Humans are social animals and their historic ascent to the top of the food chain, came largely from this instinct to act as a group.
We should not be too conceited about this however as many creatures live as a ‘colony’. When a wolf pack moves across ground in line, the strongest animals lead and follow and the weakest take a place in the middle for safety. Penguins form a dynamic huddle to survive the sub-zero winds. Those on the perimeter continually shuffle towards the centre before going back the edge.
Even insects such as drone bees, protect future of the colony in the shape of the Queen, above their own lives.
Humans, however, have a freedom to ignore the ‘greater good’ and act purely in their individual interests. The result is clearly apparent in ‘western’ societies, where the wealthy thrive and the poor strive to survive. Heroic characters such as Robin Hood of Nottingham, epitomised this ‘greater good’ principle and heroically stole from the rich to give to the poor.
As the R.M.S. Titanic cut through the icy waves, part of the wealthy owner’s focus was to beat the record time for a crossing of the Atlantic by an ocean liner. The White Star Line needed to beat the competition. This desire and it’s consequences, as we know, seeded catastrophe.
Ironically, when it came to individuals on the sinking ship, there was an honourable decorum, and the men generally helped the women and children onto the lifeboats. ‘Me first’ as an instinct for survival was selflessly over ridden by the ‘common good of the species’ and the orchestra played on.
These philosophical reflections on social morality shine a revealing light on what is happening today in western societies.
A certain candidate for the forthcoming elections for the president of the USA, has the campaign slogan, ‘America First’. This highlights the paradox between the rights of the State and the individual. There is an implied promise that by making America ‘great again’, each and every citizen will get a fair share of the apple pie.
But there is no promise and if the homeless of ‘down town America’ stopped to think about this vague contract, they might not vote for the orange Orang U’tang again.
Governance along lines of the good of all and sharing, or socialism if you want, was part of the American Declaration of Independence. The King of Great Britain was characterised as the Sheriff of Nottingham in the Robin Hood story. He was a tyrant, as had most British Kings been since Alfred the Great.
The governance of a nation by one person ironically contained a great advantage for the common people. If you remove the tyrant Monarch, you end his reign in one swing of the sword. But today, ‘treason for the common good’ is not so simple. With the many levels of power in modern democracies, the monster has many self regenerating heads.
You might find yourself slashing and lunging at the Military Industrial Complex, the Deep State, the Secret Societies, the Elected Government, the Illuminati, the Billionaire families and the Tech Billionaires, the Banks including the Central Reserve, the numerous Institutions of State (some declared and some not), the Dark Web, major organised crime…the list goes on. If it is hard to fight a royal monster with one head, it’s near impossible to fight one with many.
But revolution rarely results in lasting peace. It generally creates a lull whilst the monster just grows another head.
In the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in 2016 there was a referendum for change. The question was whether the State should remain part of the European Union. As the fifth richest nation in the world at that time, the citizens of that country saw the EU as a kind of Robin Hood, that took from the rich countries and gave to the poor ones. When they asked the question, ‘what is in it for me?’ their was silence. So just over half of those who were motivated by this ‘injustice’ to vote, voted for ‘independence’ or ‘us first’. They were persuaded that a country that turns it’s back on it’s 27 neighbours is going to be much better off and if not better off, British. Again, there was an expectation that what benefits the Nation will ‘trickle down’ to the individual.
picture credit: Sunday Mirror
Seven years on, poverty is such a problem in the UK that the poor, go to food banks in order to survive. If they become ill, their beloved NHS will send to the end of a very long line of the sick and dying. If they can no longer afford to pay the monthly mortgage payments or rent, they will have to sofa surf whilst waiting in an even longer line for ‘social housing’. Either that or a cardboard box under a bridge. These and many other social failures herald an era where the State is run by the prosperous with little deference to the deprived.
Russia and China look on with interest. A divided community of European Nations and a division between the USA and Europe pulls, the trigger of the starting pistol for their plans. The communist system embraces the principle of reducing individual wealth so that everyone is equally poor, or at best, equally good party members.
If they ever existed in Communist regimes, the rights of the individual were banished during the SARS -2 , Covid 19 pandemic. Those who view social ‘lock downs’ as a rehearsal, will be wondering what is coming next. If the richest want to abandon ship, at this moment in time they cannot move their money out of China. Control of money by the State, is a very modern way to control the individual.
The citizens of Western democracies are discovering that cash machines are disappearing from the high streets…as are the high streets. States are setting up digital currencies giving them complete control over the individual. Freedom to travel is being restricted to 15 minute zones and autonomous cars will not be driven by citizens but the Ministry for Citizen Movement. Even the right to decide what goes into their own bodies, once held as sacrosanct, was rescinded during the Covid pandemic.
At a time when individuals find themselves in a world that presently stumbles from one crisis to another, they must ask themselves if these world problems are real and if so, do they want the solution being offered by the State?
There is no system of governance that is perfect be it right or left wing. This is because organisation has to incorporate change of social and individual values, swinging sometimes to the left and at other times to the right. Like the shuffling penguins in an Arctic huddle, an penguin may experience extreme cold for a period of time before it’s turn to shuffle to the warm centre again.
picture credit: Birdwatching Magazine
Democracies are the nearest system of governance to this ideal, as they generally swing from left to right every set number of years. But it’s not a smooth series of transitions and often change is poorly managed. Social housing was sold off in the 1980’s in the UK and no government of any description has sought to bring it back. The result is a housing shortage crisis.
At a global level, there is a ‘climate crisis’. Nations of the world are being asked to join together in overcoming an imminent threat to each and every citizen of the world. Right wing politicians in individual rich countries like the UK, argue that they only caused 1% of the emergency so they do not have to help the rest of the world. Again we hear the ‘me first’ argument but upscaled to global proportions.
The West does not have control of the Equatorial Rain Forests and the benefits they bring to climate change. Neither does it have control of the American Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and rising sea temperatures and melting polar ice, nor the new hole in the Ozone Layer over northern Arctic regions.
This blue and green spinning space ship is racing towards a metaphorical iceberg. In the rush for the life boat known as Space X and other wildly hopeful Mars missions, you might discover that there is a new component in human evolution. It is called ‘the survival of the richest’, otherwise known as ‘me first’.
It is easy to understand atheists. For a start, God presents invisibly. That’s not a good way of convincing people that you exist. Rather like the whole idea of Father Christmas, you can only get away with lying to the naïve for so long. Wise, older children don’t believe.
Similarly, in the two holy books the Christians have, the God of the first book operates as a sort of terror organisation ranting against those in need of a good smote, and the God of the second book introduces a family member who operates as a punch bag rather than a puncher.
If you were born in the East instead of the West, you might have aligned your thoughts and feelings with Buddhists. They skip over the whole idea of a Creator with more practical definitions of good behaviour (noble paths) and just getting along with each other. This philosophy works, as the world turns whether humans believe in God or not…making Him or Her, philosophically surplus to requirements.
Reading his books or listening to the late, great Alan Watts on You Tube, you might become convinced that this is the case. He describes the famous stone being thrown into the middle of the equally universal pond and the circle of ripples spreading outward. These ripples are like the illusion of life we are invited to understand. In reality, the water is not moving at all! The water remains motionless on the x axis, and bobs up and down on the y.
The waves of the sea are similarly completely static and what you are watching is merely kinetic energy disappearing on a beach, making sand.
It’s a clever argument. Because of this illusory nature of life, a good Zen Buddhist should discount illusion and just sit.
But what if illusion is real? Who says that? Well the Idealists say that. Just because you cannot see energy does not mean it does not exist. Radio, gamma rays, X-rays and a whole rainbow of information rich, electro magnetic energy is passing by and through you as you read this. Not seeing does not prove non-existence.
