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 .

The Ego Trap

The Ego has many tricks in its locker to ensure its survival and has laid a cunning plan which we all too easily fall into . The main deceptions that are used are the feelings of deprivation and vulnerability , in the sense we think we can be hurt in some way. Every man and woman on this planet are affected by these emotions and cause all the pain and misery we see . But I am going to discuss one of the more subtle aspects of its defences . It is when there seems to be no answer to a problem , but this problem causes great division and both warring parties are convinced of their arguments but to any outside observer both sides have valid points of view . To show the deviousness of the Ego I will use two examples : Abortion and Vegetarianism .

Firstly , abortion . The anti-abortionists view is that any life is sacred and that it is a sin to end the life of an unborn child . Fair enough you may think .The pro-abortionists view is that a woman has the right to choose her own life and what she does with her body . Again a perfectly respectable point of view . But from the Ego's point of view , it gains its strength from the entrenched views that the two sides take . It thrives on division and separation and gains energy from the ' I Am Right ' opinions follow . Whenever a photograph of an unborn child is published it is difficult not to be swayed towards the anti-abortionists view , but we do not know the circumstance of the mother to be or the reasons that may lay behind the reason for an abortion .

Secondly , vegetarianism . Again there are reasonable arguments on both sides . The meat eaters say it is natural for humans to eat meat and point to nature to back up their argument - Survival of the Fittest etc . The vegetarian is in the same camp as the anti-abortionist and believes that all animal life is sacred and should not be used as nutrition by humans . They are vehemently opposed to animal testing for cosmetics and medical research . I eat meat , but would be extremely averse to actually killing any animal and I would not be able to conduct any experiments that may cause pain . But again it is the division and separation that the Ego craves . It wants us to see ourselves on side or the other and argue and fight amongst each other .

The ego loves confontation and the ' I Am Right ' mentality . Other examples are smoker v non-smoker , husband v wife , neighbour v neighbour and country v country and the Ego needs the energy from these conflicts to survive , as without them , it would wither and die . It views the world as something to be fought and conquered . However , the Universe or God or Life ( whatever your term is ) does not see the world in this way and neither do we at a very deep level , as we are a part of the Universe and not separate from it . The universe does not see right or wrong but only the choices that we make . It is entirely possible that it does not see death or destruction and does not even recognize the Ego and its negative values , or anything that results from it , but as we view the world from a false premise we see a false world .

The Ego Trap is easy to be fooled by , but as a rule of thumb , anything that causes division is a sign that the the ego is at work . I know that some people have problems grasping this concept of no right or wrong but again this is just a defence . The way through is to seek reconciliation - it is possible to hold conflicting views and still get on .`

Reasons to be Cheerful

I am a bit fed up with the continual depressing news conjured up by the media . I realise that bad news is more interesting to them than good news and is a tool to keep us fearful , but surely the members of the media must get bored with it . To quote Ian Dury , here are some 'Reasons to be Cheerful ' . For me anyway.

• My daughter Rebecca-beautiful , funny and clever
• Crystal Palace not losing today
• Maria Sharapova
• Cristiano Ronaldo , Wayne Rooney , Ronaldinho , Didier Drogba etc
• Amy Winehouse
• England losing to Croatia ( maybe now we can sort this mess out . My vote goes to Jose Mourinho )
• Harry Hill
• Paul Merton
• Prefab Sprout
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail
• PG Wodehouse ( a bit old fogey but brilliant )
• Myleene Klass in her bikini

I feel better already .

Coincidence ?

COINCIDENCE: Concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection .



Everyone of us , I would imagine , has experienced strange events from time to time when a coincidence occurs and you have a ' What are the chances of that ' moment. A recent coincidence happened to me , whilst reading Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. I had left the television on and after five minutes perusal of the book , I glanced up to see that there was a programme discussing ' Just a Minute ' , a radio series , which concentrated on the subject of time . If you have read DGHDA you will know that the main subject is time . The following programme after that had an interview with the author Douglas Adams again talking about time . The very next morning I looked in the newspaper and the first item I saw was that a new radio series of DGHDA was to start the following day !



