has not fallen into this trap and in most countries the original words of Divine Revelation are spoken in the original Arabic. Vast swathes of the Qur’an are learnt and recited, without necessarily knowing their meaning, by non-Arabic speakers. When spoken aloud the sound is as important as the meaning as the sounds of the holy words and phrases, even single letters, transmit a power from the Divine.

Exceptionally Mustafa Kemal Ata turk, President of Turkey in the 1920’s and 1930’s, ordered the Quran to be translated into Turkish as part of his ‘modernisation’ political philosophy. Nothing, as they say, is sacred.

Let us pause for a moment and consider the leap of faith that is being suggested here. Behind stories, myths and legends there was always a sacred understanding transmitted from generation to generation. For instance, the mystery of the ‘white stag’ that skips over the horizon or pales into the mist, so evading the hunter, is a mystery that captures and teases with a sense of rapture and bafflement.

This is ‘not knowing’ and has a value that has been largely ignored by ‘rational’ thinkers in the West.

The modern film ‘The Deer Hunter’ 1978 picks up on this theme of and man’s insignificance when compared to the mysteries of Nature. Amidst the heavy hammers of industrialisation, depicted poetically in the opening sequences of a steel works in Western Pennsylvania the central character ‘Mike’ proposes a hunting trip to his friends.

“You know what those are? Those are sun dogs… It means a blessing on the hunter sent by the Great Wolf to his children… It’s an old Indian thing.”

It is hard normally, to sustain this sense of mystery in life, as we reduce it to ‘catch phrases’ and cliché in conversation. We talk to much and our words rattle around other people’s heads like toy trains on a table top track.

Personally, I have always enjoyed travelling in non-English speaking countries and not understanding a word anyone is saying. Instead of grabbing a phrase book to attempt to understand the hubble and bubble of random conversations, I smell the unusual air and absorb the colour of exotic flowers. In essence, the mind can and should be permitted to stand still and pause. There is benefit, if not buying vegetables in a market, from concentrating on the profound reality of consciousness without words; what we might call ‘being aliveness’.

Lewis Carroll, is one of the great nonsense poets in the English language and has guided children and adults into the land of ‘not thinking’ for over a hundred years. ‘Beware the Jabberwocky’ is neither useful nor profound information, without mask or disguise. This sense of the absurd is like a door into the ‘not normal’, a place children love and adults avoid.

It would be wrong to be completely dismissive about words. In poetry and other sublimely expressive forms of language, they can explore and reveal areas of ourselves that are beyond thought, emotions and intuition. Initiation ceremonies into mystery schools are designed to bring about a consciousness that is completely without explanation by language; otherwise books would have replaced all knowledge and experience.

Unfortunately, in the roundabout of real and virtual worlds that we experience today, words come to us in a repetitive form. Anyone who has started to learn a language other than their mother tongue, will understand what it feels like to talk like a child to another adult. We converse like fools and (not wanting to insult the intelligence of animals), like ‘talking animals’.

If we are to search beyond the meaning of words, as far as our human soul will allow, then words perform a function most purely as sound; with or without a perceived meaning. This sound is the most fundamental form of creativity and inevitably appears in multiple opening verses of Genesis in the Bible that begin with, ‘And God said…’. In English these words have meaning but in the original Aramaic their would also be a magical power to the expression, just as magicians incant ‘spells’…Abracadabra! Words have the quality of spells and are learnt by a process dependent on ‘spelling’.

Pure sounds have an effect upon the human energetic system, in a most fundamental way, which is why the music we listen to is so important; as creative energy devoid of meaning. Destructive music such as Heavy Metal, attacks our ethereal essence and can lead to mental and physical illness, should we allow it. The Ancient Chinese respected ‘harmonious’ music for this very reason and viewed the opposite as a signature of decadence in decline in the State.

At the other extreme, music of a spiritual nature elevates our mood and perception in an experiential way. Various mystical traditions around the world, such as Sufism within Islam, embrace these ethereal qualities of music with ecstatic chanting.

There is a tradition in Yoga called Mantra Yoga which uses the repetition of sounds either silently or aloud to stimulate the human subtle energy system known as the ‘chakra’ and at the same time, stop the internal babble of the ordinary mind.

The Universe (of which we are a microcosm) is a cloud of sound as well as electromagnetic energy. Even the planets of our solar system vibrate at a different frequencies to one another and this mysterious concert has been recorded by modern astrophysicists. It is akin to the ‘music’ heard by mystics in trance as a constant hum or combination of harmonious overtones. Pythagoras proposed that the Sun, Moon and planets all emit their own unique hum based on their orbital revolution, and that the quality of life on Earth reflects the tenor of celestial sounds which are imperceptible to the human ear. This truth has often been represented allegorically in Western art as ‘choirs of angels’ playing musical instruments such as the harp and trumpet.

Perhaps the greatest example of the decadence that words can bring is contained in the Biblical story of the building of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. Here the Divine restraint from advancement of civilisation was used to confuse mankind with multiple languages instead of just one. The English language translates the word ‘babble’ as to ‘talk rapidly and continuously in a foolish, excited, or incomprehensible way’. Turn on your television sets today and discover that nothing has changed since this Biblical event! The world spins and makes us giddy, words fail us, we argue and fight, and all fall down.

In the Eastern philosophies, you will find a great emphasis on non-verbal communication. Much of the Japanese tea ceremonies are conducted in silence and participants are taught to ‘know’ how to conduct the ceremony without the interruption of words. A Japanese friend of mine was late for her tea ceremony class and found herself standing outside the room in which the class was taking place. She knew she would be judged on knowing exactly when to open the door and enter the room.

‘Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.’ Lao Tsu

Finding Oneself

30/10/202331/10/2023 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Spiritual Love

How ironic that this present and looming war, is centred on the so called ‘Holy Land’. This small corner of the world has been the centre of spiritual love for millenniums.

What we should remember however is that those who wear religion as a mask, commit crimes against both humanity and themselves.

