Consciousness

Indiscriminate Fear

If you take a look at CNN’s front page today you would be forgiven for being afraid. I really begin to believe the constant creation of fear by the media is a ploy to some purpose though quite honestly, I am not sure what. Sorry, I am unafraid. Everything is as it should be.

Of course, much of the CNN real estate is made over the an organization called ISIS. Frankly, I detest this name as it has little to do with the Goddess who is the real Isis. However, this group of a few thousand heart-deadened deadbeats whose ability to poll the depths of human depravity and cruelty appears to know no end, is exactly that – just a few thousand criminals, maniacs and psychopaths. In today’s high tech world, they should be easy meat and the fact they are not being dealt with suggests to me, that to some, they have some purpose – to create fear.

The more this organization does, the more it becomes apparent that this is not the face of Islam. Islam is a beautiful religion in many respects with its own deep mysticism. The biggest issue that I have with Islam is that it is male-dominated and is used by those men to often subjugate and control the feminine. However, that hardly makes it unique or different to other male-dominated religions does it?

No, ISIS isn’t about God, worship or even dogma. It is about anger, fear and violence. The zombie is a good analogy for the soul less of ISIS. They kill muslims with as much enjoyment as they kill christians.

The other big fear creating story at the moment seems to involve aviation and Asia in particular. Again, I am not sure why or for what purpose, but we are being sent message after subliminal and blatant in the face messages – be afraid.

No. I am sorry. I will not be afraid. Not now and not ever. Nor should you be.

Instead, let’s understand that everything is as it should be and that there is nothing to fear except that we will be corralled like dumb beasts into some place we don’t wish to be if we let them.

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Lady

She gently brushes my graying face
With her sweet and airy breath
Her musky fragrance pervades
The hallowed space around me
I have plumbed her depths
And I have drank her deeply
Yet, still she is a mystery to me

anima

She gave me life and sustenance
She washed away my pain with her tears
Her embrace is like eternity
She is beneath me and above me
She is always all around me
I breathe in her fragrance deeply
I am hers utterly, completely

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Within me and without me
The divine waters ebb and flow
She is my soul. She is my Goddess
She is Life and she will be my death
She is the Grail that I have sought
She is the beginning and the end
She is this life that I have wrought

sheela

She gave me will to use or abuse
A gift from the Lady in the Lake
She waited patiently as I grew away
Wizened, she peeled away the years
And upon my return, I found an unspoiled maiden
Who took me back and lead me on
We danced together back to the one…
And eternity

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Your Life is One Big Lie

One of the central themes of all my writings – even the My Haunted Life series – is the nature of reality and the role that we may play in dictating that. Over the last twenty or so years (if not my entire life really), I have read, meditated on, studied and discussed this topic and the process I have come to several conclusions. One of these is that I now believe that much of our world is an illusion.

It’s easy to draw analogies with movies like the Matrix here and I and others often do but what I mean is a lot of what we think we know isn’t real. It isn’t truth nor fact. I once said (and thought it was rather cute) –

“The more I think on it the more I realize that certainty is an illusion. History was written by the winner, the news is provided with a spin and other people are opaque. We know nothing for certain. It used to be that the internet might provide information,but it too is now nothing but opinion and scare mongering. Nothing can be relied upon. We have to look inside ourselves for anything of value – anything that can be relied upon – but it too is colored by our ego and personalities.

So in the end, if the past is a colored view and the future a fancy, what do we have left?

Simply to live in the moment…..” (The Mystical Hexagram (Vasey & Vincent, 2012)).

Life is an enigma and I may never actually understand the answers but I do know this. Everything that we take to be true is probably not. Let me give a few examples;

1. History – history is written by the winner and it reflects a perception or view of what happened. There are alternative histories for everything and the sad thing is, they are all colored by the same issue.

2. Education – Education is partly about providing certain tools – reading, writing, critical thinking, analysis – but only in limited degree. The rest of education is essentially to ‘brainwash’ you with cultural normalities, cultural convention and to ensure you don’t actually challenge the system. Most people accept what they are told as the gospel truth and never for a minute stop to think critically or analytically about things. In this way, the illusion is maintained.

3. Religion – While all religions are probably based on wisdom and spiritual truth, they are all and without exception, subverted to match someone’s political or cultural agenda. They become the basis by which people can be manipulated and controlled.

