Dualistic thinkers (thinking using opposite terms such as black and white) have a problem with the idea of good and evil. Most spend their lives seeking goodness and avoiding evil. It’s a well intended strategy and one promoted extensively by Christians. Jesus the Christ spent forty days and nights resisting temptation by the ‘prince of the world’…the Devil.
The problem is, life is not so simple as good and bad…would that it were! Would that Western thinkers looked over the shoulders of Eastern philosophers who believe that there is no such thing as pure goodness, nor pure evil. (The corollary is that there is no Heaven and no Hell which is also true but perhaps the subject for another essay.)
In the Yin Yang symbol, which is central to Eastern philosophy, good contains a little touch of evil and evil a nudge of good. Sometimes goodness may just be a thin shell containing a large quantity of evil and visa versa. An example might be the Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in the second World War. The world would be a better place if that technology had never existed. What you see, is not always what you get.
The past can provide valuable lessons but here I shall use some examples of ‘dualistic thought’ from current Western political debate; there is a tempting assortment to choose from!
The first woe is, ‘Generalisation’. Politicians are by definition, strategists; taking a broad view and delegating attention to detail to minions. They are therefore prone to declare noble ‘aims’ to please voters, such as to ‘reduce inflation, help the vulnerable, create jobs, improve public services’ etc. etc.
What is not presented for examination is how this aim is going to be achieved.
As an example of using the wrong ‘means’, the previous government in the United Kingdom made an election commitment to ‘stop the boats’. This referred to undocumented migrants crossing the English Channel in dangerously unsuitable boats. This aim was presented as ‘good’ because there had been boats sinking and people tragically drowning. The government’s intention was ‘good’; to save life. If the means to stop the boats was challenged, the questioner was accused of wanting people to drown; they were supporting evil over good. The argument was totally dualistic and as a result over simplistic.
Pretending to be a benign policy without hiding the real reason
The absurdity is that any problem solving plan can be justified as ‘moral’ and ‘benign’ whether it was likely to work or not. It just needs a ‘good’ intention or aim and expects never to be challenged on any other grounds.
The detailed plan to ‘stop the boats’ intended to send failed UK asylum seekers to Rwanda. The plan included breaking international law and expense that did not match the benefit. Worse still it was based on an untested assumption that those willing to risk death by drowning would be put off by a comfortable flight across Africa to free food, health care and accommodation in sunny Rwanda. Asylum seekers from Rwanda would probably not be so pleased as it’s not a safe country by most definitions (but that was a level of complexity too deep to examine). The final cost of this plan was the same as putting up each asylum seeker in the Ritz Hotel in London; an option the Ritz would probably have declined.
My point is that however absurd the detailed plan, the government would repeat it’s justification by asking, ‘do you want people to continue to drown in the English Channel?’ as if that were the only option to achieve their well intentioned aim. Of course it was not the only option but presented as such. In the end the plan was abandoned and hundred of millions of pounds metaphorically thrown into the English Channel at a time when the lack of money in the countrie’s coffers was also a problem.
The new Labour government are now desperately trying to balance the books by not giving pensioners an allowance to heat their homes over the coming winter which they agree is regrettable and may cause death ( i.e. an evil ) but is justified by a need to balance the country’s books (i.e. a goodness )
When politicians are not generalising they present details to prove or disprove a generalisation. A prime example appeared in the news this week during the televised debate between candidates for the forthcoming presidential elections in the U.S. of A.
In this debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Trump purported that migrants were eating the pets of American citizens in Springfield, Ohio. The response of Harris was the only rational one, which was to giggle. Apparently, this story was currently feeding the confirmation bias of social media zealots, which included a person who considers himself fit to rule the world. Fact checkers and local officials confirmed that the story was not true. But this does not stop those repeating it, who wish it was true.
The problem for those caught up in such an argument is that there may have been just one instance of starving migrants cooking up a street animals on a cold and windy night to feed their children. In the world of political debate not using numbers or arguing over whether numbers are true or not, allows generalisations to pass critical examination because even if there is only one instance, the general statement becomes true, even if totally misleading. It’s a gift to politicians.
picture credit: Peakpx
At the beginning of this essay I referred to eastern philosophy as tending to take a holistic view of events, rather than focus on a particular set of facts. In Surah Al-Khaf in the Holy Quran, Moses meets a figure not named but described as a righteous servant of God possessing great wisdom. Moses watches him damage a humble fisherman’s boat and protests despite being sworn not to question any thing he witnesses. In time, an army passes in need of such boats and ignores the damaged one. The fisherman is able to repair the damage and keeps his boat and his livelihood. There follows other stories where actions are ‘evil’ at first sight, but as circumstances develope, are shown to have been benign.
In conclusion, our world at the present time is full of major choices about which we hear politicians of all persuasions expounding strong views. As humble citizens we have little say in these matters and have to trust those promoting ‘good’ and denouncing the ‘bad’.
Decisions are for reasons suggested above, and in my view, never such a clear cut choice. We assume we make choices based on hard facts, reasonableness and clear routes to known consequences. I contest this assumption and suggest we take a more pragmatic view, summed up in the simple word ‘maybe’.
Theatre is a valuable metaphor to help us understand how our perceptions operate. Stories have the unique ablility to press the play, fast forward, rewind and stop buttons, in our heads, for the dimension of time holds no power over imagination. Weirdly our physical ‘reality’ has a similar quality, as the Shakespeare quotation above infers. Our experience of the world is as a stage set, with backdrops, painted scenes, actors and special effects…whizz! bang! hoopla!
Can we deny that there is an illusory quality to our experience of the world, a fakeness that was recognised even four hundred or so, years ago? Elizabethan England was vivified by magic, notably by those who were masters of illusion through magic, poetry and prose, such as John Dee, Francis Bacon and of course, William Shakespeare.
Magic is ‘other worldly’ and sorcerers manipulate what others believe. Our minds have a frailty which is both our power and a weakness. Mind slips in and out of our control. It is called waking and dreaming and the two are interchangeable, morphing at the mere echo sound of cricket’s cough.
Modern psychologists will describe a person who fades out of our contemporary collective theatre of the imagination as psychotic, but are we not all, at times, cretins in the same bowl of soup? Is this not a modern world of illusion, experiencing super-charged storytellers, on-line, in cinemas, in the media, television; spinning a world wide web of illusion.
When we dream at night we experience alternative realities most vividly. Impressions form in our minds that we recognise but in the way we perceive a surreal painting or story. As an ‘Alice in Wonderland’, the whole geometry and order of life is tipped on it’s head, stirred, shaken and rolled out as a disturbing dream.
Such states can control us in our waking and sleeping, but it is possible to step out of the magnetic loop in which we are contained. ‘Lucid dreaming’ is the experience of waking up whilst still dreaming. Physical objects exist such as a light switch, but when flicked the light does not come on. Many drug induced experiences are states of mind that are both illusory and real. The latter are more likely found in indigenous cultures such as the legendary Don Juan in the books of his pupil Carlos Casteneda. Such experiences involve energetic beings and powers way beyond anything we might call ‘physical reality’.
Shaman in traditional communities inherit ‘second sight’ and the means to constructively use drugs, such as ayahuasca and peyote, from their forefathers. There are recognisable separate realities occupied by conscious but disembodied entities, which offer insights not available on You Tube. The encounters by adepts and students are predictable and repeatable, so rationally, are not vague dream impressions.
Much of the work of C.G. Jung explored this area of experience and established the concept of archetypes; powerful entities that resonate as mathematical constants that do not change with time or place.
On the other hand, there is our waking experience in which repeatable rules apply. We are able to manipulate the world and agree with others about our perceptions, even if we may sometimes disagree. In this ‘reality’ we can also repeat experience in the same way that a scientist can repeat an experiment and get the same result. But again, this ‘reality’ is nuanced by an undercurrent of dreaming. We experience ‘day dreams’ where our train of thought occupies our attention in place of our immediate sensual experiences. Children are particularly susceptible to daytime dreaming and much of their play is in their imagination, a world in which they usually reject adult interference!
From these examples we may appreciate that dreaming is not binary; our minds do not switch it on or off. Waking and sleeping are both areas where dreams operate.
In ‘waking’ our egos develope ‘areas of interest’ which are the well trodden paths of our fascinations. Such compulsions are triggers of past memories of excitement and pleasure that control us mostly unconsciously. For instance, when we go to a sports stadium to watch the team we have supported all our lives, we are in our own ‘heaven’. Our senses align with pleasant memories that we wish to re-experience, even as we park our car. If our team loses we experience displeasure, even though our lives have not really been affected; it’s just a dream turned into a nightmare. The faces of the losers tell it all!