‘To thine own self be true.’

When the media use the names of the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, we should be fully aware that anyone can pick up this badge and wear it. It does not mean that a person represents that religion. Only by their actions will their true character and beliefs be revealed. Then we can make up your minds whether we are watching the work the Divine or the Devil.

I have written before about how weak the English language defines and describes ‘love’ (see my blog above called ‘Fifty Shades of Love’). A primary colour in the many shades of ‘love’, is ‘spiritual love’.

It is easier to define spiritual love by what it is not rather than what it is. Certainly it is not romantic love between humans. This is held in high regard by many societies and often rightly so, but when it fails it does so cataclysmically. The union of two ‘selves’ is tainted by projection of one’s anima or animus onto another, hidden bias, false expectation, unfounded optimism, lust and many other aspects of ‘being human’. These have played out in our theatres and cinema screens since the beginning of time.

To understand spiritual love it is essential to be able to see oneself as four components. The acronym BAHAMAS formed in my mind in a dream the other night and this is what it means;

Body:- most people confuse themselves with their body. The Buddhists cleverly ask that if you lose a leg are you not still yourself? Clearly, we are contained in a body, but are not one.

Heart:- this implies the emotional centre of ourselves which scientists observe is far more important in decision making than we give credit for. It achieves a high level of understanding through empathy and non verbal intelligence.

Mind:- again another place that people believe is where their ‘self’ resides. Certainly the brain is a sophisticated organic centre of consciousness but ‘Self’ can exist outside of the body as proved by many who are conscious post mortem, and return to tell the tale.

Soul or Spirit:- however you define these terms ( and many philosophers and religions differ) there is an overwhelming conscious feeling in most people of a power and intelligence within that is not us, but at the same time is us.

With these four categories it becomes slightly easier to understand what ‘be true to oneself’ means. For the ‘Self’ with a capital S (and the ego ‘self’ with a lower case s), is where spiritual love enters and emerges from within the experience we call ‘ourself’.

It is that part which the ‘crown chakra’ (in the Hindu description of the energetic human ‘body’) plays an important part. Along with the Pituitary and Pineal brain centred glands, it is the anatomical equivalent of the modem and microwave dish!

Energy (of the non-electromagnetic debased kind) containing information is universally present for all humans. The benign aspect of this is known as ‘Divine Love’ and my previous blog ‘The Poetic Universe’ attempts to describe this process. The destructive aspect of this is simply an ineffectively weak aspect of Divine Love which is known as ‘The Devil’. Remember that Hell is full of angels. This characteristic of ‘ineffective weakness’ is being played out in the Middle East at the present time and historically is how all quarrels begin; by weak or absent energetic characteristics such as compassion and respect for self and others. Such weakness can also be viewed as the absence of Divine Love or more precisely, a disasterous weakening of that Love which in good times brings happiness and fulfilment to all creatures on Earth and the planet itself.

Seen through the reverse end of this telescope, humans appear very small. But in reality we contain the Universe and this contradiction is evident in the truth already mentioned; ‘that we are not our bodies’. The only part of ourselves for which there is evidence (near death experiences and past life regression) of being eternal, is our Soul or Spirit. This is despite not being able to see it, in the same way we cannot see our head. Logically one should deny the invisible, or change perspective, or imagine what it is and this is what people do – but it does not help.

The human experience, physically and metaphorically, grinds down most of us and some end up as dust sooner than they may have liked. It is all part of being this illusionary entity which changes depending on from which angle it is viewed or imagined. Like Alice in Wonderland, we also can become hopelessly inflated (consider ‘celebrity culture’ and how these souls deal with fame or not) or hopelessly deflated; known presently as mental illness and depression.

Only by overcoming this Tsunamic wave of illusionary experience can humans identify with the ‘still small point’ of spiritual love which they contain. This is the Divinity within them and ironically, is not the ‘small self’ they once believed themselves to be.

What is left after the destruction of the ego by this wave is nothing and something. That something is a small light that somehow avoided being smothered. It has the quality of eternity because it reveals itself as indestructible. It is the ‘love of God’. English expresses this very well because ‘love of God’ implies a two way love between the lover and the beloved. In human love (which is a faint copy of spiritual love) this is known as ‘requited love’.

When human love goes wrong is when the love is not reciprocated. Many stories and enactments on stage and screen, feature this most heart breaking of human conditions.

The golden lining to this cloud however, is that it casts light on how spiritual love is free of the entitlement, judgment and placing of conditions (the marriage contract for instance) that stifles many romances.

Again, the only hope that can arise from this very low point in human history and consciousness, is that from this pit may crawl some who will see the folly of it all. In those few may rise a new society founded on the oldest principles in the Holy Books of ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. This instruction was given to humanity knowing full well, how weak and pathetic we can become when we are blinded by ego and fail to realise who We truly are.

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Shalom, Salaam, Peace

22/10/202328/03/2026 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

There is a deadly game of chess being played before the whole world at the moment. Like all chess matches, the out come depends on the ability of both players to see the intentions of the other.

To the casual observer, Hamas control Palestine but it should be remembered that they do not represent the people of Palestine. Their stated aim is to eliminate Israel, but they lack the means to do this. They only have rockets and assault rifles. By any definition, they are a guerrilla army only capable of performing hit and run operations. They have no chance of winning against the larger and better equipped Israeli Defense Force.

But perhaps there is a clue in this ‘David and Goliath’ situation, as to the strategy of Hamas which few commentators have expressed. Most see only a heinous attack on innocent Israelis attending a music festival close to the border with Palestine.

A second clue is that some of those injured, killed and taken hostage by Hamas are from other countries than Israel. Why were multi-national civilians targeted…could it be to call other nations to arms? Will the USA come to collect it’s own, as it always does?

Why have Hamas behaved so provocatively? Taking on Israel’s extreme right wing government is surely madness.

Or is it?