4. On a more mundane level, the music or entertainment industry can be used to prove its all illusion too. Many singers can’t sing (they use computer software now to ensure perfect pitch), many musicians can’t actually play, many live performances are lip synched. It’s all a lie (It didn’t used to be). Actors and actresses public personas are creations and false often nothing like the reality. Show business is really all a show – an illusion – just like everything else in your life.

5. You are bombarded day in and day out with messages – some subliminal and others in your face – buy this, eat this its good for you, holiday here and so on. The marketing machine uses our ability to imagine and visualize – a rudimentary skill though it is in the  majority of us) and uses OUR magic making ability and equipment to have us make THEIR reality. Our magic has been hijacked!

I could go on and on but I won’t. Don’t ask me who the THEY might be. I have no idea and I am not a conspiracy theorist – that’s just another fantastical dead end. That there is a THEY – whether THEY actually know it or not, I am sure.

I also have concluded this. Given everything turns out to be illusion and that I cannot trust anything, then I must turn to the only thing I can rely on – me. Unfortunately, I have to first clear the Me of all the nonsense I have been conditioned with and am bombarded with daily. As Mark Stavish terms it – I must know my own mind. This is far from easy and may not be attainable at all but I can make progress towards it and, in doing so, I can take control of my life and my reality. I can be a true mage and imagine my thoughts into reality. Of course, I also live in other people’s realities too and I must learn how to interact with their parallel universes too.

You know, if the outer world we call life is an illusion while the inner world is real then surely, the Kingdom of heaven truly is within us and faith – well, it can move mountains.

jesus

 

I was Troubled. Now I am Astonished.

The other day I was participating in a discussion on Facebook. The theme of the topic was the supermarkets here in Brno and one person posted a very long tirade about empty shelves. I was amazed. Empty shelves? Where? When? This was such an opposite to my experience with Brno supermarkets that I responded rather too quickly. I said something like – you must live in a parallel universe…..

Of course, he took this as insulting, not knowing me. I think probably anyone would. But I actually meant it. It wasn’t an insult but an observational analysis that, as I grow older I more and more believe may be true. We all live in our own realities and we reflect back what we expect. It’s not quite that simple of course, but in a nutshell he sees the empty shelves of his own making and I see the full shelves of my making. It’s the glass half empty or half full thing isn’t it. Who would have thought I would be the half full person!?

You see people caught up in their self-constrained belief systems torturing themselves and those around them, whereas others live life full of expectation and optimism. You see people willingly being negative and walking around creating the little cloud above them. Of course, the Matrix is full of influencers and motivators that play on, feed, and drive these realities. The world is really more like that Star Trek episode where they land on a planet and are fed back what they expected, than it is like the Matrix.

It might be simple to manage if it were just me or you, but the real fun comes in how we interact and how our little realities impinge upon others. Your problems become mine and so on – if I let them. We create our own realities, but are influenced by the collective drivers (fear, sex, wealth, love, hate etc.) and, at the same time, interact with the realities of those around us. Surround yourself with happy people….. trust me. It’s the way to go.

How we create that reality is as much about our upbringing, cultural origins and so on – the collective we are a part of – as anything else. To see the world differently, we have to escape that collective for another and another and another, until suddenly it becomes clear…. I am having my creativity dictated to me. It is then that we look inwards for the truth. We get glimpses of that truth and what we see is truly shocking. Rather than purposeful, willful beings creating a meaningful reality, we are robots, slaves or sheep (pick your term) working to help others create their reality!

To get to this point, we have to go through some personal pain because we have to reject so many things that we once accepted, nay believed, to be the truth. Stripping away the chains of bondage and layers of control is painful both to us and to those around us; who just don’t get it and who see their comfortable reality threatened by ours. We end up alone, apart and isolated. But then we understand that we have to interact. We have to replace the collective drivers for everyone else as well as ourselves. The only way to do that is to interact, experience life, have compassion, be grateful and step forward in self-mastery. A very difficult if not impossible mandate.

“Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All.”

“If those who lead you say to you, ‘See, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty.”

“Recognize what is in your sight, and that which is hidden from you will become plain to you . For there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest.”

His disciples questioned him and said to him, “Do you want us to fast? How shall we pray? Shall we give alms? What diet shall we observe?” Jesus said, “Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered.”

thomas

Gospel of Thomas source – The Gnostic Society Library

It’s Just the News

I try not to visit the major news sites except for sport. Why? To be honest, I think they have agendas and they report only bad news that is usually blown up out of all proportion. Their agenda seems to be to create fear. So I really don’t visit anymore as I said. Yesterday though and today, I did visit the BBC and CNN websites looking for news on the fall in the price of oil. I am, after all, an analyst in the commodities space. I have hated the BBC website for some time but now CNN has done a similar redesign – its awful!