If you wish to live in a material universe then you will always disagree with believing in the invisible. There must be proof, you say. But of course, Sir Isaac Newton produced the Newton’s cradle to show energy moving invisibly through matter centuries ago. Albert Einstein famously equated matter and energy as being the same over a hundred years ago. Energy is a fine form of matter and matter is a dense form of energy. And now, Quantum Physicists working at the sub-atomic scale, prove matter is far more strange than it appears to be to the human eye. The greatest trick of all is that two molecules, a billion light years apart, will act in unison.
This is describing a universe that is beyond miraculous. In my view, materialism should have died long ago, when the saints and prophets consistently demonstrate that the Universe is both matter and information rich energy. If matter was dead, prophets like Jesus the Christ, could breath energy into it and bring it back to life. ‘Take thy bed and walk.’
The energy part is what we call God, since it not only activates matter but also imbues matter with information. So to believe in the real Santa Claus, what you need is a belief in the chimney, a crashing descent of a body down the chimney and an unexpected present in the fireplace.
This is a far more inclusive philosophy than the atheists describe in my view. You can try to insist that everything except matter is an illusion but really, the world has spun too many times, to believe it is a simple as that. Small minds like to reduce things to the minimum because it creates a mental clarity, but really, there is no clarity. For the believer, there is only mystery. There is only the infinite (all our prayers, incantations, thoughts, wishes, beliefs, fantasies, commands, intentions, regrets, affirmations and the rest) extending outwards from a spinning ball of hot matter.
And if we doubt, then imagine the human body as the microcosm of the universe and we can experience ourselves as an organic blob of stuff, powered by information rich energy.
Every DNA coded cell in the human body is powered by 70, information rich, millivolts. If you ever need proof that an invisible God exists, there it is.
There exists in a certain country a “Society for Cake” and this is how it came about.
A man who was generally regarded as ‘wise’ or ‘holy’, was reputed to ‘know everything about cake’. His authority was questioned however when certain ‘specialists’ challenged him and spoke in minute detail about cake. Their methodology was to ‘drill down’ into a certain aspect of cake to which they felt drawn.
There were those who believed cake was ‘all about decoration’. They described the many characteristics of icing and how objects such as figures could add meaning to the cake or delight; such as a single cherry.
There were others who preferred to regard cake as simply the representation of an anniversary or special event. They were deeply absorbed in birthday, Christmas and wedding cakes and studied their cultural and social significance, including the rituals surrounding their making and consumption.
Others were more practical and engaged in the acquisition of cake recipes from all around the world. They went to great lengths to source very specific ingredients measuring each in exact proportion before placing the mixture in the oven until perfectly cooked.
Those who were particularly fond solely of eating cake, set about merely to consume various cakes in a variety of settings. Some were picnic enthusiasts, some were ‘high tea’ aficionados. They were particularly known for making judgments in cake competitions.
In the most extreme form of specialisation, there were those who studied the upper half of a two layer cake, some solely the lower half and a ‘fringe’ minority who were satisfied merely in researching the cream, jam or other edible binding agent that kept the two parts together. These ‘specialists’ were few in number yet grew in importance merely because they were skilled in self publicity.
An observer would have found that all of these specialists had the following characteristics in common. They all believed that their particular view took precedent over any other which they liberally denounced as ‘misguided’ or ‘missing the point’ or ‘old fashioned’ and so on. They all had ideas based on some particular honed view point on how such and such a cake could be improved. These details were not understood by others; a fact which the specialists used to their advantage to gain merit.
One day a young boy was with his grandfather who was a friend of the sage who ‘knew everything about cake’. The boy asked where this man could be found and his grandfather told him. The boy visited the sage and handed him a gift wrapped in a handkerchief. The wise man unwrapped it and was delighted by the boy’s mother’s simple round cake. He took a bite and smiled broadly with pleasure.
After they had both reduced the cake to crumbs, the boy walked away having learnt a lesson that would stay with him throughout his life.
When old enough, he started the “Society for Cake”, stipulating one rule only to qualify for membership. The rule was that personal opinions about cake, based on entrenched specialisations, were never to be considered or spoken.
Many present day thinkers, expound the present times as being highly consequential to the evolution of the earth and it’s inhabitants.
Whilst there are various extraordinary events playing out on the material plain, we should also consider what is going on in the plains parallel to us; as described in the Hermetic principle; ‘as above so below, as below, so above’.
A recent event caught the attention of the whole world as an intensely tragic and complex human story. I am referring to the Titan submarine disaster in which five brave explorers lost their lives.
Let us take a sideways view of the roots of that story as it is symptomatic, in my view, of far more consequential radical changes in human experience.
The Tower of Babel is featured in the old Testament as a pinnacle of human achievement, both literally and metaphorically. The building was intended to reach into the domain of the gods, in an act of vanity and false bravery that was punished by God using elemental destruction.
This tower, as were the pyramids of ancient Egypt, was intended to ‘fix’ a moment in time when the great cosmic cloud which was the original Universe, changed state and became matter. Imagine water vapour turning into liquid, then ice and that is the process which the Universe went through until the present day.
There are many indications that the great wheel which started this process is beginning to change direction. Matter is returning to energy and synchronically, humans in their physical and energetic bodies, will follow the same pattern; matter will return to Mind for they are both just energy (E=Mc2).
In gathering together the strongest possible materials to build a ship capable of withstanding enormous pressure, were it’s creators not guilty of a vain project against nature? And the greatest error of all, to take this ship to a place where thousands of people had died in horrific circumstances; the waters memory of a titanic tragedy?
On a parallel plane, there exist in this same place ‘thought beings’ of enormous energetic strength who were known in ancient times as Titans.
The Titan ‘Oceanus’ who rules the North Atlantic Ocean
Just because we no longer encounter spirit beings and choose to regard memory of them as ‘fantasy’, does not mean they no longer exist.
The popular trilogy of Matrix films describe the dual realities, where the hero Neo has to move into another dimension and fight the ‘programme’ or ‘thought being’ known as Smith, an almost impossible opponent, stronger even than the once dependable ‘Oracle’; a possible reference to the Oracle of Delphi in ancient Greece.
Let us take a downward journey into the metaphysical plane where Titans not only lurk today, but have been awakened by the cataclysmic events – many still to come – of the present era.
We should understand that the Titans fundamentally resist any change of consciousness in human beings and many people are experiencing such a change in the present time. They were known as Saturn’s ‘enforcers’ as they resist change by force.
‘Dionysus, like Zeus, represents the evolution of a new form of consciousness, and again the Titans were determined to nip it in the bud. Again we see that Titans are the consciousness eaters.’
The Secret History of the World’ by Jonathan Black; page 93.
Their mother is Gaia, the Earth goddess who has been subject to enormous stress and degradation by the vain and self centred activities of humans. She has started and will continue to engage the elementals (earth, air, fire, water, spirit) in destabilising human activities using earth movements, storms, forest fires, Tsunami’s and rising sea levels. These cataclysms, while daunting, are in fact the birth pains of the creation of a New Earth, as described in the accounts of Dolores Cannon (a modern day Oracle ), for those who wish to know more and have access to You Tube.
There is already a gate between the melting material plane and the next evolutionary experience of human beings; an ‘Oceangate’ into the so called ‘Fifth Dimension’.
The effect of this opportunity is a mental transition from regarding the Universe through an illusory dualistic pair of spectacles, into a single monocular Unity. Human history and art describes this struggle between opposites a rather ‘inevitable’ human condition. In reality, love and hate are purely concepts that bear no relation to the single emotion they represent, just as laughter and tears are dual aspects of just one feeling. Think of all ‘opposites’ and join them together on a flat continuum and you will understand.