Israel’s principle justification for retaliation is that ‘we have a right to defend ourselves’. Certainly there are those of the Hebrew faith who justify violence, but only in self defense. That part is not in doubt, but then the issue becomes ‘by what means may one defend a country?’ At present it appears that the ‘the end justifies the means’ thinking model (which I covered in a previous blog as a deeply flawed argument), is being used by Israel to react militarily without respect for Palestinian civilians. Why would you take down an entire residential block in order to take out a Hamas cell?

In criminal law, self defense is generally defined as using equal force in response to the attacker but no more; in other words proportionate. It also allows the defender to strike first. Is Hamas defending Palestine or the IDF defending Israel, or both? When did this war begin?

Despite Israel starting from what can only be described as an intelligence failure of Biblical proportions, Israel say they know precisely where Hamas fighters operate from. No doubt Israeli agents, human intelligence sources and proxy parties in Gaza, report daily on which buildings are used for what purpose.

For the last few decades it has been permissible and proportionate for Israeli troops to enter Gaza and the West Bank, and search these places from which Hamas operate. Tactically, they could go in using high quality intelligence, superior numbers and firepower and the element of surprise. They then might work there way floor by floor, room by room engaging in a firefights when taking fire. These are basic anti-terrorist tactics as practiced by Special Forces all over the world. Has this been done by the IDF? Or has Israel developed a conscript army capable only of walking up and down beside fences, sniping at kids throwing stones and controlling road blocks? Partly true perhaps, but it has a professional officer corps who must now lead their troops into the Gaza Strip against a cornered and dug-in militant force on it’s own territory. The IDF need to show the world it can win.

But the use of artillery and missiles to flatten civilian areas of Gaza and medieval siege tactics, indicates that Israel lacks the ability to use proportionate and intelligence led force to ‘defend itself’.

There is a bigger and more nuanced picture here. Hamas may be extremists using tactics of terror against Israeli civilians, but they know they will never destroy Israel on their own. The ten thousand or so Hamas fighters are not an army capable of open warfare. Instead, in my view, their operations are designed to shock and disgust the whole world. They know precisely how historically Israel will react to hostage taking and murder of their civilian population. In my view, this is what should have made Israel pause and think ‘are we being played here?’

Have Hamas lured Israel into a trap, knowing exactly how to make their enemy go into a rage of self righteousness? Hamas want Israel to respond without regard for civilian life, hospitals and schools in what is often described as an ‘open prison camp’. Hamas are scarily prepared to set up a situation in which innocent Palestinian women and children will be slaughtered without mercy by Israel because, in my view, it intends to shout out a ‘call to arms ‘across the Sunni Muslim and Shia Persian (Iran) countries of the region.

It is obvious that mice do not attack bears unless they have a trick up their sleeve and one trick is that the mice do not care how many non-combatant mice the bear will slaughter. The more the better because the mice know some friendly bears who need to be so outraged that they will join in with the fight.

Presently Hamas sit safe from harm in their tunnels and basements with, I suspect, hidden glee, because the Israeli bear is about to walk into the Bear Pit. Hamas are evil but not stupid. They know that they have friendly armies nearby who are watching closely. Egyptians, for instance, may explode with self righteousness as the pile of Palestinian bodies grows. These are fellow Muslims; brothers and sisters. No more ‘peace be with you’ and ‘Shalom’. This is Old Testament stuff and Joshua will come up to the walls of Jericho once more with his horns and Arc of the Covenant, but this time, to try to destroy Israel.

Hezbollah in Lebanon may join in along with Iran. Egypt might not but who knows? Russia and Syria might. The Muslim countries could make a formidable army of a size not seen since the second world war. This, I believe, is the real aim and strategy of Hamas and to date, everything is going according to plan. Proof of which is gathering of the opposition such as the US Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group (and others) and Amphibious Task Forces positioning currently themselves in the Eastern Mediterranean. Israel can still summon it’s US and Western allies, especially with a U.S. presidential election looming.

But if Israel attracts too much condemnation from U.N. security Council members and other world leaders, it could find it’s status and raison d’etre seriously challenged…as may be prayed for by Hamas. The watching world leaders do not have to side with Hamas when condemning Israel, but they will seek to protect Palestinian civilians, for whom there is has been decades of sympathy worldwide.

The, as yet, unrealised but possible turn of events of this toxic and inflammable political mixture, is the effect of the emergence of a charismatic Islamic leader. These figures pop up at important crossroads in history and this likelihood is no doubt, somewhere in the CIA playlist. Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Hitler…These figure heads gather their military power and come down on their enemies in a whirlwind of destruction. The Muslims are expecting the Iman Mahdi, real or impersonated, and this could be a potent factor in forthcoming events.

A Muslim army with a new leader would leave organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah on the sidelines of a global conflagration, such as has not been seen for decades. Remember that those who conducted the second World War and knew the importance of avoiding a third at all cost, have now passed on. With that loss, so has much of the resolve of politicians to avoid another world war at all costs. That is dangerous.

Another unspoken factor is that the Middle East has a completely different culture to the West and ‘democracy’. Failed foreign interventions, as happened in living memory in Afghanistan and Iraq, show that fighting in a foreign land against religious or political fighters using guerrilla tactics and dictators, distanced from your own country with stretch military supply lines, does not work. Vietnam was the same.

Israel depends largely on the USA for it’s existence and Palestinians on foreign aide.

A ‘two State solution’ depends on peace, fair distribution of land, resources and mutual tolerance. How far we are away from that is subject to debate but it deserves a chance.

Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. When it is hijacked by extremists who use fake moral virtues to hide their real intentions and justify immoral acts, these actions are neither peaceful nor tolerant. Love and tolerance is at the heart of Christian and Jewish religious ethics making reconciliation an achievable objective for the right leadership; which is not present at the moment.

In my view the way forward for Israel is to punish Hamas using international law rather than the ‘eye for an eye’ spiral of violence that we are witnessing. There is virtue in seeking peace with honour for all sides, but who will make this happen?