Both news sites are now all big color pictures with lurid headlines and short reports. I see this as a part of the same trend to be honest. They no longer (and actually haven’t for some time) offer in-depth news reports from an unbiased standpoint allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions. Now, it’s a lurid photo, sensational headline and two paragraphs of the most biased, on-sided material that appears to be written for an 8-year old’s consumption. I can only think that with print newspapers not selling well anymore, these ‘news’ outlets have hired a whole bunch of Sun reporters with unsurprising results.

I yearn for the days when news was actually news. The BBC is on a crusade around global warming and so every day they have some shallow and sad story pushing this agenda. Pathetic stories most of them too. Fear and control. Take a look at Russia Today to see how propaganda works and then look at the BBC and CNN – similar? Yes, they are.

I have been reading a lot of Mark Stavish’s emails recently in which he discusses the similarities between magic and marketing. It is easy to descend to being potentially a crazy voice in the wilderness on this topic I know, but it is difficult to believe that the people who run this world aren’t a bunch of seriously black magicians. Take that with a pinch of salt (thrown over the shoulder) but these media outlets all use a number of common magical techniques to control how we create reality.

Mind control techniques are used in marketing. It sounds ominous and strange but it is actually true. We are bombarded with subliminal messaging all day long every day. These messages and the environment that we put ourselves into help shape the way that we see the world. By seeing the world in a certain way and thinking/believing certain things we create that reality. It’s a circle of control. To break out of this circuit, we must find time for silence, prayer, meditation and contemplation. We have to dig out our true selves again and listen to the only real voice – that quiet inner voice.

I know I may sound like a crackpot. I don’t mean to. Having studied magic for many years now however, I am certain that this whole reality in which we all live is actually manipulable and controllable via will. Of course I do. That is Magic. I am equally certain that others know this too.

We can’t avoid this bombardment and there are times, like today, I will visit the BBC site. I know however, not to accept what is written there nor to be afraid. Quite the reverse. I just protect myself more than I used to and ensure that I take some time everyday to reflect on things and be grateful for being.

mind

The Cross

Have to admit

I am deeply flawed

And no matter how hard I try

These things so deeply lie

Burn

Scorched Earth

Wash

Scrubbed Air

Balancing elements

Losing irrelevants

In places

No soap has ever been

In places

No physical eyes have seen

Still, it’s not enough

Some habits hang tough

The flaws magnified

Obsessing over scratches

While missing the gaping wound

Bleeding

Pleading

Seeing life ooze away

Nothing left except to pray

Elements stirred

Returned to the point

At which we started

When these four were parted

Burn

Scorched Earth

Wash

Scrubbed Air

Four-lorn, I am

The fifth gets

Short shrift

The Lamb

I am

A Cross

Free of Dross

I am

Yes, I truly am

tri

Adam and Eve

I have the words
But perhaps I lack the wisdom
Exploration is an exciting game
Especially of those darkened inner regions
As I build my tortuous iron chain
Just like that of poor Mr. Marley
Seeking ever more worldly gain
To take along to my final party
But there are chinks in my armour
That steely shell that I built
To protect myself from me
Don’t need that silly psycho drama
Strutting on a worldly stage
Never to be heard no more
A fool full of his own import
But trapped in the guilded cage
Of his own idiotic nature
Nothing, nothing more to be
Life’s a package of candy
With sticky tangy centers
Pungent tastes in the chewing
Dissolves to nothing but tasty spit
As I fade into the glory
Of a life fell foul
I wonder if he knew
I wonder if he turned
The other cheek
Played hide and seek
In his inner garden
Eve and that bloody apple
Played out once more
Rotten to his very core
But redeemed
It seemed
At the very last bitter sweet
Moment.

eve

A Quandary of Existence

Stillness
A quiet so loud
I am deafened by the nothingness
Brightness
A light so bright
I am blinded by its’ darkness

Inside is outside
Life is just a dream
Inner worlds reflected
To the outside deflected
Sanity in my madness
Light in my darkness
An upside down world
Or am I the hanged man?

Voices that talk to me
They say I am not alone
That I am connected
To everything I rejected
All is me just reflected
In a word – redacted
Where is the edge to this?
Is my head hanging beyond?