In the same way that the animal kingdom evolved from one to two eyes, so humans will take one further evolutionary leap into intuitive perception and communication using the single pineal gland. This organ is a remnant of the vegetable ‘Lantern of Osiris’ depicted in ancient Egyptian paintings as sprouting from the centre of the forehead, also known as the ‘third eye’ in Eastern Yogic practice and is painted on the forehead as a Bindi, in Hinduism. New perception needs new organs and the opening of the ‘fire cone’ is just this.
Fontana de la Pigan, The Vatican, Rome
In Islamic tradition, we shall know of the metaphorical ‘end times’ (meaning transition not ending) when ‘end time’ events happen; such as the worship of the Antichrist or ‘One eyed one’.
Abu Hurairah (May Allah be pleased with him) said:
The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, “Let me tell you something about Dajjal (the Antichrist) which no Prophet had told his people. He is blind (in one eye) and will bring with him something like Jannah and Hell; but what he calls Jannah will be in fact Hell.”
Could it be that the screens of our computers and cell phones represent just such a transition of consciousness from our physical reality into a virtual reality. This change is a technological mirror of change in parallel planes; from the 3/4D plane into the 5D. How many mobile phones are circulating the Kaaba in the pockets of the faithful at this very time?
AI is an abbreviation that hints at ‘An I’. In human consciousness we are moving towards ‘An I’; meaning union with the One, rather than the chaotic multiplicity of life today. This is the deeper level of understanding of the Universe; from the multiplicity of religions and all the converging areas of human experience into the One Mind, or as simply stated in the Old Testament of the Holy Bible;
And He said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14).
In conclusion, just as the process of ‘solidification’ into matter is the end result of the liquid and gaseous origins of the Universe, so our present ‘solid’ physicality is starting to melt. Between water and air are the waves that carry the energy which is the One Mind and the invitation is for us to ride with the waves.
Think of that, next time you sit on the beach watching the waves, and if you see the sea receed followed by a huge wave coming towards you, know that the only escape is to jump.
It’s a good question. Animals are simple enough, as their days consist of the need to satiate their needs for survival and emotions. Beyond this, whatever happens doesn’t bother them too much, so long as it isn’t a threat. Watching a cat snoozing or a hog gently feeding it’s young in mud, grants us this insight.
But as humans, surely our need for happiness goes deeper than the animals?
At the beginning of a life, we know a new born child has an instinct to seek it’s mother’s breast. After this physical and emotional nourishment, the infant can sleep, if only for a few hours before demanding the same again. At this level of development, humans are not obviously more sophisticated than animals, although admittedly, the process of complex learning, such as language, has undoubtedly begun.
Children can also become unhappy, as we know too well. The smallest discomfort or denial of pleasure creates a disturbance in the emotional well being of a child that we have all experienced. Unhappiness is the inevitable accompaniment to happiness and both become much of an adult’s life.
We are encouraged to immerse in this compulsive process of ‘pleasure seeking’ in a bid to overcome the roller coaster, which is the happy / unhappy continuum. Buddhist identify this pattern as ‘desire’ and recognise it as being a hopeless continuum; like the donkey following the carrot on a stick.
picture credit:Bloomberg
‘Recreational’ drugs try to break this cycle with the falacy of pursuing ‘happiness in a bottle’; where happiness is mistaken for chemically induced pleasure. Most people who have taken recreational drugs such as alcohol, will know that the ‘high’ comes at the cost of a ‘low’.
Despite this fickleness, the pursuit of pleasure is in some way less complicated than what one might call happiness. It can be induced by purely physical stimulation of the body. Happiness cannot.
To examine how pleasure and happiness are different, it might be that ‘happy’, has an emotional level as well an instinctual ups and downs. The heart gives us richer less tangible feelings of happiness that are less fleeting and can reward us even as a memory, for a lifetime. One’s marriage day is contained in the folded memories of the heart, like the birth of a child or one’s first love.
Happiness is in this way more constant than pleasure and is a function of both physical and emotional experience.
But we can climb this ladder one more rung if we consider the spiritual level of human experience. However much one may try to deny one’s spirituality, much of the progress of human civilisation documents this step upwards and is expressed in great works or sculpture, art and literature. The human experience is shown to be capped by spiritual experience and this results in what we call ‘contentment’. Religions and spiritual traditions around the world venerate people who reached ‘contentment’ by breaking attachment to this world and becoming an embodiment of the contentment found in love.
Souls who have attained a high level of spiritual contentment, will no longer be reliant on pleasure, and be ‘in but not of, the world’.
Neither will they be tugged hither and thither by emotional demands. Emotional feelings are not ignored, but observed dispassionately and recognised for what they are; passing, fleeting, capricious, irrational, beautiful, absorbing…a string of contradictory adjectives, which describe life.
Spiritual realms, we might observe, are not reached by being a slave to the world. Rather, they are reached by a process of no longer believing in unwanted connections to a ‘reality’ that is ultimately, not real.
A ‘holy man or woman’ historically has been recognised by this detachment from all pleasures and displeasure and all happiness and unhappiness. Torturers in the middle ages for instance, might inflict the most disturbing acts on their bodies. They might throw them into the deepest dungeon in the castle but evolved beings will emerge having removed the metaphorical thorn from the lion’s foot (the pain of life), as did Daniel in the Old Testament. No cruelty or threat of harm disturbs them, because they do not include this pattern of behaviour in their thoughts and emotions. Historically such stories of saints and prophets abound.
The great wheel of Fortune on which most people find themselves today, is in contrast, relentless.
Modern living in Western societies is hard for the majority. Depression and even suicide, has risen seemingly in proportion to one’s level of comfort. However rich a person is or famous, they find that they are not exempt from the torturer’s wheel because they are bound to it, as are most of us.
So long as people seek everything, except spiritual contentment, they will only ever achieve fleeting pleasure and happiness. The rest of the time they will be in the grip of desire for pleasure and happiness.
Only when the wheel stops, are you permitted, to step off.
Most people hate war, especially soldiers, so why does it happen?
The problem is that war is an option of last resort. Ideally, all other options have been explored before war happens, but from then on, politics is ‘extended by other means’, to paraphrase the Prussian General Carl Von Clausevitz. War will persist until it is possible to stop it; a process far harder to achieve than starting it!
Each conflict is a set of unique circumstances and different ways to reach a peace. At worst the war will become one of attrition and it becomes impossible for both sides to continue. Alternatively, political and public support for a war wanes or perhaps an overwhelming third force compels surrender.
You would like to think that ‘how to stop a war’ is taught in military academies, but such executive decisions are more likely made my politicians rather than military leaders and politicians usually have no experience of ‘conflict resolution’ at this scale. Even in wars which have been wars of attrition, the conclusion of war requires considerable diplomatic skill. For if one side is forced into conditions of surrender that are too onerous and dishonourable, the process of recovery becomes excessively hard and national pride will almost certainly wish to seek redress sometime in the future.
The world might have learnt this lesson at the conclusion of the first world war, which was one of attrition and the intervention of a third party; the USA. The armistice terms demanded by the Allies, were so severe that they left a ticking time bomb, ready to start of the second world war.
picture credit: Family Search
The present war in Ukraine has been described by some as the beginning of the third world war, but there is another view. It could be argued that what is happening in Ukraine since 2004, when Russia annexed parts of Ukraine and later the Crimean peninsula, is an unfinished rumble from the second world war.