The Beggar King

15/03/202320/03/2023 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

We may consider ourselves ‘modern’ but most social scientists today will agree that we operate as members of a tribe. Class distinction is an example. In each class we accept difference of ‘rank’ with alarming credulity. We know that those ‘above us’ may not deserve automatic respect and yet that is the way it is.

Many of the politicians in power today are people who you would think twice to employ to clean the windows of your house, and yet they are tribal ‘chiefs’. So who are these people and why did we hand over our power to them?

The Beggar’s Opera: picture credit The British Libary

There has been a lineage of ‘royal families’ since prehistoric times. In Mesopotamia there was discovered a ‘King’s list’; a long line of Kings stretching back in time. In Ancient Egypt, hieroglyphs name a chronology of the Pharaoh’s who were the mid-point between man and the gods. Power was handed down as a birthright and royal families, including the Roman Caesar’s, accepted incest as a means to maintain the ‘blue blood’.

The problem with monarchs was always that there are good monarchs and bad ones. The self indulgences of dynasties such as the Bourbons in France, were persuasive catalysts to republican revolutionaries.

But what is interesting is the way in which since then, some Republics have morphed back into Monarchy’s. The United States of America is an interesting example. The Pilgrim Fathers were intent on leaving behind the absolute power of the royal families of Great Britain. The original Constitution of the United States of America handed power to the individual. The Freemasons who wrote this, including such figures as Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, did not anticipate how power would slowly return to the president. Today, the President of the United States is given the freedom from prosecution and pomp once only afforded to Kings. If they have an idea they make it law. They are free to write ‘executive orders’ with as much alacrity as Popes write bulls and Monarch’s, decrees.

My point is that however far you try to strip an individual of absolute power, it doesn’t work. The present Presidents of China and Russia are examples of how to ‘eliminate the opposition’, in the same brutal manner as various Caesar’s in Ancient Rome. Today, there are more people living under dictators than democracies.

The only power that ‘the people’ retain is protesting on the streets. Today, many countries ruled by dictators, such as Iran, Myanmar, China, Russia, have had to deal with popular public demonstrations demanding basic rights for the individual. Often their pleas go unheard and their banners are without words.

In all of these affairs, both of state and in business, there rises to the surface, persons whose suitability as figures of respect, is doubtful at best. Those who seek power over others are almost by definition the least worthy. In democracies, there is no election of those who wish to be even considered as candidates. ‘Running for office’ is left to self promotion and lambasting the opposition; characteristics generally found in the most narcissistic and least worthy personalities.

You may be wondering where this sad description of human self organisation is leading. Well, there has to be a solution to the problem.

In the many native tribes of North America, there was also a system of leadership which was known as ‘Goose Leadership’. A group would sit in a circle and a goose feather would be produced. The rule for the meeting was that only those who held this feather were able to speak.

The result was a collective assurance that if someone had some poor ideas, their influence would not hinder the others for long! Similarly, the inspired suggestions would be recognised and adopted.

The significance of the goose feather is of course, from the instinct of geese to share the lead role in their familiar V-shape flying formation.

What arises here is a noble social structure that is neither strong nor weak, rich nor poor. This is contrary to the binary ideal within other systems of social organisation where only wealth and power gain respect. Between absolute wealth and absolute poverty, there is always a more balanced, middle path.

The Prince Siddhartha Guatama was born in a palace and lived in northern India, with a life of luxury beyond imagination. But he was aware enough to realise that he was unfulfilled by this lifestyle.

He left his life of total sensory satisfaction to become a wandering ascetic and teacher. At one stage this left his body in a most withdrawn and malnourished state and statues sometimes depict him with his rib cage exposed and thin limbs. Aestheticism also did not satisfy him and he finally gave up the search for the right path, by sitting under a tree.

Here he attained enlightenment and the name Budh was applied to him as a form of respect which in it’s masculine form is Buddha, in the same way that Jesus was the Christ.

Buddha, “Awakened One” or “Enlightened One,” is the masculine form of budh (बुध् ), “to wake, be awake, observe, heed, attend, learn, become aware of, to know, be conscious again,” “to awaken” “”to open up” (as does a flower),””one who has awakened from the deep sleep of ignorance and opened his consciousness to encompass all objects of knowledge.”It is not a personal name, but a title for those who have attained bodhi (awakening, enlightenment).Buddhi, the power to “form and retain concepts, reason, discern, judge, comprehend, understand,”is the faculty which discerns truth (satya) from falsehood.

source: Wikipedia

A benign leader is not then, an individual concerned with status and personal wealth. Such a leader will discard these ‘trappings’ as of no value.

Most importantly, I am optimistic enough to believe that the leaders who will emerge for humanity in the near and far future, will have benign, spiritual qualities. They will not live in palaces but be content with a humble dwelling amongst the common people. They will own little, in the manner of the native American people, and be perfectly content.

‘Living by need and not greed’ as Manhatma Ghandi once advised, will become the norm. Many god-less people, used to unsustainable European materialist lifestyles, will have had their day. Their lives will become like those of Kings and Queens of the past who had to be beheaded before they understood their arrogance!

To give up riches and power requires considerable humility, the type present in those who we find begging on the streets. They may not have sought humility, but life – either fairly or unfairly – has brought them to the depths of despair.

We are all capable of beings King’s, as in the goose leadership model. We are also all capable of being beggars. Neither is a sustainable position however, either socially or spiritually. If we are to learn anything from the history of mankind, it is to realise that the ideal place for the individual to be is somewhere in the middle, without pride or greed and with the desire towards the common good for all.

Such a psychological transformation is contained in the concept of the ‘Beggar King’; the one who was once powerful and once the lowest, but has now found a ‘happy medium’; what the Buddha called, ‘The Middle Way’.

Darkness Visible

13/10/202215/10/2022 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / 1 Comment

It is a curious fact that the experience of each human generation differs considerably from the world that their parents and grand parents experienced. Every twenty five years or so new science and technologies, new social norms, new artistic expression, new language, new opportunities…new everything, replace the old lamps with new.