Another coincidence happened to a friend and work colleague when I worked for a company who sold semi precious stones mainly to the new age market . One day she was approached by a customer who told her that an angel was standing by her - a bit weird you may think . About half an hour later she mentioned this to another customer who told her it was pink . Another customer then came in and said it wasn't just one angel , but there were two ! After all this Kathy was a bit frazzled but imagine her surprise when the song ' There's an Angel playing with my Heart ' by the Eurythmics came on the radio - she freaked out .



I could probably give you another hundred examples but what is behind these coincidences ? To be honest I don't really know and am not going to argue with those who say they are just quirks . They may be correct .



When one of these strange events happen to a new age friend of mine they normally remark ' I wonder what it means ' . But what if it doesn't mean anything . I wonder sometimes whether our minds are similar to the Google Search Engine . If our minds do create our reality , maybe this explains this phenomenon . When I was reading my book maybe this started the Search Engine and produced the TV programme and radio series .Maybe Kathy's concentration on angels at the time somehow made the radio play her song .



If this hypothesis is true , what would this mean on a worldwide scale . Could it be that many of our myths and legends are produced by ourselves ? Once the first person has seen a UFO , whether real or not , the concentration on this subject in the media could then start the Search Engine which produces UFOs all over the world . The same for The Loch Ness Monster , Bigfoot or Vampires !



But if this theory is genuine , those who control the media outlets would have enormous power over our lives .The obsession of the media for bad news sinks into our psyches , leaving the world depressed and fearful . It can be no coincidence that the preponderance of violent films and computer games have left the youths of the world desensitised and that there has been a spike in major crime everywhere . Or is it that our focus on these matters actually causes these events to happen , in a freaky metaphysical way , and the upshot of this is the world we see . Is the current obsession with climate change actually going to help to cause it ? If we fear something , does our fixation bring this to happen ?



As I said earlier , I am not sure and am sorry that I cannot give a definitive answer. But maybe the world is stranger than it seems at first glance .

Lilith

LILITH by John Collier

Following on from my last post , here is another famous female character who appears to have been ignored by mainstream religions . I quote a few paragraphs from a website called The Mystica.com . To read the full article go to

http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/l/lilith.html

'A female demon of the night who supposedly flies around searching for newborn children either to kidnap or strangle them . Also she sleeps with men to seduce them into propagating demon sons . Legends told about Lilith are ancient . The rabbinical myths of Lilith being Adam's first wife seem to relate to the Sumero-Babylonian Goddess Belit-ili or Belili . To the Canaanites , Lilith was Baalat , the ' Divine Lady ' . On a tablet from Ur , c . 2000 BC , she was addressed as Lillake.

It is from Hebraic , rabbinical tradition that the substantial myths of Lilith really come . One story is God created Adam and Lilith as twins joined together at the back . She demanded equality with Adam , failing to achieve it , she left him in anger . This is sometimes accompanied by a Muslim legend that after leaving Adam , Lilith slept with Satan , thus creating the demonic Djinn .

In another version of the myth of Lilith , she was Adam' s first wife before Eve . Adam married her because he became tired coupling with animals , a common Middle Eastern herdsmen practice , though the Old Testament declared it a sin ( Deuteronomy 27: 21 ) . Adam tried to make Lilith lie beneath him during sexual intercourse . Lilith would not meet this demand of male dominance . She cursed Adam and hurried to her home by the Red Sea .

Adam complained to God who then sent three angels Sansi , Sansanvi and Semangelaf to bring Lilith back to Eden . Lilith rebuffed the angels by cursing them . While by the Red Sea Lilith became a lover to demons and producing 100 babies a day . The angels said that God would take these demon children away from her unless she returned to Adam . When she did not return , she was punished accordingly . And God gave Adam the docile Eve .'

Please note the ' sleeping with Satan ' and ' murder of newborn children ' bit . I thought propaganda and smearing your enemies was a recent invention. I was obviously wrong .