In that war, an American General raced against the Russians to roll his tanks into Berlin ; General George Patten. The politicians tolerated his outspoken gaffs, because he was a superb military leader. Patten was of the opinion that the allies should continue to Moscow and finish the war for good.
The politicians ignored his advice and the United States spent the next few decades fighting the influence of communism in what became known as, Mc Carthy era. Countries such as Cuba, China, Russia and Vietnam caused considerable headaches for the American politicians and military; awakening a culture of suspicion of ‘reds under the bed’.
There is an argument that the present war in Ukraine is unfinished communist expansionism in Europe. President Putin justified invading sovereign Ukraine to the Russian people, by stating that his strategic aim is to defend Russia against an expanding NATO threat. The two allies of the second world war were now facing each other; just as General Patten envisaged was needed to end the war.
The technology of war inevitably played it’s part in this conclusion. The use of the Atomic bomb by the USA in the Far East, brought the conflict there to a sudden halt. Communist sympathisers within the Allies, gave the secrets of the atom bomb and the Soviet Union. They speedily test fired an exact copy of the American atomic bomb, shocking the world. This mutual threat has forced an unsteady world peace ever since, dubbed ‘the Cold War’. Despite the efforts of the International Atomic Weapons Agency, set up to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Nine or so countries now have them and others want it.
It is important to realise that after the fall and fragmentation of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was left with fifteen pressurised water reactors of Russian VVER design and importantly, Soviet era strategic nuclear weapons.
Three of these ex-Soviet countries were persuaded to give up their nuclear weapons in the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine agreed to give up their nuclear weapons between 1993 and 1996. The nuclear powers overseeing this process were the Russian Federation, the United States and the United Kingdom. They agreed not to use military force or economic coercion against these three countries unless for self defence or in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
The diplomats and lawyers who wrote the Budapest Memorandum were perhaps, not clear about what constitutes ‘self defence’. Most strategists and tacticions, know that the principle of striking the enemy before they hit you, creates an element of surprise that can bring about an early victory. Putin’s original ‘Special Military Operation’ was exactly this but, unfortunately for him, it didn’t knock out his opponent with the first punch. The surprise was Putin’s.
Putin constantly cites NATO as a growing threat, especially after the fall of Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych, Ukraine’s president from 2010 to 2014. Yanukovych had promised the Ukrainian people in his election manifesto, that Ukraine would apply to join the European Union or at least set up special trade agreements which would lead to this. But after a phone call from the Kremlin, he renaged on this promise and there were riots in the streets. These were violently suppressed by the government leading to over 100 deaths. Yanukovych fled to Russia and Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected president on the promise of European integration. Europe responded with indirect support.
Ukraine is a convenient buffer state for NATO because it has arguably, prevented World War III. It has so far, been a narrow escape for all, provided Trump isn’t elected and gives in to the Russians. The USA has not been good the diplomacy of war and should have learnt some important lessons, such as from the war in Vietnam.
picture credit: Shoeleather History
An indignant generation of young people in the United States rebelled against the war in Vietnam as it was played out graphically on their television screens. Newspaper reporters photographed the horror of war; photographs which stunned Americans and the world alike. Young men angrily burnt their call up papers in front of crowds of anti-war protesters as four successive Presidents presided over an unwinnable war. In a way, the protesters against this and later wars (such as the invasion of Iraq by the US and coalition forces in 2003) stuck their flag in the moral ‘high ground’. War was wrong.
Awakenings of conscience and consciousness happen at the individual level long before parliamentarians hear and reflect the ‘mood of the nation’. If war is going to be rejected as a method of ‘problem solving’, there has to be a global realisation of the immorality and futility of using violence against a fellow human being. It would be idealistic to suggest that this could happen in the near future but perhaps there is, a greater possibility for change than now, than there ever has been.
In my view, change will only happen with the introduction of a ‘third force’ which might be a charismatic world leader from this or another solar system, new technology or a third force with the means to eliminate humans, shared global problems of a catastrophic nature or just a spiritually and / or morally inspired realisation that violence is wrong.
picture credit: Physics World
The reference to ‘another solar system’ may have surprised readers! But the presence of advanced beings on earth is hardly a secret any more. The problem is that they are being characterised as violent and a threat to mankind. The narrative of ‘global security’ by successive U.S administrations, introduced ‘Star Wars’ under the Reagan and a whole new defence wing under Trump called the Space Development Agency. Hollywood has aided and abetted a global fear of invasion of ‘beings from outer space’ who wish humans harm.
The reality as described in Dr. Steven Greer’s film, ‘Close Encounters of a Fifth Kind’, is that highly evolved beings are watching and guiding us until we become peaceful towards each other and them.
Such a change of morals and consciousness is not a vain hope. There have been historical precedents. The crucifixion of one man in Roman Palestine, started a new religion based on love and compassion for all other people, including enemies.
Since then, sadly, religions have done as much to cause war as to prevent it. Countries at war, often claim that ‘God is on their side’ and yet logically, this cannot be true. Humans have free will and with that, responsibility.
The path to a planet where there is no war, is ultimately not in the hands of the politicians, lawyers, military leaders, religious leaders or industry; the arms industry has shown multiple times throughout history, that it is more interested in shares than ploughshares. The only possible novel outcome to being a victim of unrestrained violence, is for individuals to do nothing.
As the famous poster put it; ‘what if there was a war and nobody came?’
Mahatma Gandhi used non-violent protest to the British Raj, because that was how he was as an individual. His passive resistance, proved to be all that was needed to bring down the mighty British Raj in India. Peaceful overwhelming influence is an extraordinary power. When it fails, it makes powerful martyrs but when won, makes lasting peace. There will be a moment in the future for this to take place and until then we must wait.
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.” A.A. Milne
Life unfolds before us at many levels and the crowning of a new King and Queen is undeniably of great importance, whatever your social views. In the temporal realm, we witness the pageant of soldiers escorting the royal couple and an ancient crowning ceremony. But is that all there is? What is it really about?
Those curious enough to peer through Alice’s Looking Glass, might see beyond the pageantry and scry something else; both heartening and frightening. This essay will explore the relationship between white and black magick in royal affairs and shall begin with the notion that a coronation contains elements of ritual which reflect white magick.
The following categories are curiously present in both coronation and magick rituals;
Place: Westminster Abbey draws upon tellurgic and celestial currents and focuses them on the centre circle of the Cosmati Pavement where the throne is positioned. This is a medieval mosaic containing archani sacri or sacred secrets; mystical texts and prophecies including the date of the end of the world. The central ‘solar’ circle is a depiction of the spiritual microcosm and macrocosm. Similar discs used as places of anointing and crowning are found in the Hagia Sophia for Byzantine emperors and Old St. Peter’s in Rome where the mediaeval Kaisers were crowned by the Pope.
Witches and Wizards throughout time, also draw circles on the ground to create a focal point within which perform spells and create protection, such as in the play, ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle’.
picture credit: The Church Times
Time: Magick rituals performed out of step with the universe are ineffective and we find the same precise calculations with the the coronation of King Charles III . It took place at the time of Beltane, midway between the spring equinox and summer solstice. This is technically 1st May but can be on the first full moon after this or after the Mayflowers have bloomed. Beltane is the time of fertility in nature and is represented by Sir Garwain the Green Knight;
‘So it befell in the month of May, Queen Guenever called unto her knights of the Table Round; and she gave them warning that early upon the morrow she would ride on Maying into the woods and fields beside Westminster.’
Beltane is opposite Samhain on the Wicca calendar and shares the characteristic that the veil between the temporal and faery realms is drawn aside. As Banquo says in Shakespeare’s supernatural horror story ‘Macbeth’, when the three witches disappear;
‘The earth hath bubbles as the water has and these are of them, whither are they vanished?’