*The Evil Magician’s Deal* in the story of Aladdin

Perhaps you know this from your own life experience? Then consider how extraordinary the changes must have been if you multiply a generation by a hundred. You will then be in 500BCE. We know roughly what people around the world were doing at this time but can we hope to understand how they experienced the world? When we think about this and contemplate the art, literature and stories, architecture and engineering, religious expression, military campaigns, and famous leaders, we realise that we really have no idea of what was in their minds. Why should we even expect to understand them?

When we consider the Ancient Egyptians of this time for instance, we know something about the everyday lives of the ordinary people and the aristocratic priests and pharaohs, but their religious and spiritual expressions baffle us.

We can imagine that consciousness of the time was intimately connected with the religious rituals intended to thank and gain the co-operation of the Pantheon of gods. The process produced visible and tangible effects that today we would describe as magical. The really big magic is described as a miracle; performed by saints and prophets.

What miraculous power was contained in the Arc of the Covenant did, for instance; a power that made Moses steal it from the Egyptians? Did he need the Arc to perform miracles such as winning battles against all odds?

For this reason we might describe the Egyptian religion as being a ‘magical science’, in the same way perhaps that owners of mobile phones today interface with magic, for they do not understand how their devices work, only how to use them.

Various religions have always spun into and out of existence all over the world expressing experiences and ideas about the physical and energetic universes that we cannot even imagine today. They shared certain ethics, at least approximately, about treating others as you would like to be treated…but there were darker powers at work. The floors in many Cathedrals andMasonic Halls are black and white squares, in case we need reminding.

At some point in the last few millennium, spiritual disciplines were taken over by the ‘dark side’. The mystery schools of Rome and Greece selected initiates to keep the hidden abilities and powers out of the experience of the general populous, but inevitably this knowledge has leaked to those whose intentions are not honourable.

The Catholic religion persecuted the Jews and Muslims in Spain who said they had converted to Christianity. The Spanish Inquisitions used interrogation and torture to find out if their conversions were sincere. The reader can reflect on other examples of religions who have used evil means to satisfy perverted desires, such as religious wars and the treatment of indigenous peoples by missionaries.

One might ask; what has replaced the desire to worship a benign supreme being?

I would argue that science and scientific method has become the new world religion. The scientist who perhaps started this transition was the great mathematician and physicist, Sir Isaac Newton.

He modestly described himself as having the advantage of ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ while others call him ‘the last of the magicians’. Certainly his best scientific work was done before he reached the age of thirty and in his later years he devoted himself to the pseudo-science of Alchemy and interpreting ancient Biblical texts. He never attempted to replace religious truth with scientific truth as they were the same.

But despite this, Newton became the tipping point that has propelled later generations ( including ourselves ) into a more mechanical interpretation of the universe. This we might reflect, is also why we cannot understand our ancestors who lived in a more ‘energetic’ world. Materialism became the new religion and it’s high priests today are scientists and inventors such as Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. All the miraculous journeys of the mystics to the planets and stars in ancient times are being re-enacted with hydrogen powered rockets and space craft.

*Space X Rocket picture credit; Actual News Magazine*

But over the centuries this new religion has performed the same split as previous religions. There is ‘good science’ and ‘bad science’; in other words, science has also a branch whose effects are malign. For example, when Albert Einstein realised how his theories contributed to the production of the first Atomic bomb, he is reported to have exclaimed, ‘I wish I had been a plumber.’ Scientists and politicians could have confined the knowledge of the power of the atom to secrecy; just as they did the ideas of ‘free electricity’ described in Nicola Tesla’s technologies, the electric car, the hydrogen engine and the tyre that does not wear out.

Instead the genii was out of the bottle and it will never be able to put back into it. This decision was attempted to be justified as ‘saving thousands of lives by ending the second world war more quickly’. How taking the lives of non-combatant civilians in their tens of thousands and not considering it a war crime is something for history to decide.

If those politicians had considered how the Atom bomb would mould the following centuries and the lives of their children and grand children, they might have anticipated loose canons like Kim Jun Ill in North Korea and the Iranians, gaining the geopolitical power that such weapons bestow.

Just as in Star Wars, the main players have been tempted to use their spiritual powers in malign ways. Right wing politicians of today use the promise of being ‘scientific’ to deceive voters. The use of ‘scientists’ to advise governments in the recent pandemic is an example of this. Most fields of science have a spectrum of members with differing opinions. It is too simple for governments to choose scientists whose ideas support the politician’s agendas.

Another simple example might be when a president of the United States is voted out, he challenges the counting of the votes. Hardly a clever argument since counting is taught in primary school, but such is the force of the personality of Donald Trump, that even after being proven wrong by the various courts and organisations with expertises in the presidential voting process, he still maintains the election was ‘rigged’.

Scientific method has always included the presentation of evidence to support and prove a hypothesis. Those in power today (or who advise the powerful) who have gone over to the dark side, reveal themselves by not presenting proof of what they say.

During the pandemic, advice from ‘experts’ was presented which has since been disproved. Even You Tube now no longer bans references to the high risk group being solely the over 60’s and that vaccinated individuals are as likely to transmit the virus as the non-vaccinated. This would have made a huge difference to how societies reacted to the pandemic as this was known using published scientific statistics from Israel in April 2020.

False science can be summed up as ‘irrational’. Politicians who make irrational statements have a unique advantage over the rational minded; they are very hard to predict and even harder to debate with. They will confuse people so much that reasonable conversation is impossible.

In conjunction with ‘bad ideas’ is the use of dominating personalities to challenge benign ideas and processes. Force does not mean physical violence necessarily, but in the infamous storming of the Capitol Building in Washington, we see that it is a weapon that the high priests of dark science and their followers are willing to use.

This fateful combination of the irrational and force, was fatefully used by many historical figures such as Adolf Hitler and present day leaders such as Vladimir Putin.

It is naïve of opponents to dismiss their irrationality as mental illness, deceit or stupidity. A leader might have all of these characteristics which combined with aggression can overcome the most assertive opponents. Hitler’s own generals were exasperated by his unsound strategic decisions and overpowering personality.

