The Ghost in the Machine

Recently , I have seen a common thread in ' spiritual ' blogs and websites wondering when ' we will get there ' . Many are getting very excited about 2012 due to the Mayan prophecy , which specifies that date as the end of a cycle after which there appear to be no further details . Some have said that this is when the ' End of the World ' will be and others are hoping that at this time there will be a form of spiritual ascension . I do not know what will happen tomorrow let alone in 2012 so I do not feel able to pass any form of judgement on this , but Time is very different in reality to how we experience it in our lives .

Arthur Koestler wrote a famous book called The Ghost in the Machine in which he pondered on human existence . I now quote from Wikipedia : " One of the book's central concepts is that as the human brain has grown it has built upon earlier , more primitive brain structures and that these are the ghost in the machine of the title . Koestler's theory is that at times these structures can overpower logic and are responsible for hate , anger and other such impulses ." This is true but what I would add to this is that our emotions are actually ghosts . They do not exist any more . They are replaying a moment in time when we had a thought of a world which was full of death , hate , anger , guilt and fear and the rest but this one thought has kept on repeating itself over who knows how long .It is like an addiction which we simply keep on doing again and again .It was only an idea and as such does not exist in concrete reality , but for some reason we are unwilling to let it go . The world is over NOW – it only exists in the past and as the past does not exist any more, our world doesn't either . It is only in our Mind does it continue.

Everything that we experience through our bodies is second hand . When you look at yourself or anything , it takes but an instant for the light waves to be received by your brain . Again this goes for your thoughts and feelings which are decoded in the brain , but in this instant is the difference between the real world and the world we see . For everything you sense in the body is in the past and therefore does not exist any more and has never been . I once worked for a company that sold semi precious stones and we had a few customers who said that they could release souls who were dead but were trapped in the earthly plane and send them to the light . I do not know whether this is true or not , but it is actually us who are dead . Our bodies , mind and feelings are no more – we are ghosts haunting an imaginary world .

We are ' there ' now . The world we see through our egoic mind is dead and it is only with spiritual vision will we be able to see the real world and it is this which the current spiritual bombardment is trying to achieve . It can be quite a form of relief after seeing something like the recent terrorist events in Mumbai to realise that it is not happening . So when will we get there in linear time . Will it be 2012 or 6012 ?. The answer is that it does not matter – the world of separation , death ,hate , fear and guilt is over . The outcome is assured but it is up to us when we accept that our egotistical mind and bodies are dead and amend our vision accordingly.

Second Life

In recent years there has been an explosion in 3-D virtual world reality games played on the computer . I quote from the website of one the most popular games Second Life :

        ' Second Life is a 3-D virtual world created by its Residents . Since opening to the public in 2003 , it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by millions of Residents from around the globe .

        From the moment you enter the world you'll discover a vast digital continent , teeming with people , entertainment , experiences and opportunity .Once you've explored a bit , perhaps you'll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business.

        You'll also be surrounded by the Creations of your fellow Residents . Because residents retain intellectual property rights in their digital creations , they can buy , sell and trade with other Residents.

        The marketplace currently supports millions of dollars in monthly transactions . This commerce is handled with the inworld unit of trade , the Linden dollar , which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online dollar exchanges . '

        There was a news report a few weeks back about a couple , Amy and David Taylor who had divorced because of Mr Taylor's adultery with another player in the virtual game . This had not actually happened in real life but Mrs Taylor considered it enough grounds for divorce . In effect she believed that Second Life was real . Their story was on the television and in the newspapers and everyone had a good laugh at them . The problem with this attitude is that if they were stupid to believe in the reality of Second Life , then the whole of the World is just as stupid . Because nothing we see in this world is real – it is only imagined . We are at the controls of a game and have convinced ourselves that this is ' Real Life ' . There is no physical matter .In reality everything is non material and it is our addiction to the physical world that keeps it going and it is only through our Minds do we see what we see . We are not suffering or in pain of any kind unless we think so .

The New World Order

There are a large number of people who believe that there is a world wide conspiracy to create a World government , whose aim is to enslave the global population and create a world similar to Nazi Germany or Stalinist government .In many ways I would agree with this as there appears to be a growing tendency to centralise power far away from the individual with such organisations as the European Union and global corporations who are answerable to no one and can move from one country to another at a moments notice . There is a definite tendency for governments , all over the world , to behave in a more dictatorial way treating their own peoples with suspicion and in some countries as the enemy . The surveillance culture , with the huge number of cameras we now see , and increasing legal powers to spy on e mails and telephone calls are an indication of this paranoid state of mind .

The only real difference I have with the ' conspiracy theorists ' is my belief that the World government has always been with us and that we are only now beginning to see the real picture . A government mind- set has existed since the beginning of this world , with the first example being Moses and the Ten Commandments . In much the same way that we have personal egos , telling us what to do and how to live our lives this government mind-set is a Super Ego which is literally trying to control everything in the world and again like our personal ego , it has nothing to offer us .

This Super Ego has four main planks to its control of the world . Firstly through the various governments and its power over the Legal systems and financial organizations . Through the legal system it dictates what we can and cannot do and through the financial system it ensures that the vast majority of individuals in this world have meagre financial resources , whilst retaining the vast majority of wealth in its own favoured positions such as Banks and Corporations . Secondly it uses the various religions of the world to tell us how to behave . The Ten Commandments are a very good example of this – if Gordon Brown went up a mountain and returned to 10 Downing Street with tablets from God telling us what to do , I hope that we would be mature enough to tell him where to go ! The Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades are perfect illustrations of this religious zeal to dictate to people how to live their spiritual lives . ' No sex before marriage ' has been another way for the various religions to control us . God , Life or The Universe or whatever your take is on the spiritual never tells us how to lives our lives or what to do . It is only the Ego that does this .