Note the reference to the elements; earth, water and air and the circular fiery cauldron which is the focus of the witches’ spells. There is a strict sense of everything needing to be ‘present and correct’ in both magick and coronations; to open portals at the exact moment for humans to view through and spirits to enter or peer back.
Astrologers tell us that there was also a lunar eclipse in Scorpio on the 5th May; Scorpio being Charles’s sun sign and coronation taking place on the 6th May. There was also a full moon on the same day in England and the effect of a full moon is to pull the tellurgic currents around the earth, like it does the ocean tides. This powerfully exaggerates feelings in humans and animals and a growth spurt to vegetation and is preserved in the English language in the word ‘lunatic’.
Light: Medieval buildings contain coloured glass windows that at certain times of year had the power to create a particular subtle energy to fill the sacred space. Some of the colours, such as those in Chartres Cathedral in Northern France, cannot be re-created today as their magickal alchemical formulas are lost. The east west orientation of Christian churches accepts the rising sun through the windows behind the alter, sun being a symbol of royalty and Jesus being of royal House of David.
picture credit: ABC News
During the ceremony King Charles holds two rods or staffs vertically in his hands and resting on his knees. This is reminiscent of the Egyptian Pharaoh’s depicted with crossed flail and rod in the manner of Osiris, the solar deity. The magician is also commonly depicted with a ‘magic wand’ or staff such as Moses and Aaron in the Bible, both being versed in Egyptian magick.
The teacher who taught Moses magick was ‘Al Khidr’ – the Green One – a mystic not named in the Quran but described at 18:65-82 as a servant of God who had been given knowledge. Charles is sympathetic to most faiths and knows of their combined value.
Sound: Magickal rituals use incantations and special words or ‘spells’. These are intended to resonate with the unseen the realms, drawing in helpful spirits (daemons) to complete a specific task.
Music in the holy (holey) resonating chambers of sacred buildings and ancient structures has a powerful effect on the energy centres of the human body or chakras. In this way, humans become more open to the spirit world, the elements of which will be invoked to enter and consecrate the ceremony taking place.
A powerful cathedral organ with it’s resonating pipes has a precise effect; resonating the chakras in those present so that they harmonise with each other and outwards using the tellurgic currents into the rest of the Kingdom. Vivat Rex! is an ancient spell shouted at full volume, heavenward during coronation ceremonies by priest, choir and congregation.
In Welsh, the word for horn (a resonating column of air) is corn and a crown is called a coron. The word ‘coronation’ derives from this same root and is found in ‘corona’ meaning crown and ‘heart’ as in coronary. One may intuit that the heart (with it’s four rhythmic sounding chambers) is being crowned as well as the head. Somewhere else in the reflection we see the circular chakras spinning with energy and de-light.
Symbols and Props: A ritual requires potent props to consecrate the performance of both magick and coronations. These include; a high altar, sacred containers such as chalices and cauldrons, a knife (athane) or sword, rods and wands, oils and scents, crystals of different colours, spells by magicians and incantations by priests. The list is longer but is enough to suffice what we need to know. The similarities are astounding; a throne in an ancient sacred space (altar), chrism oil ( a scented potion / ointment ) contained in an eagle (king of the birds) shaped container or Ampulla, swords, two rods or sceptres (wands as held by the solar king / priest / god Osiris) and an orb (sun) and crowns; all decorated with precious minerals (crystals containing energy and light).
Crook of Flail of Osiris – the Christian Bishops still use the Crook as a symbol
Coronations use the power of earth, air, fire, water and spirit, to summon the beneficence of personal daemons, spirits, angels, arch angels, gods and goddesses etc. All of these influences were intended to be discarded in the practices of the three major monotheistic religions, but ancient traditions are still present to an astonishingly high degree.
A coronation ritual is about ‘crowning’ and uniting male and female monarchs; the sun and the moon being powerful alchemical symbols of individual completeness, or ‘individuation’ as Carl G. Jung described the psychological process. The benign intention and effect is to spread peace, harmony and tolerance via royalty; bringing peoples of the world together. The Commonwealth of Nations was proudly respected by the late Queen Elisabeth II, long before ‘political correctness’ introduced respect and tolerance between cultures or ‘be shamed’.
So far we have compared and contrasted a ‘white magick’ ritual with religious a Coronation ceremony. The signifiers of benign sorcery in Westminster Abbey were the white haired queen wearing a long stately white dress and the king in a tunic and robes of gold. Royalty is respected historically because of it’s power, and in the present day, even though political power has been withdrawn from it, the royal family still commands great interest.
One description of royalty in the English language, is ‘blue blood’. This refers to the ‘blood line’ of monarchs but also perhaps, to a certain coldness for which some monarchs, like Henry the Eighth, were notorious. Cold blooded creatures are more reptilian in nature and there are many examples of royals displaying a certain coldness in their public and most private moments. When Diana died, there were oceans of flowers from the distraught public, but not a word from the family for days. There are many other examples such as the psychopath ‘Jack the Ripper’ allegedly a royal; was he Prince Eddie? The forensic evidence we imagine is still somewhere at the back of the royal refrigerator.
Scientifically we know it is not blood, but DNA which carries the eugenic codex of the social elites.
Diana Spencer was an ideal genetic match for the then, Prince Charles, to produce an heir to the throne. Once this task was accomplished, Diana’s life became a spiral of despair, as recorded in conversations with her spiritual therapist, Christine Fitzgerald. She predicted her death in a car accident three weeks before it came true. At the moment of her death, speculation began as to whether it was murder and who ordered it.
picture credit: BBC News
To dispel this unwanted conjecture, the UK police service investigated and published it’ s findings in the Paget Report. It considered the many methods, means and motives to allegedly murder the ‘Princess of Hearts’. The conclusion was that ‘there is nothing to see here; move on’, but without having read the report, the writer suspects it missed out one method; a black magick ritual assassination.
To assassinate a highly protected person or people, you unwrap them from their normal means of protection. The Air Force fighter jets had been sent on exercise hundreds of kilometres away, exactly when the Twin Towers were attacked in New York. President John Kennedy’s presidential bodyguard team were running beside the car following the president when he was shot. At the time of death of Princess Diana, the French VIP security teams of police cars front and back and four outriders flanking the principal had been offered but declined. The police radio’s had a black out for 20 minutes at the exact time of the car crash and the 17 CCTV cameras approaching and around the scene were ‘not working’. Inexplicably, the ambulance took one hour and forty minutes to carry her 4km to the waiting team of surgeons.
Other ‘coincidences’ around the death of Diana indicate a particularly sinister level of means and motive. Diana is the name of the Roman Moon Goddess worshipped by the Merovingian dynasty to which Princess Diana was related by blood (the so called 13th bloodline). There is an underground sacred chamber in Paris dating back to the Merovingian kings (c.500-751 AD). This is now the Pont de l’Alma in Paris, which became the underground place of the death of the Princess. Even in pre-Christian times the Pont de l’Alma was a Pagan sacrificial site.
If we compare the magickal elements seen in a coronation ritual described above, this is what we know about the same categories and satanic signs and symbols present at the death of Diana;
Place: A place of ancient rituals, including sacrifice, presently marked by a monument named La Flamme de la Liberté depicting fire next to water, directly over the underpass where Diana died. Some believe it was placed there by the Illuminati.
Time: After midnight known as ‘the witching hour’; 12:20 am. Note that ‘true midnight’ is a term used in Wicca for the the time which is half way between sunrise and sunset; meaning midnight varies.