So what are we to do? Should we look on and do nothing?

John Stuart Mill in 1867 in an address to St Andrew’s College said;

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”

In my view inaction is not an option against present day threats. An example of inaction might be the attitude of the Europeans to Russia’s invasion of Georgia and now Ukraine. If we doubt this then there are warnings from the past that we might heed.

*The Georgian Five Day War*
*picture credit; fpri*

In 1961 Dwight Eisenhower made the following warning to democracies in his farewell speech from the Whitehouse;

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.”

Perhaps today we could add ‘media’ and ‘pharmaceutical companies’ to the list of those seeking to acquire ‘unwarranted influence’.

The president who succeeded him was John F. Kennedy who warned of the dangers posed to world peace;

“Our goal is not the victory of might but the vindication of right…not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere, and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved.” –“Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Soviet Arms Build-up in Cuba (485),” October 22, 1962, Public Papers of the Presidents: John F. Kennedy, 1962.

Kennedy was a Catholic and appealed to the Pope to intervene in the Cuban Missile crisis; what you might call a ‘spritual intervention’.

As already explained, from the mystery schools of ancient Greece and Rome to the various secret societies of the present day, techniques in spiritual growth and personal power were taught. The original purpose was, of course, to be one with the Divinity which included a type of magic.

These techniques were based on the use of mind and energy and are the product of strict spiritual discipline. This should not be confused with religion, which is a pale copy for people who do not have the interest, time, stamina, spiritual calling, perseverance, courage or many other special qualities unique to the holy and saintlike beings of our past and present. The spiritual path is followed by a tiny fraction of one percent of the world’s population because it is uniquely demanding. It is the equivalent of the special forces in military organisations and The Knights Templar exemplified how these two areas of human experience have much in common.

Today one might believe the modern Freemason’s are the inheritors of this most secret and powerful knowledge. The face they turn to society is as solely as givers of charity to the needy but one does not have to research too deeply to find that there are other directions that they extend their power.

As in Star Wars, the ‘dark side’ usurps even the most holy, benign and righteous so that power moves from helping the poor and weak to helping the rich and strong. The right wing governments of today reflect this perversion. The predictions of past American presidents are confirmed as we see industry, pharmaceuticals, media, military, governments and oligarchs; support the elites at the expense of truth and freedom for the general population.

The power they use are on the surface is from ‘scientists’ and ‘economists’ but their real power is derived from what one might term ‘super nature’. The Nazi regime in the 1930’s in Germany were greedy to attain supernatural powers. Herman Goering was determined to find the ‘Holy Grail’ as described by Otto Wern and devoted much time and resources to acquiring knowledge on how to make a ‘superhuman’ race, the Aryans. Himmler included witch dances into SS ceremonies seen here in Poland in 1939.

*Nazis Secretly Used Witcraft Intending to Extend the Reich*

picture credit; Historynet

What we observe today in various governments around the world, is predicated and dictated by a group of leaders who influence and dictate under the general and historical term ‘illuminati’.

To finish on a lighter note, or perhaps more spine tingling, watch very carefully the magicians of today who demonstrate magic for entertainment. They maintain that they are mere illusionists and certainly most of them are. But ask yourself the question, when you see a magician put their hand through glass or lift impossible weights; how much of this is illusion and how much perverted spiritual powers? Then project these thoughts into every part of human society in the twentieth century.

picture credit; poppytv.sg

Are we watching science or magic? Are we walking in the light or the dark?

As an appendix to this essay a poem by the author…

The Devil’s Armchair

It sat there

-the Devil’s armchair

on the stage like any other armchair

awaiting his highnesses’ appearance.

An audience sat

expecting a spectacular

with just a dose

of uncontrollable HORROR.

Instead, a god-like, quiet man, appeared

and settled in a position of comfort

in the armchair – smiling –

ready for questions.

Each person in that audience

then ‘set to’, convinced of this and that,

and found the responses

totally calming and reassuring.

Back to the Garden

13/08/202213/08/2022 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

An avid follower of the ‘language of the birds’ might have noticed that hEaVEn contains the name EVE. There is even an echo of Eve in EdEn.

This oddity is not necessarily meaningful or intentional, but that is not necessary. It’s just satisfying to think in an intuitive way, like the birds that flitter around us for no reason but give us messages; a process known as the language of the birds. There are things we do not hear and hear in the garden.

Some feminist friends of mine express the view that mysogeny has it’s roots in the creation story in Genesis. ‘Why is it the woman who disobeys God and eats the apple?’ But to me, as a human being, the gender distinction is another example of how the dualistic mode of thought that started at this very point in time, has created confusion ever since. This dualistic perception is even hard wired into the words we use to describe opposites such as long and short, able and unable, peace and war.

In the Old Testament story about the Tower that was sinfully built in Babel, the consequence is God punishing mankind. This meant that humans no longer understand each other by using one language, but create confusion with multiple languages. If that story was about words then the story of Genesis is God’s punishment making us misunderstand our thought patterns.

And how we think must be far more important than how we speak. I have encountered foreigners who misunderstand me speaking in their language, not because my words were wrong but because they think in a different way. And thinking is not taught in schools. It is assumed children pick up good thinking skills, when there is no reason to assume they will.

Let us find a nice bench and sit for a while in the original Garden of Eden before humans came along. Enjoy a bit of peace. The Biblical creation myth is largely in agreement with the creation according to current earth science; minerals, plants, animals…until, kerpow – a human appears! This is the beginning of the end of a blissful life in the garden (Heaven) because Adam is one of half of what is to become two halves. The garden is singular, the lovers are plural. There are not several gardens all running along the Tigris and Euphrates but just one. This state represents the primal state of mind that spiritual paths aspire towards. For example, in Buddhism the principle ‘All is One’ contains everything anyone needs to know.