I am so small, so very tiny
Just a speck in eternity
I am though at the center
And yet I don’t remember
This is all simply just me
Yes, everything that we can see
Everything and nothing too
An eternal quandary

Is there an answer?
How would I possibly know?
I mean how?
When I can’t even
Frame the question
Got a suggestion?

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All is One

I looked down onto and across a very strange and unfamiliar landscape. It was a rocky, largely barren place with sharpened peaks rising all around. Yellows and grays beneath an azure sky. It was like looking into a vast ampitheater and I recall thinking that the heat of the midday sun must be unbearable down there in the center. Strange, because ‘down there’ was really up there on top of a flattened peak of dust and bare rocks. It was a strange and crazy point of vantage that I had of this scene. There were a number of squarish whitened buildings dotted around in the yellow-green valleys – signs of life at least.

It was then that I noticed that atop the flattened rocky peak in the center of my vision there were figures. From my position of vantage it seemed as if there may be a small crowd and three crosses. I recall idly wondering about the crosses until somehow I seemed to zoom in upon the scene as if to clarify what it was I was seeing. Sure enough, there were about 50 or so people gathered atop this cross between a mountain and a hill and three crosses. Each cross had a man upon it wracked in agony. The central cross was the one that drew my attention and that of the small crowd as a soldier thrust a spear into the man’s side. The crowd gasped and cheered.

For me, it all happened in a rush as if the entire world had snuck in on me in an almighty rush of energies, sound and light. I realized clearly and without doubt that the Nazarene was dying and as his head dropped and he gave a last breath there was a massive explosion of light and energy. Momentarily, it was suddenly as dark as night and then a small spark of light seemed to appear emanating from the Nazarene dead upon the cross and this light moved outwards in a massive concentric circle, expanding and expanding to encapsulate everything. Again, my vantage point shifted and now seemed seemed distant as I watched in sheer amazement at this concentric shower of light and energy that was spreading through every rock, tree, living creature – every single molecule and atom on the planet.

I hadn’t expected it but the concentric ring of ever expanding light seemed to hit me and I was knocked back as if hit by a nuclear blast. The light filled me up. It enlightened every atom of my body sitting there in my office chair in Houston, Texas. A powerful rush of energy like nothing I had experienced to that point and have not experienced again. The effect of this was to momentarily knock me out – I blacked out literally. But then I was back.

I was everything. Everything was me. We were all one thing in total harmony. The planet, the Universe, you. It was all me – us.

It lasted for an just instant and then the light was gone moving off into the Universe in a huge concentric circle.

But just for a moment, I had been fortunate to have the light of the Christ show me the Truth.

christ crucified

You can read an alternate account of this experience in my book Inner Journeys (Thoth, 2005)

The Art of Dreaming

For a while this morning I was researching Carlos Castenada. I had read his first four or five books as a teen and was thinking perhaps it was time to refresh my memory as regards their content. Pretty soon, I was reading about the man and how most likely, he was a fraud who rather than sitting in a small room with Don Juan was reading books about the subject at the University Library. I felt a rising sense of disappointment too as I read how he had retreated to a mansion with three female followers who gave up everything to live with and follow him and how he treated his family. All the classic symptoms of ego, sex and cult. Very disappointing.

I read too a summary of the content of the books. Even though Castenada himself may have been suspect, mysterious and perhaps a fraud, for me anyhow the books do contain a synthesis of real wisdom and knowledge. Who knows how he really came by that knowledge and who knows what the truth about him really is perhaps instead what matters is what we make of his books. Castenada himself talked about how reality is described to us and we eventually accept reality as described. From the moment we are born, we are described things and eventually we take on this view of reality. He said that to begin to see one had to stop the world. When you stopped the world or as I understood it, questioned what really was around you, you would begin to learn to see another reality or realities. Though he may use terminology that is different to the words I may use, he is saying what I am coming to accept as well. Any form of occult training essentially has the same objective and that is to break down the reality you were taught and help you to observe your own version of it.

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This in turn naturally leads me to the conclusion that in a way, we all create our own realities. It explains why for example, some people live conspiracy theories or see roadblocks and objections everywhere. They choose to. On the other hand, it can explain why people who can truly visualize success become successful. They create their reality. But before you can do that, you have to know yourself and be aware of what filters you have been given – how the world has been described to you. Hatred, racism, homophobia for examples, are all inherited filters – they are all a description of acceptable reality for a consensus or majority.

So while, Castenada may be a disappointment to me I feel his works are valid. They originated somewhere in his reality and they describe an alternate reality as well as providing a map for getting there. I shall re-read his books…….