The Messenger
Edward Curtin
Photo by Olen Gandy on Unsplash
Words are inadequate to describe certain experiences that happen outside the law of cause and effect. Although they are universal, they are often so weird that to recount them makes most people uncomfortable, unless they are New Agers, spiritualists, or mind-curers who believe in the great American tradition of the happiness machine, revelations on every bathroom wall, Jesus’s face in cloud formations, or apparitions in every shadow. I am none of those.
But strange, real experiences do happen, however, usually very infrequently in one’s life for those who are accessible but not looking for them.
The Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung called them synchronicity, meaning a meaningful coincidence in time without a causal relationship between a psychic state and a physical event, or dreams or thoughts, also without a causal connection, that occur simultaneously across physical distances.
Since a recounting of their outward manifestations is bizarre, and their meanings are personal, and since we live in the era of science as the dominant ideology, and a culture of pseudo-science, schlock weirdness, and “miracles,” it is easy to skeptically mock with a condescending grin their reality.
Because American culture has always been replete with charlatans and scammers who have preyed on people’s gullibility and ignorance, such experiences have gotten a bad name. To admit to experiencing such a meaningful coincidence is to open oneself to derision, despite the testimonies of such esteemed authorities as Jung and William James, to name but two.
But I think I’ll take a chance.
I have been living in the rolling hills of western Massachusetts for forty years. It is beautiful country, known for its peaceful rural roads, lakes, streams, and vast tracts of mountain forests rife with wildlife. It is paradise for fishing and hunting, and the woods are filled with gorgeous hiking trails that attract urbanites in search of peace and quiet, those proverbial country escapes.
Ever since we moved here, I have made sure to get outdoors to run or walk in all kinds of weather, preferably alone and when few people were out. To be alone by a lake or stream in sun, rain, or a snowstorm is my idea of paradise. With my family I have hiked many of the mountain trails. And over the years I have seen many animals: bobcats, deer, bald eagles, herons – the list is very long.
But my great wish has never been granted: to see a bear and to see it up close. Friends and neighbors find this hard to believe, for anyone who has lived in this area for just a few years has usually seen one. Not me, for forty years.
When I was a boy, the only son with seven sisters, my father told me a story that has always stuck with me. In the early years of the twentieth century, his father, my grandfather, was picnicking with his family and a few other families at Bear Mountain in upstate New York along the Hudson River. As they were reclining on their blankets preparing to eat in a meadow below the mountain, a huge bear came roaring toward them out of the tree line. This was 1905.
Seeing the bear approach, everyone except my grandfather got up screaming and ran downslope away from the bear. My grandfather stood his ground, as my grandmother and great-uncle told my father; he stood very tall and straight and started to play the penny whistle his father had brought with him from Ireland. What the tune was I never really knew.
My father said my grandmother remembered strains of Amazing Grace but his uncle, Uncle Black Jack, a NYC Police Department blacksmith, remembered a lively jig. Who knows? The bear came walking toward him and the blankets spread with food, stopped just short, stood huge on its hind legs, let out a fierce roar, then dropped down, turned, and loped back up toward the trees where he disappeared into the mountain forest.
My wish has never been to stand down a bear in such a manner. Just to see one up close would be enough. My grandfather had a fierceness that I lack, and anyway, I don’t have a pennywhistle. When I try to whistle with my mouth, little sound emerges, and what does isn’t tuneful, and he was a master whistler as well. But bears have always been eluding me, as if the time was not ripe, or I was not prepared for their arrival.
Then just yesterday, Father’s Day, I was sending an article of mine – “My Father’s Voice” – to my only son and daughter. It begins like this:
Although my father, whose namesake I am, died twenty-seven years ago, I just spent a hilarious and profound afternoon with him. For a few hours on a beautiful late spring afternoon, I sat out on the porch and listened to his inimitable voice beguile, instruct, and entertain me. He had me laughing out loud as I read through a large folder of letters he had sent me over the years. We were together again. It was his voice I heard, his voice speaking to me. It could be no other. In the beginning and end are the words. If we are lucky, we hear them.
I heard my wife scream from the kitchen for me to come fast. I ran to it and there, eight feet from the open window, was a bear facing us and almost swinging from the bird feeder and the branch above, its feet akimbo, an almost mischievous look on its face. It watched us as we watched it for 4-5 minutes.