So human experience bounces between pleasure seeking and displeasure avoidance. Gamblers enter a deep rut from which it is nearly impossible to escape. The ‘comfortable’ in society are risk averse seek a circular life, as in the classic comedy on UK Television sitcom, ‘Ever Decreasing Circles’.
Those who challenge ‘responsible’ comfort zones are the artists and drug users. Artists ‘create a stir’ by fashioning a form that breaks the rules. Drug users do the same but within very personal boundaries and without guidance as a consequence, which can cause harm and mental illness.
The mind is complex and we should expect to encounter one special trick that it plays on us, whether dreaming or awake. This is ‘projection’ and acts unconsciously. Within our unconscious mind is that which we have little or no control. During our waking state we might project a ‘complex’ from within that part of our mind. This is best expressed by the adage, the ‘pot calling the kettle black’. We criticise a shadow aspect of our character most strongly when we see it in others. It’s an opportunity to self realise and can become less ‘compulsive’ through self reflection and if appropriate, self control.
The autonomic nature of dreams is remarkably similar, projecting as in a film, elements of our own character in the play’s cast.
Whilst a comfortable physical reality is beguiling, it can be experienced too literally and believed too much. We are born into material bodies to overcome the limitation of being purely ‘Mind’ and one might expect such a transition merits a determination not to waste life by just staring out of the window.
After the use of our physical bodies, I believe we will once again return to ‘pure Mind’ or ‘God’. Without a physical body our mind is no longer able to observe the physical world or be informed by the physical senses.
Whilst in a body we are like a person who has learnt to swim in water; which we might experience as an ocean. Without a body we become that swimmer using all their skills learnt by swimming in that physical ocean. Within this ocean are small islands, which remind the swimmer of the physical world but are mere dream impressions and memories; just as in they physical world there are small islands which are not real.
picture credit: Aquabumps
This Ocean is what the Aboriginal Australians call, ‘The Dreaming’
A dictionary definition of the ‘standard of living’ is ‘the degree of wealth and material comfort available to a person or community’. It is not clear from this short description what is included in the concept other than a level of ‘comfort’. We might think that globally people have adequate essentials of life; food, shelter, water, health…but we know wealth is not evenly distributed.
It follows that not everyone on planet Earth will enjoy the same degree of ‘comfort’. There is an extended range from ‘in dire need of comfort’ to ‘having comfort in excess’.
When watching news reports of natural events that have devastated communities in countries with a low standard of, one feels for the victims. But looked at another way, these communities as used to living with little more than the basics. Their frail houses can be rebuilt. If they are lucky, aid tides them over until crops can be harvested again. What I mean is that this is not total devastation. Such people are survivors because they live simply. Inuit hunters, when given quartz watches, threw them away. When asked why, they replied that they were unable to repair them. It’s a wise principle. Round the world sailors know their boats intimately for the same reason.
In contrast, the ‘city dwellers’ of the world are not survivors. If farm land turns into a desert, as happened in the ‘dust bowl’ in 1930’s United States of America, mass hunger and even death within ‘sophisticated’ populations will result. They are, in the words of the Beatles song, “Urban Spacemen”.
picture credit: science.smith.edu
Most people are aware of the global threats to the citizens of planet Earth in the twenty-first century. We have had a ‘pandemic’ and more may follow, we observe the alarming effects of climate change and it’s consequences such as food shortages and habitat destruction, we have localised wars erupting in different parts of the world and mass migration because of all of these things and others.
When Elon Musk talks of moving to other planets, he must be inferring that there is a strategy to sustain the homo sapien sapiens after global catastrophe. Good luck getting a ticket to ride.
We know that humans have survived global catastrophe before. There are meant to have been at least six global disasters wiping out most of life, but not all. The underground cities found in places like northern Turkey are evidence of how a small number of humans survived.
Kaymakli Underground City Turkey
This time though, high tech city dwellers who casually dial up for food on their phones, are not likely to make underground cities. With half of the world’s population living in cities, the question we should be asking ourselves is, ‘how can we prevent disaster?’
We can all make a difference by taking personal responsibility for the likely causes of a catastrophe. One individual can change the world, however rarely you hear this affirmation. There is a story of a child throwing a stranded star fish back into the sea. When questioned what difference the action made the child answered that it made a difference to the starfish.
Every holiday, every sending of goods and foodstuffs around the world, every activity that involves burning carbon based fuels is, however slightly, connected to the tornado or mudslide or nuclear waste release. Governments appear powerless to prevent destructive human behaviour whilst natural disasters will happen with little encouragement.
Have we believed the ‘cornflake family’ myth that television presented as a social aspiration in the 1960’s? The clichéd happy family. Whilst the USA was busy consuming 25% of the world’s resources, the rest of the world was struggling to mimic the same mistake of non sustainable lifestyles.
picture credit: Resilience.org
A Swedish statistician, the late Hans Roslin described a process of increasing global wealth very lucidly in a TED lecture titled ‘Global Population Growth’ using IKEA boxes. He suggested a general rise in the standard of living even if that was merely a transition from flip flops to a bicycle and from bicycles to holidays abroad. Improved birth control and higher wages lead to smaller families, which stalls the global population rise at 9 or 10 billion, and it may then fall.
The argument is interesting but worryingly fails to take into account the ‘threat’ aspect in a ‘strength, weakness, opportunity, threat’ analysis. What is the point of building a brick house for you family is the sea level rises and floods the land? The threats to an improved global standard of living are so complex in quantity and quality that they can only be left to self adjust in a radical manner…meaning disaster.
China and India and other countries are set on ‘industrialisation’ at any cost and critics in the West are not in a strong moral position to criticise. Something has been attempted to build a cockpit in this out of control vehicle, namely the annual COP talks.
If governments bring about the promises they make at the ‘Conference of the Parties’ (COP) talks – to create a viable future for earth’s future inhabitants – so much the better, but this is by no means certain. The levers and pulleys needed for change on a global scale should have been pulled decades ago and, sadly, were not.
What you will not hear from COP is the conclusion that the economic concept of ever increasing ‘standards of living’ was always a myth because it was unsustainable on a global scale. No single planet can support infinite demand using a finite resources. The COP party conferences are, in my view, overseeing the end of the last supper of consumerism and comfort.
Puck’s line to King Oberon Act 3 Midsummer Nights Dream William Shakespeare
This was going to be an essay titled ‘The Party is Over’ but then the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony 2024 stopped me. It was too extraordinary to ignore and in fact, contained the same messages.I wish the Olympics, the athletes and the people of France and the World come together in love at the conclusion of the Olympic 2024 as was surely the original intention of the games. I express no religious or political views other than universal love. If you do not have ten minutes please slide down to the final conclusion.
The gods on Mount Olympus would have watched the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony 2024 in Paris, with a conflation of amusement and horror.
Personally, I found it pedestrian, disjointed and more than at little weird, and I was not the only one. For a country renowned for its consummate sense of good taste, design, style, and pazzazz; what in Hell happened?
I shall express views here which some will find far fetched, even disturbing. However, this sideways analysis might explain why standards fell so low.
Those who have read Dan Brown’s book or seen the film The de Vinci Code, will appreciate the power of symbols. The main character played by Tom Hanks, is an academic ‘symbolist’. He unravels symbols as a trail of clues that lead to the truth and this is what I believe was happening at this Olympic Ceremony.
So are there ‘clues’ in the ceremony and if so, what truth is being disclosed?
The Olympian gods used to look down on humanity and create situations. If you were a modern organisation, similarly determined to influence the thoughts and feelings of 29 million remote viewers around the world, this ceremony is the perfect vehicle. Being performed in the ‘city of lights’ was surely an invitation the Illuminati could not refuse?
The Illuminati picture credit: National Geographic
I recommend personal research to discover the motives and means of the Illuminati and other cabals, but their aims might be summarised as; ‘to achieve a Global Order through the removal of personal and national freedoms’.
So when you hear on the news that the fibre optic cables serving the high speed trains to the city of Paris have been sabotaged, you wonder why? Curiously, a week or so after the attack, the media are still describing this planned event as ‘vandalism’. No organisation has yet claimed responsibility. You might wonder what reporters are avoiding saying and who has told them not to say it. Was a planned and co-ordinated attack to created fear? Fear of death is the currency of cabals as we witnessed in the recent global pandemic where, again no originator has come forward or been found.
‘Let them hate us as long as they fear us.’ Caligula
Fibre optic cables carry vast quantities of information over long distances. They send light through gross matter. Cutting off this supply in the four cardinal directions was like cutting off light to the City of Lights; the city of the Sun King, Louis 14th. So similarly ‘cut off from the world’ was Louis, when he moved the Royal Court away from the Parisian minions to Versailles, where he could enjoy a privileged hedonistic lifestyle.