The third string to the bow of the Super Ego is Education . Tony Blairs famous calling for ' Education , Education , Education ' , whilst probably coming from a genuine desire for our children to receive decent schooling , shows us the Super Egos desire to instruct our children as to how to think. Many times , I have heard how important education is as it shows children how to live in this world . This is not true – it shows children how it wants them to live in this world . When we are young we are very impressionable and tend to listen to authority figures and trust them to guide us . The problem is that these various authority figures are caught up in the trap and so the same ideas are passed down from one generation to another . Schools and universities are a main propaganda tool to mould and smooth the personalities of the young as how to think and behave . The last system used , is the Media . Via television , the movies and sports it can subliminally put ideas into people . Our subconscious believes everything it sees to be true and it is only our concious mind that filters the visions that we see . However , by continual media messages through the News , films and entertainment programmes our conscious mind will eventually believe what we are meant to . The other advantage that this propaganda means has is, that whilst watching moving pictures on film we are put into a light hypnotic trance in which we are more suggestible than we would normally be and prolonged viewing will eventually slow down our conscious mind and reduce our cognitive abilities to think for ourselves . This has become a main instrument for the Super Ego to implant what it wants to into our minds .

Like our personal ego , the individuals who work for these organisations have no idea how they are being manipulated and in the main probably feel that they are doing a service for humanity . I used to work for a major UK Bank and , with hindsight , it is amazing how easy it is to get sucked into a certain mind-set but what I found is that the higher up the hierarchy people go , the more they get locked in . It is almost like a form of possession where the mind is given up to the wishes and interest of the organisation and are bribed with financial rewards to keep them in line . At the very top of Government ,Banks, Religions , Education and the Media the individuals are almost totally linked into the Super Ego way of thinking and are only there to serve its interests . The recent Presidential victory of Barack Obama will ultimately be disappointing as he too , is only there to continue its control . It is not concerned with you in the slightest and actually hates you . Everything it does is for itself and is only interested in its survival and power , however shiny and alluring it may seem to be . Over the next few years I expect more and more of the Super Ego to reveal itself to us as the governments of the world will attempt to morph into each other and become more brutal and totalitarian as its resistance to the resurgent spiritual energy that is currently radiating across our world will increase . But do not despair – its end is at hand . It is doomed to die and when it accepts its death , it will be reborn as it is actually the sum of our One Mind . Interesting times are ahead .

Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider was switched on today at 8 am. There is tremendous excitement in the media regarding this event , calling it the Second Big Bang and some scientists have suggested that Black holes could be created which would suck the whole universe into them and destroy all matter . The media seems to love ' End of the World ' stories . However the scale and imagination of the project is impressive , whilst completely ununderstandable to lay people like me , who received a U grade in my Physics O Level . I will cheat and quote from today's Times , which attempts to make sense of it :

' In a tunnel buried 100 metres below ground , on the shores of Lake Geneva , scientists will attempt to thread a stream of sub-atomic particles around a 27 km ( 17 mile ) ring without touching the sides . When the protons snake all the way around the circle , and begin to orbit it more than 11000 times a second , a new eye will have been cast on the nature of everything .

Within a few months , the particle accelerator will start to condense its protons into beams a quarter of the diameter of the human hair , and to fling them together at 99.9999991 per cent of the speed of light .The resulting collisions will generate energy so intense that such conditions have not existed since a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang , throwing sub-atomic debris into vast detectors .These detectors will track and see new particles and perhaps even new dimensions – structural components of the cosmos about which we have been able to guess , but not to know . '

To the vast majority of the human race , this is gobbledegook and we can only sit back and praise the scientists on their incredible intelligence . But there is a flaw in this grand experiment – namely that there is no physical matter . The world we see is not real . The sun , the stars , the moon and the planets do not exist . The computer screen you are looking at , is not there . Everything we observe is imagined ie. it is in our Mind . In fact the one thing that keeps the physical world real to us is the belief that it is real.

It is just the same with Quantum Physics and all micro physics . The scientists are analysing nothing . Our Ego , which sees itself As 'I', rather than the whole of the Universe which we are , urges us to research and analyse the physical , as this keeps us in the prison of addiction to the world . Life cannot be analysed and researched . Our logical , human brain will attempt to do this , but will always fail . Life just is and the more one philosophises on it , the more you come to understand what a huge waste of time it is trying to explain it . In my opinion , the world we see is a symbolic representation of our Mind but no more than that .The ' discoveries ' that come from the Large Hadron Collider , however interesting , will only be figments of our imagination .

The Holy Grail

The search for the Holy Grail is one of the most enduring spiritual legends and also the subject of one of my favourite films – Monty Python and the Holy Grail. As I understand the story , it was the cup which Jesus used at the Last Supper , but it has become a symbol for the spiritual search.

There is something inside , which pushes us to search for the intangible , which we feel is missing from us .We feel if we could just find it , we would then be complete . The outside world glitters with material wonders and we look to this to fill the hole . Money , relationships and addictions are some of the ' false idols ' we use , but even when these fail we keep on searching .

There is a mistaken idea behind all this searching . There is nothing to search for – Life is the Holy Grail .The world is fine and so is everything within it . Nothing needs changing or adding to – no part of Life is better than the other . You are what you have been searching for and so is everyone else . It may be hard to stomach but your worse enemy is the Holy Grail , even though as they say in Monty Python his mother is a hamster and his father smells of elderberries . You are the end of the search , believe it or not .