In Zen Buddhism the master asks the pupil, ‘what is the sound of one hand clapping?’ The question is nonsense and to correct this we might suppose that God had to create Eve, because you cannot have x without y.

The creation story is more a description of a fall into a highly confusing mode of thought which paradoxically is both ‘confusing’ and ‘enlightening’. Confusion and understanding are, after all, directly connected by a continuum you might call ‘knowledge’; they are different aspects of the same thing. But in dualistic thinking patterns we learn to differentiate and name, compare and contrast. There is always ‘this and that’, which is dualism.

In dual thought patterns adjectives are used only to describe the two extremes of the same thing. For example ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are highly relative situations and things and context and consequences can morph each into the other. And yet most people when asked, will say they prefer good to bad. Have they thought about that? The writings and lectures of the late Alan Watts, who studied Christian theology and Eastern philosophy, returns over and over again to the eastern understanding that there are no opposites, only continuities.

*Alan Watts picture credit; Stillness Speaks*

In applied mechanics, physicists will not fall into a dualistic mode of thought. They will not use the words ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ but only degrees of heat. A fridge is cold because it expels heat. It has no measurable relationship with cold because cold is just a place from where heat has been removed. The amount of heat is indeed a continuum, which we look at every time we view a thermometer, which measures heat – thermo – not cold.

There is another well known symbol which illustrates the unity of ‘opposites’ which is the Chinese Ying Yang symbol. The two opposites of black and white, combine harmoniously in the diagram as two fish chasing each others tails. Most importantly each fish contains a little of the other, represented by a black or white eye.

We are told in Genesis that this dualism is a mode of thinking used by God;

‘and God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Light.’ Genesis 1.6

The whole process of ‘naming’ is formalised to describe a creation that was already there, and at the same time, becoming so.

The word of God (ergo ‘god-like’ mankind) is all-powerful, not just revealing but causing something to come into existence. This is the modern conundrum of quantum physics where the tree falls in a forest and the question is posed whether this event happens if there is no observer.

In magick this odd version of reality appears in the word, ABRACADABRA meaning; ‘I will create as I speak.’

The human body has a similar confluence contained in the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Each half has a different function; right is intuitive, left is reasoning. People tend to fall into a bias towards using a half particular to themselves, and we compound this dualism in schools and university degrees, as ‘science’ and ‘art’.

Few realise this is a most unhappy state of mind, or perhaps they do but do not know how to get out of it! When there have been individuals who have learned to use both sides of the brain equally and non-competitively, they bring very special ideas to humanity; so special we call them ‘geniuses’. Leonardo de Vinci, Michaealangelo, Albert Einstein are a few famous examples of the so called ‘renaissance mind’. Thinking back to the introduction to this essay, this is the ‘god-like’ ability imparted to human kind by the Creator.

Albert Einstein, for instance, is famous for realising energy and matter are not different but the same and completely interchangeable using the formula;

e=mc2

– where c is the speed of light – ‘let there be light and there was light’.

Very early Gnostic traditions did not allocate gender to the ‘God-head’ or ‘consciousness’ or ‘mind’ or however you wish to understand the creative consciousness that unraveled as the Universe. And we might add existed before and after creation since there is no ‘before’ and ‘after’ in non-dualism. (Scientists are only now coming around to the idea that the ‘big bang’ was an end as well as a beginning as described for millenniums in the Hindu Upanishads.)

The never ending cosmic cycles and the unity of everything is represented in alchemical manuscripts as the snake forming a circle as it bites it’s own tail. Everything becomes a snake with no head and no tail. A snake is a continuum and of course this consciousness was prior to and initiated, dualistic thought and the contradictions that emanated as a consequence of adopting it.

Every time we spin a coin in the air and ask ‘heads or tails?’ we are a mind locked into the

‘either / or’ mode of thinking.

The key that opens this lock is the word ‘both’. You will often hear in interviews on the radio the journalist asking, ‘is it this or that?’ and the respondent answers, ‘both’. The question is a trap and people who know their subject (which they usually do if they are on national radio) have no problem with contradiction – or rather the illusion of a ‘contradiction’. They then go onto to describe all the aspects of the same problem including the two options contained in the question.

Those who do not understand this, fall into the elephant trap of ‘left politics’ or ‘right politics’ and are unwilling ever to change their bias. In medieval terms ‘they are in Hell’ because they will never understand the totality of what is going on and therefore how to influence affairs and events for the better of all.

And we should remember that the snake in Genesis was coiled around ‘The Tree of Knowledge’. Eve explained to the snake that the tree in the center of the garden they were forbidden to eat from on pain of death.

‘And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye, shall not surely die:

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’ Genesis 3/4

From a purely objective point of view, the snake was right. This truly was the effect of eating the apple. The issue was that eating it was against the will of God. At that moment, it could be argued, Eve was unaware of why God had ordered this as she was in a state of ignorance of the ‘opposites’; she was in blissful ignorance, quite literally. So she can hardly be blamed for not conceiving that knowing good and evil is a liberating but problematic change in human consciousness. It brought god-like power to humans and if we look back at history; it really did.

Humans have used their creative imagination to take to pieces and put back again in new ways, everything we know. It has been a far from easy path as God points out in the following passages of Genesis.

‘Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken’.

No longer would grapes fall from the tree into the mouth but toil and hardship would be the lot of humans as punishment.

*Joni Mitchell – picture credit; Reverbnation*

There came a hippie moment in the 1960’s where ‘rules’ were at last questioned and even abandoned. At the legendary festival of Woodstock, there was a young singer;

We are stardust, we are golden. And we’ve got to get ourselves. Back to the garden. Joni Mitchell – from the song ‘Woodstock’.

Fortunately, getting back to the garden is not impossible. Like all paths this particular human history of which we are all so proud, will lead us back to the beginning again. All directions are the correct directions to take, all mistakes are ultimately correct. If and when we stop dissecting everything, including our own thoughts, we will discover the original state of bliss, second time around.