The leaders of the secret societies were closely involved with and led the French Revolution. They would have introduced the ‘Phrygian Cap’ as headgear for the revolutionaries; a symbol of Mithras represented by the bull.
Close observers of the Olympic Opening Ceremony would have noticed the golden head of a bull next to the five Olympic rings at the flag raising ceremony. Should we conclude that Mithras and Revolution is alive and well in modern France?
picture credit : Israel 365
The Roman Empire nearly adopted the Mithraic religion as it was popular with it’s soldiers and Mithraic temples can be found under many churches. In myth the bull’s spine sprouts corn and the blood is the wine of animal life. Christianity was chosen as the preferred Roman religion but the similarity of this Mithraic myth to the Eucharist should not be overlooked.
Light is a common symbol of spirituality and Jesus was not the only one who proclaimed to be the ‘light of the world’.
‘How thou art fallen from Heaven, son of the morning’ Isaiah 14:12
There is an old Testament character named Lucifer who the Church Fathers decided to eclipse by conflating Satan and Lucifer and Ahriman as the same beings
But Lucifer, the ‘Light Bearer’, is important today as he represents an ‘imbalance’ of spirituality, a powerful overload of light. We should not consider spirituality as being only goodness, as it can be too weak or too powerful and when either occurs it produces bad things.
Lucifer was responsible for the loss of the ‘third eye’ represented as the ‘brow or Adjna Chakra’ in Yoga and a Cobra in Ancient Egypt. Without this sensibility humans descend into illusion and delusion. The figure of Marie Antoinette in red in the Ceremony, represents how humans have collectively ‘lost their heads’ or rational thought and are fixed in the bright red base chakra of animal and tribal desires.
Balanced spiritual energy is a good thing, but when it becomes imbalanced it is not. Gautama Buddha discovered this after living an indulgent life in royal splendour, then aestheticism. He found little of spiritual value in either. He became enlightened when he followed what he called ‘the middle way’, which is the philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism today.
In the ceremony, Venus was represented by Beyonce as a feminine spirit of light and beauty with an enchanting voice; as with the Sirens in the voyage of Odysseus. But it was a narcissistic delight in self reflection that audiences were presented with and not the Venusian sacred mirror of ‘self reflection’.
The decent from balanced spirituality into base narcissism is present around the world in social politics today, not least in France where the left and right wing extremists, with no thought of a ‘middle way’ compromise, have recently taken over the government of the country.
The political values of the French Revolution, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity or Death” were chapter headings in the ceremony as it appeared on television.
The above background information, is intended be some explanation of the following analysis of the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony 2024. Many have reacted to the ‘weirdness’ in the ceremony as something they could not relate to. The French people had given away their tax payers money and freedom of choice to those who created the ceremony; in other words they had given away their power.
You might ask who decided not to have an audience in the Olympic Stadium for this ceremony, as is traditionally the case. The loss in revenue from ticket sales was clearly a loss out weighed by whatever gain you must imagine. Instead of a climaxing parade of athletes before a cheering international audience, bookended by icons of national pride as in the Beijing and London Olympic Games opening ceremonies, there was nothing.
The world was given a ceremony mainly for the global television audience. The consequence was to separate people into individuals or small groups, such as those Parisians poised on balconies over looking the river. Bystanders had a partial view of the ‘ceremony’ unless they watched it on their phones. The revenue and energy created by sporting event stadiums was sacrificed on an unknown altar.
Performers were perched on buildings as individuals, groups of dancers, musicians, circus artists, singers and actors. Without the power of a telescopic lens and amplifiers, these figures were diminutive both visually and inaudible; a subtle expression of ‘disempowerment’ of the people; ‘divided we fall’.
Human performers made small by large buildings – foolish or just poor design?
Those who were clearly happy or at least good at pretending were the various circus and street performers along the route. They at least added enchantment to proceedings; especially the hired ‘global celebrities’. However these Venusian / Sirenesque qualities, come at a price to the observer as already described.
Only by being tied to the mast of his ship could Odysseus avoid a spiritual death on an island of enchantment and delusion. Is that our world today?
The ‘Minions’ or non-privilege populace, were depicted by cartoon characters who proceeded to sink their own submarine, much in the way humanity is today destroying it’s own space craft; planet earth; cheerless and disempowering messages for us all.
Humanity can not complain that it is has not been warned. The Book of Revelation in the New Testament gives warning of the apocalypse and one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse appeared in the Olympic Ceremony riding a metallic White Horse. Wikipedia informs us that;
In John’s revelation the first horseman rides a white horse, carries a bow, and is given a crown as a figure of, conquest perhaps invoking pestilence, or the Antichrist.
picture credit: Hindustan Times
‘Conquest’ we can understand as victory in war and ‘pestilence’ something like the recent pandemic. The arrival of an ‘Antichrist’ is not an anti-Jesus but inverted Christ consciousness; love thyself instead of love others.
Nuclear war has been threatened by politicians and humanity would be the lesser for the intense light of the nuclear explosion – matter into energy. Are we being prepared? Spiritual and or physical death was shown to us repeatedly in the ceremony using various symbols.
A river was chosen as the central location for the ceremony. Rivers are a symbol of the journey from life to death and the Ferryman on the River Styx is perhaps the best known. At the beginning of the ceremony, three children (innocents) follow the light bearer (a football star) underground, the place of Hades or the Underworld denoted by shelves lined with human skulls.
The innocents (you and I) are given the Olympic torch which they pass onto a hooded figure in a rowing boat who takes them back into the world of light or from death into life.
Spectacular laser lights on the bridges and stages announce spectacularly that Lucifer is present above ground.
The use of the bridges that cross the River Seine must have been an enormous disruption to the daily travel of Parisians so there must also have been an overwhelming case for deciding to allow this disruption and disempowerment of ordinary Parisians. What was the benefit?
Were we being invited to remember in the recent history of these bridges that one was the location for the death of Princess Diana? The Pont d’Alma ‘underworld’ road tunnel is capped today with the symbol the Illuminati, a flaming cauldron; which incidentally is a copy of that held aloft over New York by the Statue of Liberty.
The Sacrifice of Diana the Huntress
Another Royal death featured in the ceremony was that of Marie Antoinette. Actors appeared at the windows of the Conciergerie. This is a building which served the French Revolution by confining 2,370 prisoners, including Marie Antoinette, prior to horrific public execution by guillotine. The Ceremony could have chosen to avoid this macabre place in the interests of good taste, but instead chose to celebrate the horror.
If you are not convinced by these symbolic references, the next is so obvious that many Christian religious leaders have taken offence. They feel that the story of the Last Super in The Bible was mocked and their faith was being deliberately undermined. The long table on the bridge and the peculiar array of sexually ambiguous characters seated beside it employed frenzied cat walking and dance. The display, for many, was a celebration of sexual licence and depravity and even included children to whom Satanists are particularly attracted as a source of energy. The hermaphroditic characteristics of the figure on the left of Jesus in Leonardo de Vinci’s last supper is discussed in Dan Brown’s book referred to earlier and perhaps inspired the theme…is it Mary Magdelene?
To fulfil the imaginary prophecy of these orgiastic encounters, a near naked Dionysus appears wrapped in fruit on a plate as if about to be consumed by the depraved celebrants. Dionysian rites in Roman times were indeed not for the faint hearted. Was this parade endorsing such rites as an end to modern times?
Using the theme of ‘romance and love’ there were scenes in library where three sexually ambiguous young people made eyes at each other and then a rapid exit into a private room and purposefully closing the door. Families might wonder if a ‘ménage a trois’ is something to celebrate in an Olympic Opening Ceremony if is so, why?
In events such this ceremony, Satanists include symbolic messages for fellow Satanists around the world, in the way the newspaper advertisements once were used for covert communication. They will have been alerted to each message by a principle subversive technique, which is ‘reversal’ of the ordinary such when South Korean athletes were introduced as North Korea. Diplomatic telephones started to ring. An apology was demanded ‘for the next time you organise an Olympic ceremony’. Agreement was made but was ‘human error’ really involved?
The Universal Sign for Distress at Sea
The most glaring reversal was surely taking the audience out of the stadium for the ceremony. Disguised no doubt as ‘innovative conceptual thinking’ and ‘this is France’ – as President Macron explained- the losses appear to be greater than the overt gains. Why would you prefer funeral paced boats in the rain to the traditional carnival of athletes in previous ceremonies in the dry?