Sympathy for The Devil

I have been struggling with my inner Alf Garnett . Alf Garnett was the leading figure in the 1960s sitcom Til Death Do Us Part , who astounded the nation with his racist , mysoginistic and homophobic ways . He was seen as a bigot but was actually a bewildered man who could not cope with change and ranted against a world he did not recognize any more . Close to where I live , there is a Moslem mosque which causes all sorts of parking problems and when my driveway is blocked by one of the Mosque goers , I feel hate for moslems . When I am cut up by a woman driver , who are getting incredibly aggressive , I feel hate for women . When there is a gay guy in front of me ,holding me up in the supermarket I feel hate for gays . But then the guilt hits me – I shouldn't have these feelings .Society says so . The problem is that we all feel hate – the Moslem hates , women hate and gays hate , but we are supposed not to have these thoughts . We even have Thought Police now telling you what you can and cannot think . It won't work –these feelings cannot be denied and the more they are suppressed the worse the final outcome will be.

Sometimes I wish I was the Devil . He can do whatever he wants – if the Devil wants to smoke in a pub , womanise , swear , get drunk he will do it . But the best part is that he never gets punished . I think we can assume that God is ok with this as the Devil has being going since the beginning of time and nothing has been done about him . He appears to have total freedom – death, destruction , murder . Anything goes . He is guiltless and I feel jealous of this . Guilt is the most pernicious of our ' negative ' feelings .It stops us doing what we want to do and leads to repression and eventual frustration in ourselves and the world .The definition of guiltlessness would be innocence , but in our ' Alice in Wonderland ' world it is supposedly God who sees wrong but the Devil who is innocent .I do not believe in either a literal God or Devil .Our beliefs are topsy turvy – where guilt is good and innocence bad . It is Guilt where all the fear , anger and hate come from . Innocence is where Love comes from .

All Our Yesterdays

Everything that we experience through our bodies is the past . Any object that you see takes time to reach your senses through light waves – anything you hear is received by sound waves after a short period of time . This might only take a milli-second for our senses to receive this information , but it is still in the past when your brain decodes this information . This goes for all our senses . We are literally living in the past .

Nostalgia is the sentimental yearning for the past . We mythologise our childhoods and convince ourselves that life was so much better at such and such a time . Again , we are living in the past . Our whole world is in the past . We fantasize about the future , but when we get there it is the past we see .

Philosophers talk about living in the ' Now ' . It is only through our spiritual selves can we actually do this . Our body lives in linear time seeing a past and future , but when we live in the Now , it will push us to think about the future or the past . They do not actually exist . As the old saying goes : Tomorrow never comes . This is most important for our relationships to realise that we are seeing people as they were and not as they are at this moment . We see them through our past experiences and react accordingly . It is only in the present moment , will we be able to see people in their true light and it is only in the present moment will you be able to see your true self.

The Wicker Man

Over the weekend I re-watched the great film The Wicker Man , starring Christopher Lee , Edward Woodward and Britt Ekland . I last saw this sometime in the 1980's when I was not really interested in the religious subplot of the film , but just watched it as a straightforward thriller . On second viewing , it is the spiritual contrast between the Christian policeman and the Pagan inhabitants of the Scottish island which jumped out at me , even though it still remains the capacity to shock and the climax at the end , when the Wicker Man finally appears is still a classic scary movie moment.

For those who have not seen the film I will give a synopsis . A serious , deeply religious christian Scottish police sergeant , Neil Howie receives information that a young girl has gone missing on a remote Scottish island , in an anonymous letter . The sergeant flies to the island , Summerisle, to investigate .He shows a photograph of the missing girl to the locals , but they deny her existence . Howie starts noticing the islanders' bizarre customs and lifestyles with increasing incredulity and anger and eventually meets Lord Summerisle who explains that they are all practicing Pagans , who have rejected Christianity on the grounds that it didn't work . Whilst they practiced Christianity the islanders were forced to eke out a living , but since they forced out the Christian minister and followed a pagan lifestyle ( lots of sex and alcohol ) the island has become abundant and something of a paradise . Howie is deeply offended and accuses them of murdering the girl as part of a bizarre ritual to ensure a bountiful harvest , as the last one had failed .He then attempts to leave the island in order to report to the Chief constable of the West Highland constabulary , but finds that his plane has been sabotaged and he is unable to leave .

Attempting to save the girl , who he has now decided is alive , but is to be sacrificed on May 1^st he finds himself involved in a strange ceremony dressed as Punch .He finds the girl and tries to escape with her , but is drawn back to the islanders and Lord Summerisle who explains that the disappearance of the girl was just a ruse to lure the policeman to the island and that it was him they wanted , as it was their belief that his sacrifice due to his virginal and ' pure ' Christian life will appease their pagan gods and will ensure a good harvest for the island . He is then led to a huge Wicker Man and is duly burnt alive,reciting Psalm 23 , and the film then ends.

One senses that the film makers are firmly on the side of the pagan islanders and their lifestyle seems a hell of a lot more fun than the repressed policeman's life . If I had to choose between the two I would definitely go with the pagans , but without the human sacrifice , as having sex with a young Britt Ekland seems part of the deal . It is also interesting that the island needs no police , implying that repression leads to crime , a view that I concur with . But the two archetypes , Sacrifice and' Death and Rebirth ' are what chiefly interested me .