Then, afraid that it might break the open window that had another bird feeder stuck to it, I cranked the window in, the bear walked over, stood up, looked at us and the feeder that was too high for it, went down on all fours and started walking away as we rushed out to see it walk across the driveway and the neighbor’s lawn. I feebly whistled after it; it stopped, turned and looked back, then continued on its merry way.
My wish had been granted, shortly after the summer solstice, the first day of summer, my wife’s and my anniversary, and Father’s Day. It immediately felt as if my father had sent me a gift. My wife quickly sent the photos of the bear she had taken to our son and daughter.
The night before, as a Father’s Day gift, my son and girlfriend had taken us out to dinner. As we sat at an outdoor courtyard under the trees of an old inn, I was asked to speak of my father. Unusually for me, I was a bit lost for words, except to say he was a wonderful father, the best I could have hoped for and how close we were. At the back of my mind, I saw a photograph I love of him pushing in a stroller the son who sat to my left when he was very young. It was taken on the street outside the inn where we were dining, right behind my back.
Shortly after the bear had come to visit us, still amazed, we went for a long walk, and when we returned, there was a video on the computer from our son to whom I had earlier sent the article about his grandfather. In January, our son had moved back to town with his girlfriend after ten years living down south. They had bought a house about a mile away near the lake and woods where we had just walked.
The same bear had walked through the woods adjacent to our walk, pushed over the fence around their large yard, and was in their yard eyeing their bird feeder. My son couldn’t tell if the bear was whistling because his dogs were barking too loud.
But I heard my father laughing at the message he had sent.
I recalled how his letters that I had just read and written about were like mini-short stories, akin to a father sitting beside a child’s bed and telling him a goodnight tale. They always ended on an up-note, no matter how serious what preceded.
He was a storyteller talking to an adult son, just as in my childhood he would tell me bed-time improvisations on the Pinocchio story, tales of lies and deceptions and bad actors. Those stories had to have an edge to them, a bit of a question mark, just as his letters are peppered with the phrase quien sabe (who knows?).
Those letters came through the mail.
The latest message came by bear. That I know.
Quien sabe? You?
SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN
If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.
For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.
A masterpiece, a delight to read and smile over.
What a wonderful experience and story. The synchronicity is truly astounding.
Good story, but as they say there are stranger things in life, more sometimes then we can understand.
That’s what’s good about natural phenomena, it can’t easily be used to make something appear as a sign on purpose, whereas in human communication coincidence can be either synchronicity or conspiracy
Perhaps even more synchronous when one considers the “Russian bear” being encircled by invaders and having to fight for its survival?
All good things…:-) Congratulations!
appreciated – thank you.
…..a language that doesn’t depend on words.
Evidently bears in New England are hungry during the month of June and are going after bird feeders. Just remember it’s humans who have encroached on Ursus americanus territory and are considered “the occupiers.”
I’m happy for you!
These types of experiences happen across cultures and are recording throughout human history. I always thought it was bizarre to ignore them. These are deeply human phenomena and there is no reason not to recognize and try to understand them.
Thank you for writing about your experience!
Ed’s work is always a breath of fresh air, especially when he shares personal experiences. Few writers I know seem to take such risks, especially in this political realm where we are so tied to “rational analysis” of world events, and where experiences of intuition and synchronicity can arouse suspicion in many. A beautiful story about “the mystery.”
This kind of events point to the interconnectedness of all life, to a reality that escapes the limitations of the arbitrary materialistic boundaries that pervades today’s “underestanding” of life itself.
A world solely based on hardcore materialism as today’s world is bound to be out of synch with life and therefore set on its own destruction path.
It is not hocus-pocus as today’s mainstream thought pretend it to be. Spirituality is not magic or esoteric (in the pejorative sense this word is mostly understood) but is a reality which society insist in denying cutting itself from any possibility of growth.
Another PS for Steve: This NDE-survivor get it:
Nice story. It illustrates that animals have ther own form of intelligence and many are a whole lot smarter than we’ve been conditioned to see them. Most bears are harmless, they know people and know that while we can be a reliable food source we’re not to be messed with. There are exceptions, though — you might meet a particularly sociopathic one or just one that’s having a bad day — so they really are best viewed from a distance.