Light into darkness is a theme enjoyed by Satanists and the Olympic Ceremony would not have disappointed them. Whilst in a stadium the encroachment of night is gradually balanced out by artificial lighting, this effect is almost impossible to produce in a city. The clear ‘light of day’ passed into dark obscurity. One conceptual theme was actually called ‘obscurite’ meaning ‘darkness’.
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil,
Who put darkness for light, and light darkness,
And put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter,
Isaiah 5:20
A few days ago, You Tubers were posting Paris at night with large areas in black out. Electricity had been cut off. The only illuminated building was the Basilique Sacre Coeur in Montmartre. There has also been further ‘vandalism’ to fibre optic communication cables in other parts of the country.
In conclusion, if only half of these interpretations are close to the truth, I believe we are being given a warning of future problems, by those who are about to create them.
The stark warnings are;
People are being misled through their dependence on the internet and media.
Life will become more difficult because humanity is destroying the planet.
Humanity will have to become ‘Christ conscious’ (love thy neighbour) or there will be wars.
There will be a world government to achieve these aims.
The great game of life in which we are mere pawns, operates on many levels. Like fish in a deep ocean, they select a depth in which to live; many in the shallows, some midway and a few in the deep. Where fish live is principally determined by their nature. As humans however, we can choose how deep we go.
In past times many people would never leave the village in which they were born. Today, when travel to the extremes of the Earth is possible, there are still those who live their lives without exploring the world. The opportunity for exploration of the mind is also rarely taken, probably due to this same inertia.
In olden times board games were played such a dominoes, draughts and chess in order to pass the time and stimulate these inert minds! These brilliant teaching devices have sadly, over time, been relegated to the nursery. Presumably they are mistakenly thought to be so shallow that they are suitable only for children, (as if children are shallow!).
A good example where this has happened is the game called ‘Snakes and Ladders’ in England or ‘Chutes and Ladders ‘ in the U.S.A. It is thought to have originated in India some two thousand years ago where the game was called Moksha Patam meaning ‘path to enlightenment’ and Gyan Chauper. The player journeys up the board until reaching the final square which symbolises enlightenment.
The Muslim version was used in the Mughal period in the late 17th and early 18 th centuries. The board is divided into one hundred squares (10×10) representing the one hundred names of Allah.
‘Snakes and Ladders’ was renamed and brought back to England by the British at the end of the Raj around 1890. This Victorian version ditched the ‘enlightenment’ element and seized upon the ‘high moral virtues and low moral vices’ depicted and the consequences of both; virtue rewarded and vice punished! Interestingly, the English phrase ‘back the square one’, probably derived from this game.
The Victorian interpretation of the game persists but for the natural philosopher one may find deeper meanings and interpretations. For instance, the players move step by step or square by square in a monotonous way. The sobering expression, ‘a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’ contains this truth.
We can see that the first step on the ladder is the same as the last. Like a marathon runner who collapses at the finish line, the journey has been a seemingly endless repetition steps, like the words of a mantra repeated ad infinitum. Enlightenment does not happen in flash as many imagine.
There are few ‘easy rides’ in life where one is gifted beyond one’s wildest dreams the game does present a few, much to the joy of players! Ladders, which literally express the ‘step by step’ principle, boost pilgrims up to higher squares as a gift, something which we know does happen occasionally in real life, which is called luck.
In the ancient version of the game there are fewer ladders than the snakes. Life in those times was believed to contain more misfortune than good. In modern times the reverse has probably become true although that can change!
Let us think about ladders a moment. Today we might understand them fractals.
picture credit: Complex Fractal by Bukoslav on Deviant Art
It is possible to keep connecting ladders, each new ladder being like a new rung in a higher scale. The sliding combinations of ladders on Fire Engines illustrate how greater heights can be achieved in this way. Ladders have a mysterious quality of being ‘infinite’; disappearing into the clouds like the pantomime ‘Bean Stalk’ which sprouts upwards as a magical fractal. The clouds into which the ladders reach, are commonly depicted as where the ‘giant’ gods live; such a ‘god’ corresponding to the mathematical notion of the infinite expanding for ever beyond the highest number.
Grace from heaven, the ‘golden buzzer of enlightenment’, showers upon life’s winners when they reach the one hundredth square first.
You might expect modern scientific understanding to cancel any insight beyond the moral platitudes, but I would suggest science too embraces the quality of ‘ladders’ in a microscopic dimension.
Imagine you are looking down a microscope at a string of DNA in a human cell. We know that it appears like a double spiral ladder with magical rungs that contain infinite quantities of information. These genes stay alive for thousands of years and can be retrieved from an ancient human tooth for instance.
Take this image of a spiralling formation and magnify it many hundreds of times and it will produce an identical image of our solar system spiralling through space and time.
The cycles of the sun and it’s planets also contain information by which astrologers have always been able to predict the future. Solar systems describe this pattern for billions of years, just as DNA lasts well beyond a humble human life span.
Curiously, and perhaps by coincidence rather than connection, modern geneticists describe the existence of ‘junk’ DNA in humans. It is about 97% of all of a our DNA and suggests a large area of knowledge yet to be discovered – possibly not ‘junk’ at all! In parallel and at another rung on the reproduction of infinite expansions, there is an estimated 94% of dark matter in the Universe which is also beyond current understanding.
So much for ladders; let us now consider the ‘slippery snakes’. People with a phobia of snakes often describe them as being ‘slimy’ perhaps because of the way they slide on their bellies. In actual fact snakes are smooth and dry to the touch. The common phobia towards snakes and reptiles probably accounts for why the ‘wicked tempter’ in Genesis, is depicted as a snake. Humans fell from Divine favour and were burdened with freewill, an aspect of the snakes and ladders game that makes it so exciting.
Just as ‘evil’ angels fell from Heaven, so the snakes on the board game take players down the path they so diligently ascended. There are no ‘thank Heaven holds’ that climbers grip onto when in trouble; it’s just ‘go to jail and do not pass Go.’ We have all probably experienced that feeling at some point in our lives. It is wise to introduced children early to this feeling so they recognise it when it hits them in later life!
Here’s a thought. Did the ancients in India know about digital and analogue information? If the ladder is a digital 101010101, then the snake is a complementary analogue wave. We know today that light has this contradictory quality of a particle and wave, and it is extraordinary that the ladders and snakes mirrored this long before modern science.
Life gives us no choice but teaches us that experiencing of ladders and snakes on our ascent are inevitable. If we think deeper than the moral Victorian versions of the game, then there are extraordinary truths. In a spiralling universe, of which our own bodies are microcosms, we can see that opposites unite each other;
we are both light and dark
we are both knowledge and forgetting
we are both climbing and falling
we are both Heaven and Hell
This understanding appears in the ancient Hermetic laws of Hermes Trismegitus. One of these is ‘Polarity’ and the dual and complimentary nature of opposites.
“Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.” —The Kybalion .
This is clearly depicted in the caduceus staff of the Roman god Mercury as a double helix of snakes coiling around a staff towards a pine cone representing the pineal gland in the brain. Today this symbol remains one associated with physical health and well being and appears on ambulances in many countries.
In Hatha Yoga, the counter spiralling Ida and Pingala Nadis wind up and down around the spine like snakes and enable the Kundalini energy to rise and activate the pineal gland; thereby entering the heavenly domain depicted originally, above the snakes and ladders board.
If Moksha Patam and other ancient games continue to be appreciated as shallow past times, then in my view, we will all be ‘back to square one’ quicker than you can slide down a snake!
It is comforting that there are increasing numbers of people who are willing to dive deeper into the games and the stories of the nursery in order to find the hidden treasures from ancient times.
Some of the best humour occurs in very formal situations in which laughter is forbidden. The exploits of the character of Mr. Bean played by Rowan Atkinson often use this device to create impossibly funny situations. It is like steam in a kettle desperate to burst forth but has to be strictly repressed. When there is a release and realisation moment caused by not using the thoughts which we consider ‘logical’.
Humour is a great tool to ‘lighten up’ human beings. Laughter can lift the burden of everyday life bringing a moment of mental and physical ‘enlightenment’. Such a release and realisation is called satori in the Zen Buddhism; a moment of profound personal realisation.
Stressful situations or periods of life can become overwhelming and confusing. Life brings problems; either seen or unseen, controllable or uncontrollable. It is sometimes hard to understand what troubles us and how to overcome it. One of the functions of ‘sport’, I would argue, is to present a simplified version of life on a ‘level playing field’ and scaled down. Then as a team or individual, the game is to obey a string of simple rules. Then we can demonstrate our personal skills to ourselves and others, and the winner is ‘successful’. A cynic would argue that sport is popular because it removes much of the complexity of the ordinary and promises rewards for very little effort by those who stand on the side lines. The players on the other hand are those most in line to gain benefit from the game.