Firstly , Sacrifice –both the Paganism and Christianity depicted in the film are concerned with sacrifice . With the pagans it is more overt , with their rituals and actual human sacrifice , but with the policeman it is slightly different . In his Christianity he seems to have to give up a part of himself and live a life of deprivation without sex even though it is obvious that his inner stud is crying out for it and a singing , naked Britt Ekland banging on the walls of his hotel does not help matters much . The fact that the islanders seem to be having so much fun also accentuates his discomfort . But in both cases , it implies that God , in the case of Neil Howie and the Gods , with the Pagans , need something from us . Is this true ? – would omnipotent beings want our meagre belongings . This doesn't seem very likely to me and is in fact the projection of our negative ego , which is needy , onto God or the Gods and our view of sacrifice is just a reflection of ourselves . The very belief that the world is not abundant and that we have to give up something of us to a needy Universe is wrong , in my view , and actually causes the problems . The Universe wants to give to us- we are the ones who are trying to take .

The second theme in the film is Death and Rebirth .The pub in the film is called The Green Man , who is a figure who dies and then is reborn .He is often linked to the Green Knight who Sir Gawain fights in the Arthurian legends . Whatever limb Gawain cuts from the Green knight regrows and Gawain finds that he is indestructible . The pagans in the Wicker Man believed that by sacrificing the policeman , he would be reborn in the harvest and simply transform from one state of being to another and the policeman , himself , believed that he would be resurrected in Christ's arms , once he was dead . Actually , the story of Jesus' death is a Death/Rebirth tale so maybe Lord Summerisle and Neil Howie weren't so different after all. All this presupposes that death and birth are real and again I believe that we have got this wrong and that it is only our beliefs that make it so . The pagan's belief in the forces of the Sun and other natural forces for life are erroneous . It is only our bodies that need sustenance and we are not our bodies .

Anyway , I would highly recommend the film to anybody who has not yet seen it .The acting is great especially from Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee and the movie can be enjoyed on different levels . Britt Ekland isn't bad either !

Love and Hate

We have all fallen in love and we have all fallen out of love . Why do we do this-how can our feelings of intense love, within a short period of time, suddenly alter to hate ? What is the catalyst for this change . One minute we love someone and then the very next second we hate them .

Our ego has a very peculiar sense of Love . It is quite happy to love someone until the object of desire does something which it does not accept . This can be anything from something relatively minor such as not returning a telephone call to something more major , like adultery .The first action will probably result in feelings of frustration and the second in hate and can lead to a complete breakdown of a relationship, but both responses come from the same place . The ego only offers conditional love – it will only love as long as the conditions of the relationship are acceptable to it . As soon as these conditions are broken ,then its real feelings of hate begin to surface .

An example of the non- acceptance can be seen starkly in diseases like Anorexia . To sufferers of anorexia , their body has to conform to how they want it . Unfortunately , our bodies do not obey our rules . It gets fat , thin and goes bald – it ages , our bodies start to sag and our boobs are either too big or too small .Our non acceptance of this , leads to our hatred of the body . We want to control it , so that it meets our vision of beauty and we can love ourselves . But our body has its own agenda , which has nothing to do with body image , but our ego can not accept this and so Anorexia descends into a fight between the ego and its hatred of the body and the body itself , which needs food to function .

The second example of non acceptance I will use is adultery . Again , this comes down to control . We cannot bear the thought of our partner having sex with someone else . It is completely unacceptable to the ego and will normally bring up feelings of rage and hate . It is so normal in our society that in cases of murder , it can be called a ' crime of passion ' and the accused may receive a reduced sentence , compared to other forms of murder . But what we are really saying with non acceptance is that what someone has done is so bad that it is unforgiveable and that we will deny our love for that person . As I said before , our ego has a very peculiar sense of love . Love does not die , but to our ego it does .

Basically , non acceptance is hate and hate is non acceptance . Our society has created rules for what is right and what is wrong and it is these by which we judge each other . They are laws developed from hate and not surprisingly lead to hate , as the ego is Hate .But what it hates more than anything else is , to coin a phrase , unconditional love . Within us , live two emotions Love and Hate . One is real and the other is a figment of our imagination –it is our real selves that we are asked to accept , not the imposter .

The Long and Winding Road

But still they lead me back

To the long  winding road

You left me standing here

A long long time ago

Don't leave me waiting here

Lead me to your door

But still they lead me back

To the long  winding road

You left me standing here

A long long time ago

Don't leave me waiting here

Lead me to your door

I have just bought myself an MP3 player , which I can actually understand and use . This is absolutely amazing for a computerphobe such as myself . One of the first pieces of music I put onto it was The Beatles Number Ones album which consists of all their chart topping songs . The last song on the album is The Long and Winding Road , some of whose lyrics I have copied above.

The Long and Winding Road is a song about separation and our search for our ' missing part ' . We look to fill this empty space through various means , such as our relationships , physical addictions and work . But they never entirely work , as all of these things never last for ever and the vacuum re-emerges . In reality , this  separation does not exist - it is a figment of our imagination . It is our fear of Life , which continues this separation and causes all the problems that we see in this world . Life is not to be feared - it is not dangerous and threatening but our belief that it is  , makes it so . We cannot be killed or hurt in any way . As Shakespeare says there is ' Nothing either good or bad , but thinking makes it so . '

There is no ' Long and Winding Road ' . We are already home .