Bears occasionally turn up in back yards in our area. The police track them by following the 911 calls from anxious homeowners. The bear invariably ends up being traquillized and ‘relocated’ — or, from its perspective, it was minding its own business in some food rich surbuban haven when it gets stuck with a dart and wakes up in the middle of some God-forsaken wilderness. Its enough to make anyone grumpy.
There are exceptions, though — you might meet a particularly sociopathic one or just one that’s having a bad day — so they really are best viewed from a distance.
Not sure whether you’re referring to humans or bears, there, Martin… ;o)
You’re beautiful story is very welcome in my life tonight..
I’m absolutely 100% with the synchronic order as it has stopped me in my conflicted tracks on so many occasions in my life’s unfoldment, so as to invite me to question all of the limited beliefs i hold about the nature of the manifest reality and my place within it as a human…
In these times, it’s so important for us to remain open to the great mystery, as the 1st nations people call it…
More than anything the inexplicable synchronicities and anomalies which defy the laws of known physics, which have graced my life, serve as a reminder that there is a deep and profound order which gives rise to the apparent world of chaos..
The story of separation which has arisen out of our fear of mortal death, has been compounded through the years by the value systems which have been shaped by scientific reductionism…
I’d be exploring the totem energy of the bear if i’d had such a significant synchronicity with one..
We need to talk more about this. There is a wild world of experience available to those who are open, and though discernment is an important complementary practice, we need to brave the labels of “woo-woo” or “new-age” to reclaim our birthright as humans.
I once had a dog who was the best dog I ever had. I’ve had others before, I have two now and I love them all dearly, but this dog was special. He was my once-in-a-lifetime dog. In June of 2016 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and had to be euthanized in August. During that summer I would often hear the song “Right Here in the Light” on the radio and for some reason I imagined him (a dog!) as the one singing it. On the day he was put down I called the vet to the house and played music during the procedure, he slipped away to the song “I want to get away, I want to fly away’ and I imagined him flying away on a giant bird. The next day I walked alone and devastated in the woods where I had often walked with him. At some point, for some reason, a tree captured my attention, in particular a bump on the tree that turned out to be an owl (this was in daylight mind you). The owl looked me squarely in the eye for a long moment, then launched into the air sweeping around to the right (a direction associated with my dog’s name). I understood: he was In The Light now. The next day my husband went running in the same woods and encountered a deer (rare at that time of day in those woods), who also looked him in the eye.
We are all connected in life and in death.
All connected, indeed. After I suffered a near-fatal brain haemorrhage in 2007 (and it was still unclear how things were going to go for me from then on), my brother (who lives on the other side of the world) was sitting up against a tree in his favourite forest. He suddenly felt the tree communicate to him the certainty that I was going to be okay.
Thanks for your excellent comment. The image of your beloved dog singing that song to you really put a smile on my face. :o)
I didn’t have a clue what the Daily Mail was on about. I had never heard the term before “hippy crack craze”..I thought oh no, the kids are not all now on crack cocaine?
We never did that. Never any Opium, Heroin or Cocaine…
However on further investigation, I am a little bit guilty.
I went to the best Secondary Modern School in The World, in Oldham.
Not only did we have boys and girls. Our Science Master (one of the best teachers any kid could ever have – we all loved him)
So, I kind of looked at my mate…he said yeh – go on..
We started off the reaction at the back of our class…
Just left it going..and then innocently and sweetly moved to the third row – one of the last two seats on the benches left between the bunsen gas burners and the two girls we fancied in our class..
Towards the end of our science master’s lecture, even he started giggling, and absolutely everyone was giggling.
We had filled the entire laboratory with Nitrous Oxide – Laughing Gas.
I certainly wouldn’t recommend it, unless you are giving birth, or having a tooth extraction.
We Confessed.
We still both got Grade 1’s
Tony
I really enjoyed this article. There are mysterious things in life which we can’t explain with either science or religion. They are by their nature mysterious. There was a book about a bear who got stuck in Canada and a child brought him sandwiches… I wish I could remember the title or the author… I haven’t seen a book aimed at children recently which was so compelling.