In an attempt to examine this process in sport, I shall use tennis as an example. Professional players at Wimbledon this July will have to obey these rules;
The male or female players will wear all white clothing. They are permitted to rest between games and take light refreshments. They do not speak to their opponent and there are penalties for taking too long to serve and take rests. The rules of tennis are understood and adjudicated by an umpire whose decision is final.
The audience will sit around the court on tiered seats and must remain quiet and motionless during play; with mobile phones turned off.
So the stage is set and play commences. Professional players have achieved exceptionally high levels of skill but are prone to unforced errors which immediately earn opponents a point.
Like most physical games, there is an equal element of the psychology. Players remain ‘poker faced’ throughout the game. If they let emotion take over such as frustration, their mental detachment can be affected causing errors. To remain focused, players sit between games with eyes closed in meditation ignoring unwanted thoughts and distractions.
Players and audience will experience unexpected and unlikely events during play. The most extraordinary is called a ‘fluke’. An example is when a ball hits the top of the net and just falls over in a way that is impossible for the opponent to intercept and loses the point. What philosophers call ‘chance’ has played it’s hand. In Zen Buddhism this is called a ‘controlled accident’. Both skill and chance have combined so perfectly that the unexpected takes place. Or it might be that a bird lands on the court or the ball shoots off into the audience and is caught spontaneously by an alert tennis fan. The effect is one of surprise, as in a joke. The audience had no expectation of what was about to happen and generally, enjoy a moment of delight.
However skilled the player, sometimes chance can take over their state of mind either amplifying mistakes or skill. Suddenly, it is as if one player can do nothing right and the other nothing wrong. Despite the skill of the players, a players state of mind has broken through and taken control.
This state of mind could be described as a state of ‘constant readiness’. The mind and body have been prepared by constant repetition and the perfect moment. In that condition a tennis player becomes like a spring ready to uncoil. Sometimes a player will pick up the ball just before it bounces twice and flick it back with an impossibly clever placement in the opponent’s court. Or there is a high volley delivered by the player high above the head when facing away from the net. It’s rare and highly difficult to achieve and win the point but when it happens even the player making the shot should be surprised and inspired by what their mind / body has just done.
The match, like many individual sports, is like two Samurai performing sword play at an impossible speed and understanding of the unique moment.
One of the skills to be learned in the game of life is spontaneity. Through the application of skill unconsciously – that is without intention – a player can surpass their normal level of play and become quite brilliant.
In the book Zen and the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel, the archer must release the arrow without any intention to do so. This ‘unconscious’ technique can become so precise that the arrow can hit a bullseye even with the archers eyes closed. The event is made perfect by not having a response to it in the ego but letting it pass by without reflection; because reflection is not any part of what has just happened and spoils it.
If we let it, our own lives can become spontaneous and unscripted. Even within the many demands on our time, there will be moments – however rare – when we hit a bullseye. It’s a combination of doing the right thing at the right time, perfectly.
In modern life, holidays are intended to have this quality of ‘freedom’ but by definition, spontaneity cannot be planned. Sometimes the intended release from normal life can be spoilt by the literal and psychological baggage that we drag along with us.
I was in an airport a few months ago and jumped into a lift occupied by a young lady. She had with her three of the largest suitcases I have ever seen. I smiled and joked, ‘did you leave anything behind?’ She smiled back. People don’t normally speak to each other in lifts; I broke a rule and created a moment during a journey that was otherwise unmemorable.
Sometimes this gentle humour from those around us will prompt an insight into one’s true nature. It may take several experiences with the same message but eventually, there can be insight.
Ironically, it is children who enjoy the greatest moments of satori and it is that freedom of thought and action that brings so much admiration and delight to adults.
When I was in primary school, our teacher had left her class and a rain storm suddenly broke out. Without a thought the whole class ran out into the rain and danced ecstatically; free from the rules of ‘school’. It was a pure collective satori moment.
This story also expresses a special quality of Zen. This is the realisation of how the most ‘ordinary’ events, can provide the most sublime experiences in life.
A Zen monk was once asked, ‘what is Zen?’ He replied, ‘When I eat I eat, when I sleep, I sleep.’ The questioner was not satisfied with this answer and argued that we all do this. It is normal. The monk replied that when most people eat they are thinking of some other thing and when they sleep they are dreaming.
Zen pupils are introduced to this idea through such formal teaching methods as the Tea Ceremony. Each action and object involved in the ritual is a crucible for realising those things that do not fit into the ‘normal’ and ‘expected’ and ‘overlooked’ or ‘unconscious’ within the routine. It might be a fly entering the room or a lizard falling from the ceiling or a crack in the lid of the tea pot. If you are late for the ceremony and find yourself standing nervously outside, the teacher will judge you on how the moment you choose to enter. That moment will ideally not interrupt the ritual – especially because the choice was spontaneous. The right choice might prompt inner delight, the wrong choice, later admonition.
So the hum drum experience of sport and indeed life, in which moments of deep personal insight occur uniquely, is made richer by the spontaneous and non-reflected moments. Ironically, the more formal, the more repetitive and hum drum the situations we experience are, the more likely the satori moment will just happen.
It’s a Buddhist thing; when you realise that you are not your body. The proof is that if you were unlucky enough to loose a leg, you remain the same conscious individual; complete. Many people are permanently identified with the meat and bones which they were given to complete a life time. This illusion contributes to a general fear death in the population. But from a spiritual perspective, death is completely safe! For the more spiritually aware, death is merely our energetic body leaving the physical body.
Some of the best evidence for the reality of our non-physical higher Self or Soul, comes from those who have died and come back. These ‘near death experiences’ describe the early stages of the transition we call ‘death’. If we accept this, then it becomes easier to allow the possibility that our soul will enter another body for another life on Earth.
For the Soul, the cast off body feels like a well loved overcoat that is left on a train. But in fact the Soul is more at ease without a body; feeling bliss. Those who describe their near death experience felt reluctant to return, but they were guided to complete what they need to do here.
The Holographic Universe
At a even more subtle level, this world can be experienced as a rough representation of a more sublime parallel dimension, because it is digital hologram. As far fetched as this may sound, contemporary physicists are presenting evidence supporting this theory and Michael Talbot explores it in his book ‘The Holographic Universe’. This dimension is what in the Bible is called Heaven and you would therefore expect there also to be it’s opposite. According to David Icke, there is indeed a malign parallel dimension which has broken the law of non-interference by influencing a Cabal of human institutions with the aim of world domination. In order to know what this Hell would be like it is similar to the film ‘Hunger Games’ and parts of this movie have already started in Gaza and Southern Sudan.
The process of our body growing old also prompts serious reflection on what we really are. Most elders ‘feel’ they are a much younger age than their body. From this we might deduct that the natural process of physical ageing does not affect our Soul. Indeed, if we are open to the idea of life , then we might after death we might give credence to the idea that we leave our bodies every night when we sleep. It is the body that needs to regenerate at night, not the Soul. These experiences outside our bodies we can recall as dreams. The Soul has the wonderful ability to go anywhere, as demonstrated by Saints and Prophets throughout history.
To move from this sublime thought to the modern western world, there is a debate about gender which cast some light on the subject of souls and bodies. Some souls feel to the opposite gender to their body, which might be a memory of a previous life where we might have have a body of the opposite gender. A crude solution is ‘gender reassignment’; physical surgery and chemical manipulation. But just because this is possible it does no mean it is wise, in my view. Psychological and spiritual understanding is more important than appearances and gender roles in society. As is said, ‘know yourself’. In Jungian psychology all men contain a female persona and the reverse in women. Our relationship with our opposite gender characteristics within ourselves will produce inner peace for the Soul, rather than the personal and social conflicts which identification with the body creates.
The body is after all, never a problem in itself. The more honest we can be about our bodies, then the sooner we can be less concerned with self image. In Naturism, men and women walk around naked and enjoy the principles of equality, fraternity and liberty. Problems created by the ‘deadly sin’ of lust are not involved as nudity is not sexual in many contexts. Those who cannot control their lust are likely to be trapped in their bodies and are in a Hell – the other state of consciousness to the Garden of Eden. The terrorist group ISIS as an example of souls in Hell, destroyed ancient statues of the human body in the name of religion, whilst importing devout Muslim ‘brides’ and abusing them mercilessly as sex slaves.