 

Just Whistle While You Work

"Just whistle while you work

And cheerfully together we can tidy up the place

So hum a merry tune

It won't take long when there's a song to help you get the pay"

 

I live close to a railway station and every day I see the commuters on their way to work and on their return . It is interesting to observe the exhausted nature of these individuals as they struggle to earn a crust . They look unhappy and full of stress , but there is something within which forces them to get up everyday at some ridiculous time to go and do whatever they do and which over a period of time , they learn to hate .

Why do we do this ? Obviously , our ' survival gene ' plays a large part in this , but there is another element in our personalities which makes us do this . ' Your not here to enjoy yourself , but to work ' is a phrase you may have heard whilst having a light hearted break in your day , but from my observations this is actually how a large percentage of the population view Life . Society looks in favour on those who are continually doing ' things ' . One of the most common put downs is ' You're lazy ' and we are told this from a very early part of our life, as though it was a crime to do what we want to do . In my country , Great Britain , kids are generally packed off to school at the age of five , at the very latest , and many children start a form of schooling at an earlier age to this . From then until you are sixteen or eighteen you stay in school and then , either , go straight to work or go onto Higher Education of some sort to learn even more .You will then remain in work until you are sixty five , when you are allowed to retire and receive your pension and again there is talk of increasing the retirement age up to seventy or seventy five . So basically , all the best years of your life are spent working at something that you would probably not have done if you had the choice . This is complete and utter madness .

You are not meant ' to do ' but to LIVE . The Meaning of Life is to Live . You cannot , but live . You are not going to die , but our Ego tells us that we will and we need to work . This a world of abundance , but we refuse to see it and live our lives complaining we do not have enough . This is , also, one of the Ego's little tricks . There is Enough . Life is Enough , but we believe otherwise . There must be something more , we say to ourselves , but this is all there is . Deep down we know this and it is more than satisfactory – it is brilliant and wonderful , but while we listen to our Ego's siren voices we will always be disappointed . Anyway , have a nice day at work .

Change

In the United States Democratic party elections , the latest buzzword is Change . We need to change the world , they say, and from a logical point of view,with the United States facing a recession and fighting a futile war in Iraq this would be entirely reasonable . But what is it that causes these world events –it is our mind . There is only one mind and we are all connected to it . It is from this mind that our thoughts originate-all thoughts of war and destruction are in each of our minds .In fact , every heinous act could be carried out by anyone of us given the right circumstance .

It is not the outside world we need to change but our view of ourselves .We need to accept everything-ourselves ,others ,events in our lives and outside us . This is difficult for us to do as our ' Ego' is compelled to try and control . In some way , I do not fully understand , the world is absolutely fine . It does not need changing-people do not need to change .There is nothing wrong with us – not anybody . It is acceptance , not change , we need and this means everything .

A Red Letter Day

Today ,both Chelsea and Manchester United were knocked out of the FA Cup . This means that none of the Big Four ( the above two clubs plus Liverpool and Arsenal ) will win it and that somebody else will actually win something . As a Crystal Palace supporter ( who never win anything ) I wholeheartedly support this new direction Football is taking and long may it last .

The Three Faces of Eve

The most distinctive feature of Multiple Personality Disorder is the formation and emergence of alternate personality states or 'alters'. Patients with MPD experience their alters as distinctive personalities possessing different names , histories and personality traits . It is not unusual for MPD patients to have alters of different genders , sexual orientations , ages or nationalities . Some patients have been reported with alters that are not even human : alters have been animals or aliens from outer space . The average MPD patient has between two or ten alters , but some have been recorded with over one hundred .

The Three Faces of Eve , a major film in the 1950s , is the true story of a young housewife who suffered from multiple personality disorder . The film tells the story of Eve White ( a pseudonym ) in an unhappy marriage , who was referred to psychiatrists by her doctor , due to headaches and blackouts . During one therapy session , good time girl Eve Black emerged . Eve Black knew all about Eve White and scorned White's life as a boring waste of time . Her psychiatrists treated both Eves , sometimes using hypnotism . Subsequently , a further personality , Jane , emerged . Over many sessions , several traumatic childhood events , such as Eve White being forced to kiss her dead grandmother were disclosed . Over time these three personalities attempted some form of resolution .The doctors were uncertain that she was fully cured but optimistic that she faced a more stable future .

One of the major beliefs of the New age movement is that the World is One .This idea ,inherited from Buddhism , seems at first glance to be odd as the world we see is full of individual objects . How can the world be one and why does it appear to be divided ? I believe that there is only One Mind – a Supersoul , if you like – and that all our thoughts and hence our actions come from here . Even though people may appear to make individual choices they all emanate from this source , which has a fixed view of the world . Psychiatrists believe that Multiple Personality Disorder is triggered by some form of trauma , which forces the personality to split into these different facets . A dominant personality will appear and it is only when some event occurs , normally traumatic , will the others emerge and the process of attempting to integrate these different characters begins . My view is that originally we were One Mind but due to the fear that was caused by our belief in death , our Mind split into distinct ' alters ' and from this split the emotions of guilt ,hate,anger , loneliness ,etc were born . The world ,in effect , has Multiple Personality Disorder ! An individual , with MPD , will only form a relatively few number of personalities , but the universe has formed an unimaginable number .

Luckily ,there is a part of us who still knows the truth . This part of us , encourages us to ignore the siren calls of death and destruction and urges us to reconnect with who we are . If we wish to do this , we need to listen to this Voice within us and start to reintegrate our personality like ' Eve White ' . We will no longer need to see the pyschiatrist .