Some of my own experience of bears:
The second part of my drive down the Cassier Highway (the Cassier is a wilderness highway in the far north of British Columbia) was under intermittent, heavy bursts of rain. The road wound through green forests beside towering mountains. On the drive I saw places called Bear Glacier, Bear River, Bear Paw Ranch and the Rabid Grizzly Rest Area. I soon discovered why there were so many references to bears. I’d only been driving for a short time when I saw my first one. I was trying to get the car through another stretch of road works. The rain had turned the road surface into a mud bath. I struggled to keep the car moving. I glanced over to my left. There was a pile of earth beside the road. On top of the pile was a big brown bear. It sat on its backside and gazed curiously at its surroundings. The car was doing only 5 miles an hour and was slipping and sliding through the mud, just yards from the bear. I hoped it wouldn’t come over to investigate. I was acutely aware that all I had over my head was a canvas roof, and all I had under the bonnet was a 600cc engine which struggled to keep the car moving in these conditions. The pepper spray was close to hand. Fortunately I didn’t need to use it. The bear remained up there on top of the earth pile. It seemed to enjoy being king of the castle.
I saw my next bear shortly afterwards. It was another brown bear, smaller, foraging in the undergrowth beside the road. I was through the road works now and was making good speed. I put my foot down. The bear glanced round at me as I whizzed by. There were others, glimpsed in the forest, on the distant hillsides. Why so many? Did bears like rain? By now I was becoming used to the critters. Throughout the 2CV Alaska Challenge I had unsuccessfully tried to get a photograph of a bear beside the No.1 car. Now I had my chance. I saw a small bear messing about in a stream on the hillside. It looked harmless. This was my chance. I pulled up and carefully positioned the car to get a good shot. Then I walked a little way back up the road. It was a perfect photograph. The winding mud road, the No.1 car, the forested hillside, the low clouds, the towering Coast Mountains, except, that it was a small bear, so small that I could hardly see it through the lens of the digital camera (this was back in 1999). I took some shots, knowing the bear wouldn’t come out clearly, and walked back to the car. As I got to the car, I don’t know why but I turned around. In the very spot where I’d been taking photos a few seconds before, a huge black bear was strolling casually across the road. I mean this thing was huge, it looked bigger than a Citroen 2CV. I held my breath, hoping the bear wouldn’t notice me. It didn’t. Like all bears it was on its way to the opticians. After that I gave up trying to photograph the bears.
“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.”
― Max Planck, The New Science
There’s more to this ‘reality’ as we mortals call it, but I don’t know how to explain it. Quantum Physics seems to be showing us the way. I would recommend reading ‘The Philosophy of Physics’ by Max Planck, one of the most distinguished of physicists. He writes on the problem of causality as it applies to physics. Quote: “The chaos of individual masses cannot be wrought into a cosmos without some harmonizing force.”
If you are believing in value of theory of Quanta as describing strange but objective existing reality do not read the below post, as it simply cuts through popular medial characterization of that branch of physics as mysterious or surreal and explains why it sounds like it in popular representation to broad audience.
https://questfornoumenon.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/a-note-on-science-surrealism-of-quanta/
“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.”
― Max Planck, The New Science
He should know. He invented Quantum Mechanics.
But you’re free to believe your anonymous blogger, of course.
Here’s another read. It’s a philosophy dissertation by a modern idealist (in the philosophical sense of the word) who also seems to have some training in physics. It’s not necessarily earth shattering to those of us who already accept the idea (or self-evident truth) that Mind ontologically precedes matter. But it may be useful to those who are still wrestling. (There some technical details I find intriguing from a pragmatic perspective, but unless you have interests in a specific spiritual domain you might not notice them.)
I love the quantum physicist David Bohm also, in his way of translating his scientific enquiry with such poetical and lucid grace…
I first became aware of him through reading a book entitled ‘The Holographic Universe’ by Michael Talbot…
This cosmology is the one which speaks most clearly to me, and the way he writes about it is so accessible… Really fascinating.
I love that Max Planck quote. Your comment reminds me of a book I read many moons ago: Blackfoot Physics, by F. David Peat (a theoretical physicist, as I’m sure you know).
A book that really opened my mind about this existence in which we inexplicably find ourselves (and about the beauty of Native American peoples and the way they see life).
Thank you Gwyn – I have made a note of that book for future reference.
Carl Jung talked about synchronicity, not cause and effect. When two related things happened and your mind finds the connection between them, some say its a ” coincidence” .
I say there is no such thing as coincidence.
It hints at the inter-connected-ness of all.