Watching Grass Grow

01/08/202201/08/2022 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

I do not normally watch football matches. The reason is simply that I find them slow and the match result often unsatisfying. More on this later. One the other hand I can be persuaded to watch any sport where England takes part in a sporting final and where there is a high likelihood of a match of equals.

So I sat down to watch the European Final of Womens Football 2022 last night. History, we were told, was about to be made.

But first, some game theory. Many games simulate military strategy and football is no different. Each side has an area to defend. The resources of each side are matched with no particular advantage to either other than their own esprit de corps, skill and strategy. With these resources, the sides must defend at the same time and with the same force, as attack.

What happens when one side is considerably less skilled and less determined in it’s aim than the other…is that the more skilful side wins convincingly.

This gives rise to a certain inevitability as to the outcome giving the supporters and participants of the losing side enormous disappointment. Their expectations of winning were shown to be based on false confidence in their own ability.

This is why sides which are equal in every way, provide the greatest challenge to the players and entertainment to the supporters.

The game of football, however, provides a disappointing set of rules that restricts uncertainty and the excitement that comes from the expectation of gaining a winning advantage at any moment.

What works most against football being entertaining, is the system of low scoring. A 0-0 result is not uncommon and only slightly better is a draw of say 1-1. Ideally a score should reflect the skill of a side as closely as possible and in low scoring games, it is unlikely to do this. In fact sometimes the better side may lose due to some random misfortune such as an injury or poor refereeing decision, giving rise to indignation amongst players and supporters; the phenomenon of a ‘pitch invasion’ by angry supporters must happen more in football than any other sport.

If we examine how well high scoring games reflect the process of a match and outcome, such as tennis or cricket or snooker, players have a chance to change the course of the game almost every time they touch the ball. The better player or side will almost certainly be identified by the final score and both sides feel fair play has taken place.

Compare this with football, where much of the play and touch of the ball results in no particular advantage to either side. Players often kick the ball back into their own area rather than forward. They engage in a series of safe passes in which the ball moves between players of the same side with little risk of losing possession. During this time the grass grows another micro millimeter.

Losing possession is not even a great disadvantage to either side. Goal keepers regularly kick the ball away high in the air with only limited accuracy as to where it is going to land. The opposing side might intercept the landing with a header which is so uncontrolled that possession changes side yet again.

The prospect of the ball moving around the pitch in this manner gives no reward to either side. Players compensate for their frustration by taking a risk of injury to themselves or other players, with aggressive tackles. The result is that play stops whilst a fallen party rolls around theatrically on the ground in order for the referee to take the matter more seriously than is warranted. Medical teams are permitted to run onto the pitch to give ‘treatment’ that in olden days consisted of squeezing a wet sponge over an affected area and today consists of more elaborate physiotherapy, ICU teams and trauma psychologists.

So the game stops and starts with as much randomness as a demolition ball and certainly not as interestingly. At the end of 45 minutes of nothing, both sides rush off as if they need a break. During this time supporters argue or fight or get more drunk, and players are given a victory talk by their coaches and managers and anyone else who happens to be in the dressing room, telling them all to ‘work together as a team’ and ‘get the ball in the back of the net’.

At the end of another 45 minutes of lawn care, neither side has managed to kick the ball into the exceedignly large space enclosed by the goal posts. One almost gets the feeling that even if the opposing side was not present, a team working on it’s own to move the ball from one end of the pitch to the other and then between the goal posts, would find the challenge irritatingly difficult.

At the end of the game one side may have by some fluke, scored a goal and this sometimes unearned (even an own goal), event is considered enough in the Football Association rule book, to warrant deciding which is the better side.

In the likely event of a draw, the most frustrating spectacle of a ‘penalty shoot out’ is commenced. Each side takes it in turns to stand right in front of the goal posts and kick the ball past the goal keeper. The success of this depends largely on randomness on behalf of the boot of the player, the arrangement of worm-casts, damage to the pitch over the penalty taking position, the strength and direction of the wind, the strength, height and direction of the sun, the clarity of mind of the players ( after brain damage caused by heading the ball too frequently in their career ) the clarity of mind of the goal keeper who has to guess which way the kicker is going to kick, and the conflicting chants of two opposing tribes of supporter.

In order for any game to avoid such a spectacle of chance to ‘decide’ the result of previous vain and worthless endeavours, I strongly suggest that a new system of continuous assessment is introduced.

This means that points will be awarded more often.

So to improve football certain changes might occur;

Use a point based system instead of counting goals.
Award 3 points for a goal, 2 for a corner and 1 for a side throw or hitting one of the football posts and horizontal bar by skill or fluke. This will keep the ball in play and the game moving and require skill and concentration.
Increase the size of the goal or remove the goal keeper completely.
Reduce or increase the number of players. For instance there could be one additional player coming on for each side every ten minutes. After half time players leave the pitch in the same way.
Change the size of shape of the ball. A ball as large as the players would be hilarious if nothing else.
Change the number of balls. Two balls could be in play at the same time, or twenty.
Allow hitting the ball with a fist instead of the head (to preserve brains)
Break the game down into more parts as in tennis, so that an uneven number of wins is required of sub parts of the game rather than have just the one result.
Permit obstacles on the pitch such as sand pits and water holes and or circus perfomers.
Give each player a giant inflatable hammer with which to hit each other.

There are no doubt many other variations to the rules of football that would create far greater entertainment. The key change to make however is to get rid of the unsatisfactory scoring system.

Games are invented by mankind and not received from God, and should never be subject to dogma. It’s okay to change / improve the rules.

People who resist change it is said, are willing to accept change only so long as the new version is the same as the old.

Flippant? Not really. Consider how after centuries of having male only matches, females are now also playing the game of football. Trouble is, it’s just more of the same.

Flippant? Then consider that football in this analogy illustrates how the human mind is resistant to change even when a particular mode of human behaviour and rules is clearly in need of improvement. Then, when change is finally accepted, it is often no change at all but the similitude of change.

Matters Blog

Original thoughts on a variety of subjects that matter to me

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