Dante’s Inferno

Mural at the church of St Peter & St Paul , Chaldon , Surrey

depicting Heaven and Hell

Just when you think that things can't get any worse , after the recent court cases of Steve Wright and Levi Bellfield , we hear about the almost unimaginable stories coming from the Haut de la Garenne in Jersey . Tales of child abuse , murder , underground chambers , manacles on walls to 'restrain the children ' are being reported daily and I have no idea where the horrors might end . On one of the walls is scrawled ' I have been bad for years and years . ' There appear to be links with senior establishment figures on the island which echo similar previous cases and it has been suggested that individuals who were implicated in the Islington care scandal might well have had connections to the Haut de la Garenne .

This is vile , horrendous , despicable . I don't think there are any words in the English language to describe properly the true nature of what happened there . It makes Dante's Inferno look like a beach holiday in the Caribbean and I am not being flippant . The abuse of children is at the very deepest levels of the Ego's hatred . It is a direct attack on innocence and at the world and any sane human being feels repulsion for the individuals who perpetrated these crimes . I think they are guilty and yet there is a part of me that knows they are innocent . Whatever ,anybody does they remain innocent . Adolf Hitler , Pol Pot , Ian Brady , Myra Hindley , Charles Manson – they are all innocent . This innocence is at the core of all being and cannot be changed , however much we are repulsed by a person or their actions . I am not suggesting that these people should be on the streets to continue their mayhem but I know they are not guilty . I just don't understand why not.

How do you plead ?

There have been two recent court cases in the news which have caught my attention.The trials of Steve Wright for the murders of five prostitutes in Ipswich and of Levi Bellfield in London for the murders of two other women are extreme examples of the hatred for the feminine in the world . They trigger feelings of revulsion for the two accused and there have been calls for the return of the death penalty .In our eyes they are guilty and have been sentenced to prison for life and both of them will probably never see the outside of a prison again . But it is only our view of them not the view of God ,Life or the Universe ( whatever your decription is ) .

It is only humans who dispense ' justice ' . One of the principal questions in religion is : Why does shit happen and why does God let it happen ? Some religions say that there is justice and evildoers will go to Hell or one will receive Karma if not in this life , in the next one . Neither of these two theories seem particularly truthful to me . If God wanted to dispense some form of retaliatory judgement I do not think he would wait – it would be immediate and would be commensurate with the crime . 'An eye for an eye , a tooth for a tooth . ' But our experience shows that there is no divine revenge . Some of the most heinous crimes in the world go unpunished .Many mass murderers die in their sleep without any punishment and in government circles , one will probably receive promotion and be feted as a hero .

So why is this ? My view is that the Universe sees Life differently to us .The world is a bit like Mr Magoo without his glasses – we don't see the whole picture . I suspect that God does not even see pain , death or disease . Our feelings of guilt , fear , hate etc do not even exist , as God could not conceive of such things . I also suspect that we have this same vision , but that it is clouded by our imaginary view of Life . These events are only occuring in our mind –they are not real . If the world was real , they would be terrible , but we are caught in a nightmare of our own making . The World needs to go to an optician !

My fellow Americans

It is election year in the USA and I doubt whether anybody will regret George Bush leaving the Presidential office . I think most people's view is that his successor cannot be any worse than him and his criminal posse . The choices appear to be between John McCain , Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and it is a pleasant surprise that the next President will have a higher IQ than a 8 year old , even though I am not holding my breath that there will be a great change in American foreign policy.

As an interested observer in England , the most striking difference in elections ,apart from the length of time , is the emphasis that is placed on being an American . It appears , sometimes , that there is nothing outside of the USA , that it is the whole world and Americans seem completely stunned when the outside world intrudes on the USA .About the one saving grace of 9/11 was the light , which was shone on US foreign policy and has forced the American public to question their government and its actions , even though this does not seemed to have made any difference . But what is striking is the arrogance that many Americans show to the outside world .Some of them really do think they are better than the rest of the world and their armed forces have behaved with breathtaking disdain for the citizens of the countries they have invaded . I do not let my own government , and the rest of the countries who have assisted the US , off scot free but there seems to be a difference in the attitude of the armed forces of the different countries .

However , this arrogance does highlight one of the Ego's main personality defect . It is not just Americans who think like this – it is in every human being in the world . Everybody will have someone or some group of people , who they think they are better than . Samuel Johnson was quite correct when he said that " Patriotism is the last refuge of the scandal . " The English think they are better than the French and vice versa . Men look down upon women and women look down upon men . Even in families , there is a hierarchy of power . However , when we look at the world through our true eyes , we will see that there are no differences – Life is Life is Life . The wino or the beggar or drug addict is no less worthy than anyone else . We like to use labels , but what we really are is Life . The Ego uses arrogance to continue our separation from one another ,but Life is a whole . When countries or individuals fight each other it is like the individual members of a football team arguing amongst themselves –stupid and ultimately counter productive . If we can change our perspective on the world there will be no more George Bushes in the White House .

Is the Catholic Church a paedophile ring ?

From last Thursday's Times :

" Paul Gordon has waited 30 long years for justice . This week the former " pasty-faced and weak schoolboy" who was sexually abused by a religious order who paid off his father finally saw his tormentors sent to jail.The sex abuse case is the latest to hit the Catholic Church in Ireland whose moral authority has been destroyed.

From the mid 1960's St John's National School in Sligo , northwest Ireland was a dangerous place for children.Police believe that at least 50 boys , and probably many more were abused by religious and lay teachers . "

This is just a brief outline of Mr Gordon's case- I will not give any further details because they are too sick and disgusting for my blog . But it appears plain that there was a paedophile ring operating at the school . For how long no one knows , but one of the accused a Patrick Curran was teaching at the school up until 1999.These sexual abuse stories , involving the Catholic Church have been appearing all over the world for the last 20 years or so and probably run into thousands of cases . I feel that this is probably just the tip of the iceberg as victims are loathe to come forward and deal with the judicial system , even if they can get their story believed .