The feelings of ‘shame’ in nakedness that Adam and Eve felt are not natural but are produced by controlling social and religious rules and dogma. These treat every person to be no better than the least. Therefore, everyone is treated as being unable to control their lusts. Islam embraced the rule of tolerance and understanding towards sex and gender equality long before modern liberal societies understood the benefits of this ideal.
The Holy Quran insists on ‘modesty’ in dress. There are no specific ‘dress rules’ so different cultures have decided what is ‘modest’. If modesty is understood to mean ‘covering up’, this has to mean covering the whole body. But where to stop ‘covering up’ is a missing detail in this guidance. Why do men not wear face veils for instance? From a moral perspective, the whole issue of modesty is irrelevant if men and women were to control their lust as is their higher spiritual duty. Surely dress codes serve society best when they express the Divine beauty within and without? The human body was, after all, designed by Allah.
The beauty of the Greek gods wonderfully expresses the human body without shame and self consciousness. These gods are powerful symbols of the complete human condition. The ancient Greek myths and legends describe at a psychological level, how to master one’s Self within a single lifetime.
In a different interpretation, the word ‘modest’ may also or instead, be forbidding displays of high self opinion and excess wealth. Such an interpretation would hit hard in many wealthy Arab countries!
These ideals remind us that we should not be distracted by this physical world because it does not last; only our Souls exist perpetually. Vanity, whatever one’s social rank, is always transient, as in the last lines of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’;
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings!
Look on my works ye mighty and despair,
Nothing besides remains. Round the decay,
of that colossal wreck, round and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Compared with the fruitless pre-occupations of the Guidance Patrol in modern Iran, inner cleansing and self improvement is the most noble spiritual objective, involving no judgment by or about others.
One of the principle Hermetic laws is that every aspect of creation is male or female. The Alchemists depicted the duality of the Sun and Moon as expressing this. The Sun is the radiant expanding male principle, known as Yang in Eastern philosophy. The presence of the sun gives rise to the reflecting moon, or Yin, which expresses the complimentary feminine characteristic of absorbing, contracting and most importantly, reflecting.
This ability of reflection is what distinguishes humans as unique. Although all of nature is ‘aware’ in various ways and differing degrees, only humans are able to properly ‘reflect’ internally. We can remove ourselves from what we observe. We can be independent observers whilst participating. This ability inspired the scientific method. Through this extraordinary ability we reflect the same characteristic as God or Mind who is after all the ‘Great Observer’.
Without the physical world God cannot know itself. Every galaxy, every human and every atom contains this ‘awareness’ and can create and destroy in the same manner as God or Mind which is knowing itself through human experience in the physical dimension. In this view, matter becomes a difficulty but necessary means to experience of the Divine.
From this stand point we might appreciate that what we call ‘my body’ is no more than aeons of star dust, condensed into biology and energised by Mind. This Divine unity enables an experience which we call ‘life’ although at no point can we ever truly put our finger on it and never will.
You may say I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will be as one John Lennon ‘Imagine’
There is an awareness of the prospect of a ‘New World Order’ in many modern western societies. It is ‘globalism’ by another name and assumes that for the eight billion or so inhabitants of planet earth, ‘one size can fit all’. We clearly see this in the communist countries such as China, where citizen’s rights are subordinate to the rights of society; ‘the lowest common denominator is best for everyone’ philosophy.
Astronauts in the International Space Station may enjoy a global view over breakfast and be filled with wonder at the planet without political boundaries and cultural differences.
But of course geo-politics is not as simple as the view from space implies. If we were to break down how societies are structured the categories might look like this;
…language, religion and ethics, race, class, cultural background, education, wealth, geographic placement, access to technology and food and so the list goes on. Societies are highly complex when viewed through the lens of a microscope.
There is an indigenous North American saying that, ‘it is easy to be brave from a distance’.
They should know, for their initiation tasks for young ‘braves’ were daunting to the point of life threatening. When poised to jump into a river from a high cliff, suddenly life looks and feels different from ten minutes ago.
This illusion of safety is becoming dominant in many Western societies in the modern times. Citizens go about their daily tasks in relative comfort because of the security that their State promises. Citizens will never be poised on the edge of a metaphorical cliff – so they believe.
We create a ‘safe distance’ around ourselves; living in a tiny bubble of the known and familiar. It is comforting and provides, what in general systems theory is known as ‘homeostatis’, or
‘The aim of systems theories is to create homeostasis, or a favorable person–environment fit, in that the individual interacts and responds to her/his environment where interactions and change are contributing to positive growth and development and social functioning.‘ ScienceDirect.com
The whole approach to reassurance given by crew to passengers on an aircraft is based on this principal. In a short briefing it is explained that the aircraft could crash in which case here’s a whistle, otherwise, drinks are available from the trolley.
Airliines pretend flyiing is safe, but if we think critically they could do more. For instance, why are children not given child seats as is the general law for cars? Why are companion and service animals so difficult to cater for? A disabled passenger will have their expensive wheelchaire thrown into the hold and they have to stagger to their seat; if they are lucky with extra legroom – at an additional cost. How quickly passengers embark and disembark, is mostly about money for airlines.
Life in western societies is rather like this problem that airlines have when people have unique expectations and needs. The tendency then is humans are herded like lost sheep and most of the time, we oblidge.
Fortunately, what stops the world from wobbling off it’s axis is a counter force which we call ‘co-operation’. Humans emerged successfully from the ‘natural selection’ disaster movie of prehistory by co-operating with each other. Instead of becoming the lone predator like tigers, they became pack hunters, like wolves.
So here is the good news. If generalisations and lack of detail are the centrifugal forces that tend to pull society apart, then co-operative forces are the centripetal reaction, keeping us all together.
A list of these co-operative forces would be something like this;
...written laws and national constitutions that describe and give rights to citizens, shared wealth and resources such as public services, pensions and private insurance, shared territory such a public spaces and open borders, shared fauna and fauna in natural ecosystems, shared technology and scientific research, shared buildings such as blocks of apartments and entertainment facilities, shared national infrastructure, shared human resources in education, health, armed services, politicians…the list is longer.
Those enjoying the re-assurance of a Western lifestyle, are aware of other countries where the centrifugal forces are actually pulling societies apart. We know there are wars, famine, plague and natural disasters, criminal and terrorist organisations, happening somewhere else on our shared planet all the time but we chose to do nothing at worst or give to charity at best. We rationalise our choice as ‘someone else’s problem’ because we were lucky enough to have been born in a bubble.
picture credit: Hedgeye
For the few who do take on responsibility for those less ‘fortunate than themselves’ is more they can do. If they have a set of skills applicable to a particular emergency they can join a charity or non-government organisation. Usually and sadly, such as in earthquakes or flooding, help arrives too little too late. Disaster relief warehouses do not exist at every air and sea port in the world. Instead it can take days for supplies to be shipped and taken overland to those as serious risk of harm, instead of hours. Governments and or those who caused the disaster lie about the cause and solutions that are in place such as is happening in Gaza in Palestine at this present time.
In this way disasters can be diverted from public attention; played down because ‘we’ are not the victims. Our lives continue with a good standard of living, fuel in the service stations, government workers in the social services providing education, health and the rest. The shops are open and we go to work.
Or so it appears, because of the illusion with which we are presented and which we choose to believe; we genuinely think we are brave, upright, honest, caring citizens.
That is until our borders are rushed by people without documents who risk their lives to get help, banks close, world shipping halts, a serious pandemic any other disastrous global event such as, well, global warming…
Arizona Border picture credit: APnews
Then the problem in western countries becomes, ‘how do we keep our way of life?’, because we assume, our lives and standard of living will continue unchanged.
The thing about Aladdin is that, for a ‘good for nothing’ youth, he had a very powerful imagination.
‘He ordered the jinnee thus; “I want you to bring me a retinue of four dozen slaves, two dozen to ride before me and two dozen to ride behind me, complete with livery, horses and weapons. Both slaves and horses must be arrayed in the finest and the best. After that bring me a thorough bred steed worthy of an emperor’s stable, with trappings all of gold studded with rich jewels.“‘
from : ‘A Thousand and One Arabian Nights’ : translated by N J Wadood : Penguin Classics
Most people in modern times, have played the lottery. Winning is about as likely as being hit by a piece of space debris, but the dream is real enough to part with money. Lottery organisers face an unexpected problem; helping winners, deal with their sudden wealth. Unlike Aladdin, many have no idea how to spend their millions. One U.K. winner went out and bought a new machine machine.
‘New Washing Machine’s for Old!’
As with much of ‘ordinary life’, we are fenced in by, not only our wallet, but our imagination. Aladdin wanted nothing less than the Sultan’s daughter, slaves, dancing girls and a marble Palace with windows made from precious stones. A new washing machine was not on his list.