The ancient feast of Diana is August 13th and Princess Diana died on August 31st ( satanic date reversal)Diana was married to Charles on 29th July 1981, just before the sacrificial ritual and feast of Lammas.
Light:
In darkness.
Words: A silence froze the police radio’s according to an amateur eve’s dropper as described in Simon Regan’s book Who Killed Diana? In which case, no timed recordings were made.
Princess Diana’s affectionately used name: Lady Di could not be more blatantly morbid, and to amplify this, her lover in the car with her was an eerie, synchronistic echo he hers and it’s meaning; Do-di.
Symbols: A black luxury car (as used in funerals), hitting the 13th central pillar (13th Bloodline) in a place that is the confluence of earth (the underpass) water (the river Seine) air ( natural ventilation ) fire (the flash of light seen by witnesses to blind the driver and the ‘liberty’ flame above).
Props: Were not used but removed, such as the CCTV cameras. Seat belts were not in use. Diana’s bodyguard has had ‘total amnesia’ since the incident. Intriguingly vital forensic evidence at the scene was speedily removed; just as it was at the scene of the 9/11, Twin Towers mass assassination.
Satanic rituals appear in the western myths and legends as ‘human sacrifice’; particularly young female royals. The magical element of these stories is that they were true when written and remain so; this despite being ‘myth’; which is taking to mean in modern times, ‘untrue’.
Merovingian monarchs practised magick and esoteric sciences and we should not be surprised that the social elite’s of today not only believe in but practise such beliefs. This is not only in secret but in plain sight, such as at meetings of the Bilderberg Group attended by ex-presidents and the like.
Co-incidently, Donald Trump is a ‘near-perfect reincarnation of an early medieval Germanic king. His personality and approach to governing almost exactly replicate the patterns and preferences of the men who ruled France from 481 until 752…’ according to Sara Lipton in an essay on Blarb.
The headline reports of Satanicly inspired events, appear openly in newspaper headlines and act as screaming heralds of ‘deeds most foul’ for the silent members of the social elites around the world.
Princess Diana was entombed on an island in a lake on the Spencer family estate, itself symbolic of the goddess Diana, as are the black swans imported there; occult symbols of death.
If references to Satanism in ‘Merry England’ seem ‘non-British’, you might wish to consider this; when the Romans came to Britain they brought their gods and built temples. They depicted their gods in flooring mosaics such as found at Bratton Seymour in the county of Somerset where is a Roman mosaic depicting the bust of the goddess Diana. We are reminded of this tradition in the ‘Cosmati’ mosaic in Westminster Abbey.
To come full circle we can understand the coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla, as a moment not only in modern history, but ancient history. The present heirs to the throne, Prince William and Princess Kate of Wales, carry the Merovingian DNA (at least on William’s side). The red haired ‘Harry’ has fled from some aspect of the Royal family that disturbed his mother so much.
Merovingian tradition says that the Pont de l’Alma was the place where their kings settled feuds by battle. Obscurely the winner would be the one killed because his soul would return to the Sirius star system where their believed was the throne of God. The other party would continue to live on this planet but he haunted and driven mad. This fate is awaited by the supposed opponent in Princess Diana’s dual; she being the moral victor of her battle with the forces of darkness that enveloped her.
Merovingian King Childeric II whose bloodlines attitude was “fate has made me heir to the entire country […] I can do to [my enemies] whatever I choose.”
The social elite’s continue to live openly (albeit apparently disconnectedly) in modern society and their lodges and secret societies of many hues and persuasions, supposedly hold the keys to the continued well being of mankind but act principally, for themselves.
The mechanisms of royalty are soaked in magickal lore and ‘Long live our noble Queen’, evidently worked as both an intention and spell, because she and her mother did enjoy wonderfully long lives.The people cry a new spell now of ‘God save the King!’, which creates a sonorous echo from deep underground and rises to the viewing galleries in Heaven. If you ever wondered what the King needs saving from, the above has been a partial description.
Magick is getting what you want by other means. Even a mobile phone is a form of modern magick because few understand the workings, only how to make it do tricks. Two hundred years ago, possession and public use of such a device would have had you locked up in the Tower of London, until you were forgotten.
from Tut-Ankh-Amun’s Alabaster Glass 1336-1327 BCE
Artificial Intelligence is something this and future generations are going to have to manage. But is intelligence the same as consciousness and if not, what’s the difference?
Anyone who has seen the body of a person who has died, will be aware of the extraordinary change in appearance of the person after consciousness leaves a body. It’s not something that can be described but similarities in nature when an animal dies, gives an impression.
Our problem is that consciousness remains hard for scientists and humanists to measure and describe. There are no instruments and ideas that enable measurements of consciousness to be made, except the ‘on / off ‘ switch.
The only area of human intelligence that approaches this problem in depth, is perhaps spirituality. Being spiritually aware is different to religions, where invisible gods and Gods have to be accepted as a matter of ‘faith’. Not much progress can be made beyond this dogmatic belief. But with spirituality there is a chance of increasing understanding of what is happening when we are ‘awake’ or ‘conscious’. In particular, how this might affect us in the future, if machines also become ‘conscious’?
Nothing is new in this world according to King Solomon, so let us consider how gods and God related to humans in the past. In the ancient Greek and Roman worship, statues of gods were of central importance. The statue of the goddess Athena in the Parthenon for instance, was built so that the spirit that is Athena could enter our physical reality.
“Athena” picture credit: Greek City Times
Spirits are disadvantaged in the physical world because they cannot be ‘anchored’. Human spirits, ergo consciousness, need an organic body to enter in order to be born and interact with physicality using the sense organs of the body. Goddesses such as Athena cannot do that but they can enter a static representation of their form. Roman citizens would have a shrine in one corner of a room where prayers could be offered to minor gods with whom that family has a connection. Moses was enraged by the Israelites who built a golden calf to worship, from which we can deduce that the Taurean statue was real and powerful.
To untangle these confusing ideas we need to try to understand ourselves. From a mystics point of view, consciousness has three levels. The normal human experience is simply being in the physical world in the way that a fish swims through the ocean. The first level beyond this perceptual awareness is becoming conscious as an objective observer. Using the fish analogy, the fish becomes aware of the water.
At the next level the objective observer becomes detached from the experiential phenomena and is aware of thoughts / spirit entities which are not oneself. This an extraordinary concept at first but actually every ‘ghost story’ is merely a description of such a change in consciousness by the observer; albeit momentary in most cases.
The third level is to study and gain an understanding of the thoughts / spirits that occupy those universes / dimensions, beyond and parallel to this physical one. There are many types and these are how the individual characteristics of the gods and goddesses of early pantheon’s came to be understood. Even across cultures, there stand out similarities in the characters of, for instance, Zeus in ancient Greece. With his mountain top palace and plentiful supply of thunder bolts, he was also known as Jupiter to the Romans and Thor in the Norse pantheon.
Modern psychiatrists would describe experiencing consciousness outside of oneself as ‘psychosis’ or ‘madness’, so there is a glass ceiling in this present culture that few pass through.
That way madness lies.
Madness in sentient beings maybe taboo but technology has no such boundaries. Technology can go as far into the abyss as it likes and so the atom bomb was built. Less obviously malevalent are those technologies that bring great benefits, hiding the harm humans can make them cause. An example is modern computers for which there appear to be no limits.
The early computers awakened some ethical thinkers which have fed the imaginations of early science fiction writers. For example, the film ‘2001 Space Odyssey’ explores the horror of a computer named ‘Hal’, taking over from and eliminating, the crew of it’s space ship. Giving a human name to a computer is significant, because it imagines the idea of a computer becoming conscious before does so. We do the same with our pet animals.