The cases seem to follow a similar pattern .First , the accusations are made and then denied . The church then sets out on a course of personally vilifying the victim , whilst letting the priest continue his work .If further evidence is discovered ,the Church is then dragged kicking and screaming into the courts ,blaming the perpetrators and trying to keep the compensation costs to a minimum .But with each case that I have read about , I have been forced to face the question – is this abuse unofficial Church policy ? By the very nature of their actions it seems to me that this behaviour is condoned by the Catholic hierarchy . Are the leaders of the church also perpetrators ? How high does it go up the chain of command ? I know that it is difficult to comprehend that a religious organisation could be corrupt to this extent but I am a great believer in ' If it walks like a duck , looks like a duck and quacks like a duck ,it probably is a duck ' .

I must stress that I have had no link to the Catholic church in my life and have no feelings one way or another about it but I do have a child and would not let her within a hundred miles of a school run by the Catholic church .In the UK , when schools fail to meet a required standard they can be closed down .As an outsider , I would say that the church has not only failed to meet the required standard , but are run by men with a different agenda than most normal human beings .I would suggest that it is banned worldwide for being ' institutionally paedophiliac ' ( if there is such a thing ) and until it is determined that the abusers have been eradicated from their ranks , should not be allowed to continue .

Manipulation

Here are a few phrases you might find people trying to use to manipulate you (or vice versa).The reason for this , is to stop you feeling the emotions that you are experiencing .In other words , another method of control-unfortunately we all do it to a greater or lesser extent :

 

• It 's for the good of the firm , family , religion , yourself
  
• It's for your own safety ( Health & Safety )
  
• Tears ( politicians & women – sorry ladies )
  
• I do so much for you – I have to do everything –you should be grateful . ( Victimhood )
  
• It's all your fault
  
• You're being oversensitive
  
• You let me down
  
• Think of people worse off than you ( eg the starving in Africa )
  
• I'm right
  
• I need or I want
  
• I'm so angry with you

Just go away

From today's Observer : " Airport –style metal detectors will be installed at hundreds of school gates under sweeping measures to confront the growing problem of teenage knife crime . Senior police officers and head teachers have persuaded Jacqui Smith , the Home Secretary , that their effectiveness in tackling knife crime outweighs any concerns over pupil privacy . " This government has become increasingly authoritarian and puritanical . Their normal excuse for enacting these type of policies is to protect the public from these exaggerated threats . From the banning of photographs at school plays , to the restrictions placed on demonstrations and the introduction of Identity cards , the core reason for these reactions is power and control . The government wants to control the public and is its raison d'etre . Underneath its shiny and smily façade , there is a cruel and ruthless determination to hold onto this power as anybody who has ever had dealings with government bureaucracy will testify . We do not need them any more – I feel the world has evolved to a point where it is perfectly able to make its own decisions and live how it wants . To all you mini Hitlers and Mussolini's – just sod off and go away .

The Book of Law

One of the twentieth centurys most iconic figures was the magician and writer Aleister Crowley .He was a major figure in several esoteric organizations such as the Golden Dawn and Ordo Templi Orientis and is best known for his work The Book of Law . During his lifetime , he was infamous for his behaviour and was called " The Great Beast " and " The Wickedest Man in the World " .He was accused of Black Magic and paedophilia . Whilst none of this was ever proved conclusively , he lost a libel case when he tried to defend himself against charges of Black Magic , it would appear that he was involved in very strange magical practices mainly based on sex . As with all great egotists it is difficult to distinguish between the truth and fact , but he appears to have been an unlikeable man relying on the strength of his character rather than any other redeeming features . A New Forest witch in a coven in the New Forest in Hampshire described him as " a dirty minded , evilly disposed and vicious little monster ". With regard to children he wrote " It would be unwise to condemn as irrational the practice of devouring the heart and liver of an adversary while yet warm . For the highest spiritual working one must choose that victim which contains the greatest and and purest force ; a male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory " and " All children shall be accustomed from infancy to witness every type of sexual act , lest they be misdirected . " Not nice .

He died in 1947 in Hastings broke and addicted to heroin . But his infamy lived on and his story continued to fascinate , especially in popular culture . On the Beatles famous album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart Band he was included on the album cover and it has been claimed that the lyrics " It was twenty years ago today when Sgt Pepper taught the band to play " were written on the twentieth anniversary of his death and that Sgt Pepper was a direct reference to Aleister Crowley . Jimmy Page the lead guitarist of Led Zeppelin is notoriously interested in the occult and once owned a house , Boleskine House , on the shores of Loch Ness , which Aleister Crowley had been the owner of some years before. David Bowie ,in the song Quicksand on the Hunky Dory album wrote " I'm closer to the Golden Dawn immersed in Crowley's uniform of imagery . " Ozzy Osbourne , Iron Maiden and Marilyn Manson have also referenced him in their songs .

It is not only popular culture where Crowley's influence can be seen . L Ron Hubbard ,the founder of Scientology has been linked with Jack Parsons , a senior rocket science engineer with Nasa at the end of the 2^nd World War . Jack Parsons was the leader of the Ordo Templi Orientis in Los Angeles and it is claimed that he and L Ron Hubbard attempted to produce a Moonchild , with the aid of a willing sperm recipient . No record exists whether this was successful or not . It is recorded that Jack Parsons was in correspondence with Crowley and L Ron Hubbard was mentioned in dispatches and Hubbard described Crowley as his ' good friend '. Scientology has a big following in Hollywood and members include Tom Cruise , John Travolta , Will Smith and Lisa Marie Presley , Elvis Presley's daughter, amongst many others . Charles Manson also received Scientology training and one can feel Crowley's effect in Manson and his cronies in their descent into collective madness .