This essay is about ‘imagination’ and also about another characteristic of human thought; ‘fantasy’. In common usage, these terms are similar but I would like to draw an important distinction between the two.;
Imagination: the ability to configure something that can be made real.
Fantasy: the ability to configure something that can never be made real.
Between these two is a spectrum of the possibility of ‘making dreams come true’. The lottery is highly unlikely to make you rich while becoming an innovative entrepreneur is moderately achievable.
Let us examine a few examples at the ‘fantasy’ end of this spectrum. Fantasy is a pretend world occupied by children in the early stages of their lives. Anything can become anything. You can be the doctor and I shall be the nurse. The whole game is meaningless except as a faculty of mental maturing in which rehearsals for real life are being run safely.
Children are whisked off to see Cinderella’s Castle in Disneyland or Santa Claus in Finland in harmless but expensive escapade’s by indulgent parents. What anyone gains apart from temporary gratification, is open to debate.
Is all this the archetypal ‘Hero’s Journey’ or just ‘Wham! Bam! Sock! Pow?‘
Teenager’s are sometimes drawn to the concept of a ‘super hero’. It’s a kind of oblique reference to the myths and legends of gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt and Greece that ignores any truth.
The ‘struggle for personal power, haunts many unfulfilled adults even in such mundane matters as their choice of car – a modern day ‘chariot of triumph’. Such self empowment was first expressed in a teenager’s bedroom in posters fantasising about becoming Superman or Wonder Woman or Taylor Swift or Beyonce. Association (borrowing power from another) is expressed but never achieved by mimicry of a ‘super hero’.
Comic heroes in both meanings! picture credit: The Mo Co Show
Whilst the comic hero may enrapture, the bottom line is that they are no stronger than the paper on which they are printed. The fantasy only lasts the time it takes to read the comic, unless you want to dress up!
Cinema certainly has that ability to make us confuse fantasy with reality. The first cinema presentation by the Lumier Brothers in 1896 had audiences running for their lives when they imagined an approaching train in the film was real. Today the opposite has become the case and audiences dissolve their minds with fantasies on the white screen that have no substance.
Marilyn Monroe ; screen godess and girl next door
Whether at home on in collective presentations, Hollywood has led the way. Marilyn Monroe called it Weird Wood because presumably she saw nothing holy in it’s halls. Her off-screen persona – Norma Jean – was as real to her as the on-screen beguiling sex-goddess character and was her anchor that kept her in touch with her true self. Like the fragile letters on the famous hillside, the Hollywood fantasy is always as two dimensional as the silver screen.
The crux of what pure ‘fanatasy’ does to us is that it is a world of ‘pretend’ and gives no objective benefit other than perhaps, passing the time and unsatisying catharsis.
We should study now how the dream states of ‘fantasy’ and ‘imagination’, differ. Imagination introduces the possibility of making thoughts come true. An engineer for instance, might visualise an invention before recording the working processes on paper. Nicola Tesla sometimes invented whilst sleeping. He could turn an scientific device around in his imagination and make any necessary corrections before building it. We have to thank him for AC / DC electricity supply, TV remote controllers, radio and many other inventions in general use today.
Imagination is about making the possible possible and fantasy merely making the impossible, impossible. This is an important distinction because I believe so much human preoccupation today is as useful as smoke. Fantasist s follow, imaginaries lead.
The dreams that float across our minds in childhood may reflect some truth. They may be a memory and anticipation of past and future lives. Fortunate children will know from a very early age what they were in a previous life; a concert pianist or doctor or scientist. Some go on to have a rewarding career in that field. The phenomena of the three year old virtuous violinist fits few other explanations.
There is a channeller on You Tube called Daryl Anka who is worthy of consideration. The principle ‘teaching’ from his channelled entity called Bashar is to;
“Act on your excitement to the best of your ability without any expectation of outcome.”
This trigger of ‘excitement’ is something that is often extinguished by one’s self doubt or unconstructive feedback from others.
In endeavours of an artisitic nature, I would always advise people to explore what they love and are irresistably drawn to. This principle is a spark that contains truth and tremendous possibility of fulfilment in life; not just art. Without love we become like skittles without that array of arms that comes down from above and sets us up straight again, waiting for life’s next ball. We just roll around and fall into the black hole of disappointment.
In contrast, love connects to natural forces in a way that we do not understand and do not need to. It is inherently constructive in the way that imagination is constructive even if we do not know where it’s fractal growing patterns will take us. Nature works in this way and is beautifully described in such books as the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu; written 500 BCE and still freshly inspirational.
‘The leaves fall without purpose.’ Zen Photo and poem by the author
Much imagination and inspiration in human cultural and scientific achievement is inspired by nature. Art of great beauty inspires emotional responses in the same way that nature creates delight. Many artificially intelligent robots today, replicate the perfect design of the human body, animals and even humble insects because nature cannot be improved.
The evolution of human imagination using the scientific method, is surely a flowering of human consciousness, in the same way that that classicism inspired the Renaissance. This scientific evolution has brought to life moving holograms and virtual realities which even today are seen as magic. These techniques expand and explore the physical and energetic worlds in a manner that would never have been found without a scientist with imagination. Is this why scientists who are also artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein are some of the greatest thinkers?
Human thought that is clearly ‘off the wall’ can be overwhelming and hide a darker force. The world of the ‘impossibly impossible’ was seized and used by religions to control others. When prophets and saints exemplify love, humility and compassion, there message becomes watered down over the centuries and tragically can become toxic, as in the Spanish Inquisition between1478 and 1834. It would fantasise various versions of ‘heresy’ into being and punish those who did not comply.
Power to imagine is ultimately a personal endeavour. No religion, state or institution should ever be allowed to overrule the highest love and excitement of the people, in my view. I believe that we are all capable of ‘parting the Red Sea’ using mind alone. People with terminal cancer have died, come back and been cured the disease in days. Dr. Eben Alexander’s story describes his own experiences when in a medical coma and being treated by his colleagues in his book Proof of Heaven.
The only slippery nature of this slope is when we fantasise about things that just will never come true.
Our yellow brick road leads us to the Wizard of Oz who turns out to be just like us. Are we being force fed the fantasy of this illusory path and if so by whom?
Have we become slaves to those who promise a journey to nowhere?
Here is a long bamboo and here is a short one Ts’ui-wei Zen Master
Many western thinkers find it difficult to understand that war and peace are the same. This is because in dualistic thinking there are only two ‘opposite’ words to describe a broader thing for which there is no single word. This dualism and is a clear example of how words determine thoughts, in the same way that roads define journeys.
Consider this koan; when there is no war and no peace, what is there?
In order to construct a bridge that combines the extremes of ‘war ‘ and ‘peace’, one needs to use a phrase which is a paradox; a statement that contradicts itself. The concept of ‘soft war’ for instance, opens a whole new spectrum of possibilities around the ideas of ‘non-violence’. War has historically been the option used by humans to solve disagreements between ‘tribes’. At a higher level of consciousness however, it is possible to achieve the same ends without firing a single arrow. So let us look more closely at this paradox.
I propose a definition of soft war as, ‘the acquisition of state assets and benefits by peaceful means.’ Because surely, state violence as a means to an end should be far behind us in this twenty first century. Nobody has ever really won a war, when you study world history.
Presently, various state players are heading off to the moon. The initial batch of astronauts will need to be real estate agents, taking photographs and writing up a hot and cold, air-less deserted blob, as enticingly as they can for prospective nation clients.
Donald Trump pronounced publicly the creation of the United States Space Force as a department of the Air Force when he was President. Apart from the odd logic of the Air Force fighting in places with no air, one intention is clearly to use violence to acquire lunar assets and benefits for the United States of America. At least this time round there will be no natives and Buffalo to slaughter; assuming they are not hiding on the far side of the moon.
Will a World Space Peace Treaty be conceived before star wars break out?
There is some optomism in the idea that many people no longer believe in using violence to solve problems. An example of this common sense are the students presently demonstrating on the lawns of Columbia University in New York, in sympathy with the oppressed Palestinian people. The compelling argument for such a new vision is that when war became ‘industrial’, it became toxic; nuclear, radiological, biological and chemical.
Loving life and hating killing machines does not imply hating any particular racial or religious group as some oponents argue.