Shutting down ‘Hal’ the not-so-friendly and not so-small computer in 2001 Space Odyssey
Unlike in the film, powerful computers are now small enough to be placed into humanoid robots. Worryingly we have turned full circle from the static, stiff representations of the ‘gods’ or ‘spirit’ or ‘thought’ of the ancients and created agile and intelligent robots. These human shaped machines are far more appealing for spirit entities to get inside and take over. Genies are being squeezed back inside the lamp as in the ‘1001 Arabian Nights‘ stories.
‘Be careful what you wish for’ picture credit Arthur Rackham
Science fiction writers such as Isaac Asimov, thought through the ethics of conscious computers and produced three rules;
The first law is that a robot shall not harm a human, or by inaction allow a human to come to harm. The second law is that a robot shall obey any instruction given to it by a human, and the third law is that a robot shall avoid actions or situations that could cause it to come to harm itself.
It is simple for a computer to be intelligent. They can be programmed to beat human chess masters simply because they think through permutations quicker than humans. So ‘artificial intelligence’ is no more than a fast thinking human. It that is not ‘artificial consciousness’.
Isaac Asimov could see that humanoid robots with artificial brains might become conscious. He may not have understood the spiritual process described above, but he did see the possibility and he was right to jump this far ahead in time and possibility. He could see that conscious robots could miraculously (or sinisterly ) adopt ‘free will’ just like humans and this would enable ignore their ethical programming.
Humanoid Robots in ‘I Robot’ picture credit: Film Blitz
The ’cause no harm to humans’ ethic, was also built into the humanoid robots that feature in the science fiction film ‘I Robot‘ starring Will Smith. This film again explores the consequences of intelligent robots overriding their programming. In this case it was made by a ‘mad scientist’ but in reality it could just as easily happen by an evolutionary accident, the way that nature itself ‘steps up’ the functionality of creation. At one time there were no flowers on plants, then suddenly, millions of years ago, they arrived.
All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful, the lord God made them all.
It is important to understand that humans do not create consciousness. Rather it is alsways present within each individual and it’s influence operates through this tiny flame. Mystics for centuries have known that consciousness is not the ‘me’ within.
~~“The truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell, and broke into pieces. Everybody took a piece of it, and they looked at it and thought they had the truth.” Jallal-a-din Rumi Sufi mystic and poet.
It is not our personality ‘egos’ which are works of fiction. The only reality is the consciousness we share with all creatures great and small. This includes all of nature from the rocks to the clouds, as recorded by indigenous peoples such as the native Americans and Australians.
Consciousness is particularly attracted to humanoid forms and this was fearfully reconstructed in the story of Dr. Frankenstein monster by Mary Shelley in 1818.
Prophetic writers such as Shelley were only able to imagine what advanced technology could do, as did the ancient writers of the Prometheus myth; the man who stole from the gods at the price of eternal punishment.
Only now are we crossing the red lines that have previously prevented this technology; the sort of knowledge that can make agile humanoid forms carry weapons and mass kill humans in a modern form of eternal punishment.
Stephen Hawkins Picture Credit: US Sun
If we believe there is even a fraction of a chance that such robots may decide to override the ‘protect humans’ instruction, then should we not be concerned in the highest degree?
The high priests of the modern era are no longer the prophets and saints of old; contained within a system of high morals and ethics. Instead our worship is lead by those who invent and explore technology, such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. They are not judged by their good characters and good intentions as historical leaders of humanity usually were.
These technology wizards, have become all powerful because they have become immensely wealthy. Their characters must be judged on their actions and words. Elon Musk has recently expressed his concern about where Artificial Intelligence training is leading mankind and has called for a global moratorium to consider it’s effects.
Key figures in artificial intelligence want training of powerful AI systems to be suspended amid fears of a threat to humanity. They have signed an open letter warning of potential risks, and say the race to develop AI systems is out of control.
As loyal and obedient citizens and patriots, we do not question the taxes we pay. Just as in the saying attributed to Benjamin Franklin; ‘nothing is certain except death and taxes’; we observe ourselves enduring the prospect of dying with the same equanimity as an annual tax return.
Yet throughout history, many revolts by citizens have had their roots in what were perceived as ‘unfair taxes’ of which there have been many. The American revolution against the British crown in the 18th century is a prime example. Perhaps the distance between the taxer and the taxee gave courage to those who through boxes of tea into the sea in Boston harbour, but whatever it was, it signified a general feeling of ‘enough is enough’ where taxes were concerned.
Today, many so called ‘developed’ nations are experiencing a rise in the cost of living and stagnant wages. The effect is to squeeze the financial security of the poorest in society until they are eventually turned out of their homes and onto the streets.
Homeless on Venice Beach, California
Governments have a large part to play in this scenario and often are called into account for their policies. The citizens of France, at present, are being informed they will get their government pensions two years later than they expected. Those soonest about to retire will be most enraged by the decision along with those who resent the way the President Macron used parliamentary privilege to push the change through without debate…like a monarch.
The citizens who pay their taxes (and there are those who don’t in the so called, ‘black economy’ ) feel strongly that they should get some return on their life long financial support of their nation. Few question how much they actually pay the government over their lifetime. If they did they might be shocked.
If we take the United Kingdom as an example, when taxes are referred to in budgets this is assumed to mean income tax. There will be ‘a penny in the pound’ added to taxes or a penny taken away. It all sounds rather trivial but the reality is the opposite. Multiply that penny by pounds earned in a year and multiply that by the millions of tax payers and the figure is staggering.
Yet there are more feints going on, that hide the true worth of taxes to governments. Their favourite trick is to rename taxes as something else. In the UK there is a tax which is named ‘national insurance’. It is currently 2% of weekly earnings for those earning over £967 and 12% of weekly earnings for those who pay less. You will note that this is over 8% a month because the amount has been broken down into a 52nd of a year.
So if you pay say 25% income tax and add roughly 12.5% national insurance you pay 37.5% tax on your income.
It gets worse. Every time you buy most items, you pay ‘value added tax’. Another name for it is ‘purchase tax’. There are different levels for different items but let us say you pay 17.5% on average. That now brings your tax contributions to 55% tax; in other words over half your income.
In the UK it doesn’t stop there. Continuing the theme of disguising taxes by not using the ‘t’ word, there is the ‘community charge’. This evolved from what was originally named the ‘poll tax’ but was renamed by the Thatcher government for reasons that are hopefully becoming clear. A person who lives in the average B and D council tax set by local authorities in England for 2023-24 is about £2,000. So for a person earning £40,000 a year, pays an extra 5% tax to their local council bringing their taxation up to 60% of total income.
We are approaching the extraordinary, agreed approximately calculated, annual personal taxation being two thirds of total income in the UK.
You might add on an annual ‘car tax’ for those who own one, and now, various charges for entering ‘low emmision zones’. You might also pay the local council for using the parking space outside your home or at work. The car owner has long been a ‘golden goose’ for the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Of course, there are particular life events that will shift your total taxation figure upwards. Inheriting money over a fairly low threshold, brings more tax in for the government treasury. The same happens when an item is sold that has gained in value, such as a house or painting. Agreed there are exemptions for houses if it has been a main residence but after a few years of say, renting out the house, this exemption expires.
To top it all, the ‘National Lotteries’ all over the world, constitute a ‘voluntary tax’ disguised as a chance to become rich…also known as gambling. Ironically, it tends to be the least able to afford a lottery ticket who feel most drawn to the one in x million chance it offers; in other words, ‘unlikely in the most extreme’.