But what is the reason for Aleister Crowley's long lasting renown.From his famous book , The Book of Law it is the phrase ' Do what wilt shall be the whole of the Law . ' which has been the main influence on western society and came into full bloom in the 1960 s with 'free love ' and ' let it all hang out ' , and ended with the Manson family bloodbaths. With hindsight it was probably inevitable that the sixties would end in a rush of acid and blood.The concept of free will is very powerful as we have the subconcious belief that we are trapped and are somehow imprisoned . We feel trapped in our relationships and jobs and being told that we can do what we want is a potent belief to an imprisoned soul . I actually believe that we should be allowed to do as we wish and find anarchy in its purest sense an appealing concept and I find our increasingly controlled society very difficult to deal with .

The difficulty I have with Crowley's view is that I am not sure that our wishes are really our true desires . The majority of our desires some from the subconcious . Anybody who has had an addiction problem will recognize this – even though you really want to stop smoking , drinking , reduce eating or taking heroin there is something within , which urges you to continue and this is mainly mental/emotional rather than physical . Our subconcious tells us that we are deprived so we pursue a mainly material life filling our homes with more and more , even though we are never fully satisfied .Our survival instinct commands us to to take jobs that we dislike ,so we can maintain our standard of living and our sex drive compels us to seek out partners , who a lot of the time are completely unsuitable apart from being sexually compatible . And then we turn round and say we are just exercising our free will . Who's fooling who here ? We are controlled by our impulses but what if these urgings are false beliefs ? What are our real desires ? I think the only way is to question our thoughts and emotions when confronted by choices and find out what we truly want . Freedom and Free will are vital to the way we live our lives , but sometimes we confuse slavery with freedom . I do agree with Crowleys's ' Do what thou wilt ' but the real question ' Is this what I really wilt ? ' remains.

The Time Loop

2007 was the year of the great rock band reunions.Led Zeppelin, The Spice Girls , Prince , Take That , The Police , The Sex Pistols and The Eagles all reformed . All their gigs were sold out almost immediately and they were able to charge large sums of money for the pleasure of seeing them . The audiences were not just confined to the age groups that grew up with these artists but included many younger fans who were probably not even alive in the groups heydays. But why do so many people want to see mainly middle aged men , with grey hair ( if they have got any ) , pot bellies and dodgy hips and knees prancing around a stage to songs , that in some cases are nearly forty years old . The television clips of the Spice Girls reminded me of some ghastly school reunion when all the mums get drunk , on their one night out in the year and give everybody their rendition of Its Raining Men badly out of tune . The groups' voices are worse , the energy levels are lower and in many cases more bland than when they were at their peak. The reason is nostalgia - this is a sentimental yearning for some period of the past and is a universal habit . Our ego tells us that the past was better and urges us to replay it even when we know that it wasn't all that pleasant .

In the film Groundhog Day , a weather man is reluctantly sent to cover a story about a weather forecasting " rat " ( as he calls it ) . This is his fourth year on the story and he makes no effort to hide his frustration . On awakening the ' following ' day he discovers it is Groundhog Day again, and again , and again . First he uses this to his advantage , then comes across the realisation that he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same place seeing the same people do the same thing every day. Finally , he manages to find break the cycle by losing his selfish attitude and doing good deeds .

Don't our lives seem somewhat like Groundhog Day ? Even when we change ourselves , with new jobs , new relationships , new houses etc we still seem to fall back into our old ways . In fact our relationships and jobs seem to mirror what has happened before . In my view we are actually replaying a moment in time which occurred a long , long time ago. This is best described in the Bible : " And when the woman ( Eve ) saw that the tree was good for food , and that it was pleasant to the eyes , and a tree to be desired to make one wise , she took of the fruit thereof , and did eat , and gave also unto her husband ( Adam ) with her and he did eat . And the eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons . " In effect Original Sin . This thought of guilt , as well as other unreal concepts as death , fear , anger , hatred and the rest all came into being at this time and have continuously been repeating themselves like some eternal Broadband permanently pumping itself into our psyches . Wars follow wars , dictators follow dictators , abuse follow abuse .

We are living in the past . This is actually physically true-whatever you look at you are seeing the past . Light needs time to travel between two objects and by the time your eyes receive this information that moment has passed . We are seeing the world through the eyes of guilt and an instant in time eons ago . Our ego does not want us to live in the present and view the world , and ourselves, through guiltless eyes and so it keeps repeating itself in a never ending Groundhog Day or Time Loop .If we want to see the real world our belief in guilt needs to be expunged from ourselves . Otherwise we will be forced to watch the Spice Girls when they are grandmothers - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED .

We are all guilty now

Here is a quote from today's Daily Mail :
' Patients' rights are to be spelled out in a new NHS ' contract'.It is likely to cover core treatments to which they are entitled , minimum waiting times and the right to be treated in clean hospitals.
But with the rights will come the responsibility to lead a healthy lifestyle . There were fears last night that this could lead to smokers and people who drink or eat too much being refused treatments.The contract could include a ' general requirement ' for people to keep themselves healthy ' .

It is up to you how you live your life - nobody else has the right to tell you what to do .