In the sixteenth century soldiers used to dress up in smart uniforms, line up in ranks or ships and shoot each other. Nasty but consensual. Since the ‘industrial’ methods of war emerged in the twentieth century, the victims of war largely became non-consensual civilians. Whole cities were flattened without recourse to any apparent ethical imperative and since it’s use in the second World War, this tactic has been repeated in countries like Vietnam, Lybia, Georgia, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine and now Gaza. Industrial War uses attrition of the civilian population as a means to an end. I will suggest somewhat optimistically, that these examples are the last batch of evil against humanity by humanity. Because there is an alternative and it is called ‘soft war’.
Peace does not mean peace. In ‘peacetime’ some level of pan national aggression is taking place but in secret. Most States use this means in ‘peacetime’ to subvert other States. After the second World War this was called a ‘Cold War’. In the USSR long term strategies were initiated to acquire more States. This I describe in my blog called ‘The World is Spinning Out of Control’ published on 14th December 2022. To save you looking back,
I list the Soviet’s four stages of this process from ‘demoralisation’ to ‘destabilisation’ to ‘crisis’ to ‘normalisation’. In the 2020’s we are well into the ‘crisis’ era. Putin’s Russia in my view is just the USSR Lite.
For those who think the recent Covid 19 Sars 2 pandemic was a spontaneous health crisis, hopefully they have modified their view based on the hindsight of the evidence since then. I strongly believe the pandemic was a dress rehearsal in which future governments control populations against their will. China displayed this more blatantly than most other countries because that is what communism is good at. If you wonder why free thinking democracies used ‘lock down’ and ‘tracking’ contrary to their sacred principle personal freedom, we need to think beyond the official simplified narrative.
Control by governments of their citizens historically, used to be by the threat of force (Iran and other autocracies excepted) but there are more subtle althernatives. Money has always ‘made the world go round’ and soft war uses money as a primary tool. The application of sanctions by one nation over another is a slow process that puts pressure on populations long before governments are persuaded to change an offending policy. Presently all eyes are on digital currencies. As they transfer the power of purchase from governments to individuals, many state leaders are preparing national digital currencies. Once governments acquire control of their own population’s money, they are all powerful. No money, no dinner.
There are many other ways to bring populations to ‘crisis’ and it is happening now in ever increasing degrees. China is producing chemicals that make artificial opioids and flooding America with fentanyl; something the CCCP deny. Vast numbers of America citizens are now addicted to fentanyl. This drug is so harmful that President Biden has just signed off a law called the ‘Fend Off Fentanyl Act’.
‘Drugs and Alcohol’ because alcohol is not a drug – really?
Covertly undermining the health-hospitals-production-tax revenue, of nations using viruses and addictive harmful drugs is a clear example of ‘soft war’. In a liberal society, public safety measures and permitting populations the freedom to experience pleasure from drugs (legalising cannabis for instance), might be welcomed but the reality is frightening.
Even prescribed drugs can have a similar effect if delivered in large enough quantities, such as in a pandemic. ‘Excess deaths’ in the nations who licenced untested mRNA vaccines, have been inexplicably and worryingly high since 2020. Governments are not looking too deeply into why this has happened which raises a natural suspicion of what was really going on and why.
These are both perfect examples of ‘soft war’. In psychological terms they are ‘passive aggressive’ techniques producing a collective irrational fear of a problem such as disease. Humans are easy to ‘destabilise’ from their preferred condition of ‘tranquillity’ because we are not good at thinking. If we were, why would we ever put on a uniform and go off the commit a genocidal war, as thousands of Israeli’s are doing at this time? They who were the ‘prisoners’ in Nazi Germany are now the ‘guards’ in what they have left of Palestine. And if you do not understand this reference have a look at the ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’ on Wikipedia. Humans are easy to manipulate so that they think they are doing good when the opposite is the case. Not only the victims are manipulated but the oppressors too. The snake chases it’s tail.
The growing phenomenon of mass movements of refugees and economic migrants by legal and illegal means, is impossible to control. Mass movement of people over open borders into populations that are not welcoming, is both the product of complex factors such as climate change and, one must suspect, deliberate crisis creation to subvert sovereign states. The sight of governments arguing vehemently over migration such as within the European Union, brings much satisfaction to those who desire to covertly divide and conquer.
Who could be doing this? Well, The World Economic Forum for instance are notorious for stating ‘you will own nothing and you will be happy’. The clue is in their title…’World’. The World Health Organisation has likewise produced a plan that takes away a sovereign states right to decide how to protect the health of their own populations in a pandemic. The WHO will make the decisions for them;
“Member States of the World Health Organization have agreed to a global process to draft and negotiate a convention, agreement or other international instrument under the Constitution of the World Health Organization to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.” source: WHO website posting 23 June 2023
These and other soft war players do indeed have the world in their sights. Events such as climate change and the destruction of eco-systems worldwide will enable gaining assets and benefits of self serving ‘entities’, by non-violent means. Clearly, blaming the apparently uncontrollable ( such as ‘nature’ ) is a convincing way of cloaking covert methods of destabilising nation states. Despite well meaning conservation projects, humans have never intended to protect nature and it’s processes that support life on earth. If they had, action would have been taking place to stop it decades ago, in the same way that tobacco companies would have stopped selling cigarettes decades ago, if they had wanted to.
At the centre of all this complexity is the individual human. How can they be expected to understand the deep state and hidden cabals. Most humans are well behind the future curve of our species preferring life as it is. The ‘activist’ minority are also prey to covert manipulation. Instead of raising the roof to stop being cynically manipulated, activist groups, for instance, protest against the slavery of the nineteenth century, whilst ignoring modern slavery. There are those who complain against the loss of ‘black lives’ in the USA, whilst ignoring the supply of American made weapons and the killing of thousands in Haiti, on America’s doorstep. In fact there are racially predudicially discriminationing inspired genocides and pogroms all around the world in present time. But our anger against these is re-directed towards historical injustice and horrors, like the holocaust. History is as an oppurtunity to learn and forgive if we wish to keep our sanity. I cannot be responsible for the sins of my father, only my own.
Such shingle issue civil rights campaigners may not be fully aware of who has started and funded their organisations and what the true motives of their benefactors are. ‘Destabilisation’ and ‘crisis’ are easily achieved by creating well meaning protest movements that actual don’t make sense when the right questions are asked. Investigative journalists used to cover these stories but today their editors pull their punches and a good question is ‘why’?
It is apparently all to easy to get into the heads and their hearts of people and this is the most subtle and worrying aspect of soft war. As Artificial Intelligence looms menacingly, waiting to take over from heart centred humans, humans need to keep strict intellectual, rule based, control. War is increasingly being delivered by anonymous robots such as drones and unpiloted aircraft, in order that no service personnel are hurt and responsibility can be denied.
In a non-ethical, world ‘robot wars’ could be seen as the summit of success by those who believe violence within a species justifies the end.
And yet, ‘ethical concerns’ can ironically also become a cloak to disguise the overpowering of other states by non-violent means. China has displayed a mastery of this over the recent decades. It has used it’s massive wealth to enter foreign countries in Africa and around the world, offering to construct major infrastructure and lending poor nations the money to do it. When the port or whatever is completed, after a while, the other country finds it cannot repay the interest on the loan. China then offers to purchase the port or other project and completes it’s own agenda of using the port for commercial and military dominance.
This process has the same effect of acquiring the assets and benefits of another country in an apparently benign way. Indeed, it might be ethical if China did not ultimately intend to use these assets for military purposes. Looking at the size and sophistication of the Chinese Air, Land, Sea and Space Forces, it becomes obvious that such force will one day be used in offence.
Chinese Expansion picture credit: Research Gate
Russia is expanding (against ‘genocide in Georgia’ and ‘Nazis’ in Ukraine so all ‘legal’) in the same way. Their sights are also on the last great continent to be developed, Africa. By implanting mercenaries and aid into African countries to stabilised them. They are welcomed as many such as have become disillusioned with help from other states such as in French ex-colonies, like Niger.
War has not yet been perceived as moribund. In the same way that Chinese Shaolin monks learn martial arts that are completely ineffective against any firearm, so modern states display out of date weapons in their annual parades. Even the mighty aircraft carriers require a fleet to defend them from innovative methods of attack such as supersonic cruise missiles. The loss of a carrier to any nation would be catastrophe and their production and use, certainly under an ‘America First’ government, is a paper dragon. It is not likely to frighten those who know all about dragons.
Can we conclude that neither open violence nor passive aggression are acceptable in an peaceful world? The alternative was conceived by such historical world leaders as Mahatma Gandhi; to simply use the protest power of the people to alter harmful government policies.
In my view what is needed to stabilise human society before it spins out of control, is an axis of ethical commitment that is so strong it will prevent the world from wobbling. What that will be, we await to see but I expect it will involve, people centred leadership and a universal, spiritually inspired set of values.
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