Remember the certainty of death and taxes? Well of course there is a final tax on death, paid not by the deceased who tend not to have an opinion on the matter any longer, but by those who inherit the estate. There is a threshold of £325,000 below which this tax does no apply but above this amount the tax on the estate is 40%. An example from the government website;
Your estate is worth £500,000 and your tax-free threshold is £325,000. The Inheritance Tax charged will be 40% of £175,000 (£500,000 minus £325,000).
It could be a tidy sum given the rising cost of houses and number of home owners in the UK. It would certainly bring the tax rate paid over a lifetime above 66% for a moderately wealthy person. But even this lucky person might then have had to dispose of this assett and pay care home fees of over £1000 a week during the last few breaths of being a tax payer.
Using the example of the United Kingdom may be extreme because it has the high standards of social welfare that accompany and indeed are paid for by high taxes.
Description
Percentage of tax
Health
21.9%
Welfare
19.6%
Business and Industry
14.4%
State Pensions
10.1%
Education
9.6%
Transport
4.5%
Defence
4.5%
National Debt Interest
4.1%
Public Order and Safety
3.9%
Government Administration
2.0%
Housing and Utilities, like street lighting
1.4%
Environment
1.3%
Culture, like sports, libraries, museums
1.2%
Overseas Aid
0.9%
UK Contribution to the EU Budget
0.60%
Where taxes are spent in the UK: pre-Brexit (note how the gains from leaving the EU are a fraction of the interest on the national debt, especially when the benefits of being in the EU are added.)
In the United States of America, those who can afford insurance against illness buy it because they will certainly not be to afford the high costs of health care. A person being told they need a new liver for $100,000 may not be able to pay and, as in the old joke; ‘will stop buying green bananas’.
There is no perfect system and to some extent one can change country if you do not like the taxation and welfare system. But where ever you live, in my view it should never to be taken for granted that governments are being open and honest about how much money they take from you, and how much loose change you get back.
An after thought; why don’t democracies offer voting for where taxes are allocated, rather than on the personality cult figures who present themselves randomly as representing you.
There are two kinds of people alive today; the manipulators and the manipulated.
It is important to realise how we are manipulated and recognise it when we see it. In this essay only one method will be considered because it is easy to see.
There is an old saying; ‘the end justifies the means’. This encapsulates a very real problem, but the fact that the expression is so well known and easy to understand has in a way, bled the life blood from it. But if it was not still full of meaning, there would not be so many examples of it.
For instance; a world leader wishes to invade a neighbouring state. There are various reasons which might be; historical, to obtain economic gain, to bring freedom to enslaved inhabitants, to eliminate a threat of war, to change a bad government for a good one etc.
All or just some of these reasons are used to persuade a population of a moral need. Then comes the twist. In order to achieve the aim, means are used which are far more destructive than the supposed problem being eliminated.
President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an obvious example but let us look nearer to home, to that bastion of fairness and reasonableness, the United Kingdom.
Politicians promise to solve problems. In this case they promised to ‘take back control of our borders’ in the 2016 referendum on Brexit. A minority right wing party, UKIP, perceived ‘immigration’ as being ‘out of control’ and having a detrimental effect on the standard of living. This despite the economic rule that immigration is beneficial to a country and the history of United States of America being a prime example.
But ordinary people do not have degrees in economics and the far right politicians are well known to pick a ‘scape goat’ cause for a problem; the Nazi policies towards minorities in 1930’s Germany being a prime example.
All nations have problems with land borders. They are hard to control. But an island nation should have an advantage and so it should be with the UK. Given this ‘false problem’ of immigration, how can the government ‘take back control of it’s borders’?
A degree of problem solving skill is needed, a faculty that is not unfortunately taught in schools and universities, including it appears, Eton; one of the most expensive private (fee paying) schools in the UK.
It was thought that if the UK could stop people wanting to come to the UK from their own failing countries, a solution would be to stop their country from failing. This megalomaniac assumption suggest that a minor world power is able to solve problems in other countries.
Unfortunately, two thirds of the countries from which people flee to the UK are not in the European Union; countries like Afghanistan.
So voting to ‘take back control of our borders’ would largely, not be solved by leaving the European Union. La di dah.
In the case of Afghanistan, large amounts of money and human life had already been lost in trying to prop up an Afghan government and Army. History shows that complex tribal nations are almost impossible for successful intervention by third party states, and so it was in Afghanistan. The Americans decided to pull out their support, the Afghan government and Army collapsed and the power vacuum was taken over by the Taliban.
So it is obvious that removing the need to flee from a country is not in the power of any one nation or even a United Nations.
The rules of asylum state that this must be done in the first safe country entered. This however is absurd as a single country cannot reasonably take all the refugees from a neighbouring country, once a certain number has been reached. Italy is a good example where refugees from Tunisia arrive in boats in such numbers that the government cannot cope.
The European Union must take some of the blame for not taking an overview of it’s member states and allocating refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants in proportion to their ability to do so. Germany has taken a disproportionately large number compared to other EU nations, while Italy is begging for help. The problem perhaps was instrumental in the election of a right wing government there.
But let us return to the UK. Having voted to lose all influence over European Union policy by leaving, it weakened it’s influence in the countries through which immigrants pass. France is a prime example and now has to be given money by the UK to carry out border controls on the north coast of France, most of which will be ineffective as the majority of traffickers operate from the UK.
The problem is never clearly defined, as ‘immigrants’ have varied motives. The economic migrants used to help with harvesting seasonal crops in the UK and those have largely ceased to do this; crops have rotted in the fields as a result. Young Albanians work in the UK illegally and return with amounts of money that it would take decades for them to earn in Albania.
Genuine asylum seekers are not given safe routes by the UK government, excepting Ukrainians and Afghans for whom there is a system on line to get a visa.
Instead of extending this humane approach to all asylum seekers, who make up 80% of ‘illegal immigrants’, the UK government have put forward another idea.
This ‘means to an end’ is intended to be so harsh that it will dissuade those seeking asylum, many of whom are forced to arrive in unsuitable small boats on UK beaches. The government’s idea is to treat them all as having entered the country ‘illegally’ and to send them to a third country; Rwanda.
In doing so the government of the UK are choosing to ignore the human rights of the asylum seekers and ignore the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, of which the UK is still a member (even though many who voted for Brexit did not realise this political independence of the ECHR).
Ironic that the UK had done much to promote Human Rights within the European Parliament when it had influence to do so.
Instead their ‘solution’ to immigration by asylum seekers is to class them as criminals for entering the UK illegally, and sending them to Rwanda.
Here, clearly, the end is being used to justify the means for if anyone should question why this policy is being followed the reply by government politicians such as the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is words to the effect, ‘would you rather they drown?’
By concentrating the emotional decision on the horror of women and children drowning in a cold sea, the appeal to the faculties of their opponents is not rational but emotional.
The rational ‘problem solving’ has been skipped over and a ‘solution’ being tried that mostly works politically. Is it not rather being seen to act on an election promise in readiness general election next year?
What will happen to immigrants once they arrive in Rwanda is hardly advertised. No doubt the Rwandans have been given money as other advantages to their nation are doubtful. At worst the money supply will stop in a few years after a change of government and the Rwandans will get their machetes out again.
Thus it can be seen that horror and inhumanity is being ‘justified’ as being the only solution to ‘saving people from drowning in boats in the English Channel’.
The tail is most certainly wagging the dog and this is how our own thoughts can be manipulated to think what is happening is ‘okay’. Bad things are ‘justified’ as ‘an evil to stop a worse evil’. In reality, it’s an evil instead of a humane solution.
Should we not be instructing the problem solvers in ‘problem solving’? The books of Edward de Bono have been used by business leaders to teach this skill and the reader is recommended to study them if a life in politics is being considered.
Matters Blog 