The cause and effect.
Jung saw the meaningfully relatedness of all but yet did not grasp it fully.
In consciousness ( there is only one)events are related and connected.
I interpret synchronicities as invitation cards, to wake up from the delusion we have imprisoned ourself in… One that is reinforced through believing in the world of the 5 senses only, as the only bandwidth of consciousness.
In Vedic wisdom there is Turiya, which is the 4th state of consciousness..
We are bound, in this materialistic culture to the 3 which are most predominant… Waking, sleeping and dreaming…
Synchronicity, for me, was an awakening to the next level of consciousness, but of course it takes time and dedication to retain that awareness and bring it into everyday life..
Okay, how about this? Back in the 1970s I was living in Marseille. One evening, helping some friends move another friend’s stuff from one place (which I eventually rented) to another, I lost my watch while getting out of the car, but didn’t notice until later in the evening. The next morning I figured I’d go take a look where I thought I’d lost it: in the gutter across the street from the bar tabac Flint in a neighborhood called la Pointe Rouge. Wasn’t there. Months later, I was crewing on a rich guy’s sailboat and was sitting on the windward rail when this attractive young woman sat down beside me, hung her legs over the rail and her arms over the lifelines. We began talking about this and that and then I noticed her watch. It was my watch. I told her that I knew where she had gotten the watch. She couldn’t believe it, and said I could have it back. I said it was hers now and she could keep it as a souvenir of our meeting.
Later that same summer, I was crewing on the same boat. We were tied up in Ibiza harbor when this stunning Victorian yawl slid in just next to us. We helped them tie up and they invited us over for drinks.Two gorgeous sisters aboard.
In September I was skippering training boats for Les Glénans sailing school in Baltimore, County Cork, Ireland. One of my students was the younger brother of the two sisters I had met in Ibiza.
At the end of the course, I was standing in line at Dublin airport when I heard a strong southern French accent just behind me complaining about the wait. I turned to see my early morning café mate at the Flint, back in Marseille. We gazed at each other in amazement and passed the waiting chatting away.
Forgot another little bit of strangeness. On the way to Ibiza, we were motorsailing around sunset time. I was at the helm. I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, what I considered a particularly bright star. Looking more closely, it was actually three bright lights arranged in pyramidal form. I called below for the binoculars and confirmed that yes, in fact, there were three lights, and they were apparently not moving. I called for everyone to come up and take a look and bring any extra binoculars available. All seven of us had a look and confirmed that, indeed, there were three bright lights apparently not moving. I got the binoculars back and while watching, the three lights reduced in size (as if retracting directly in my line of vision) until they were gone. Everyone saw it. Later that night, the Mistral blew pretty hard, we were surfing down the waves, reaching 13, maybe 15 knots, and in our wake was a phosphoresence the likes of which I’ve never since seen.
Make of that what you will.
Great read. Thank you.
Great article. I do not claim to understand it. I did Maths Physics and Chemistry, and my job was in Computing. I gave up Religion at the age of 15 (Roman Catholic), but I have experienced the same kind of synchronicites, (amazing coincidencies) numerous times throughout my life. Such things cannot be explained (at least by me) by conventional physics and maths. Over the years, I just learnt to accept it, and not try to explain it.
It just happens when you least expect it.
Tony
Where I live on the edge of a smallish city around 50000 , the bears and deer that refuse to move further into the wilderness or quietly starve to death are quickly being euthanized by Conservation Officers , an Orwellian term to be sure , for public safety concerns we are assured . I know a fellow that spent 3 months in prison awhile back for feeding the bears . The world has gone mad !
Where I live in wilderness area of Northern Cal, I’ve had two experiences with bears. The first was a youngster at probably three hundred pounds. He was coming up a steep slope from the river below, and came upon me. We both froze for some moments. He had leaped to a tree and hugged it, apparently terrified. I remained motionless for some time, then made a step forward. Immediately, he leaped away from the tree and back down the embankment. Bears here are something of a nuisance, going after garbage and with a very keen sense of smell. They might even try to break into a vehicle if they smell food inside it.
The next encounter was recent. I was driving out our narrow road and came upon a large bear, probably five hundred pounds, who was racing along a ditch in the same direction I was traveling. Looked absolutely terrified, although not of me I think. Probably just the situation he found himself in.
I fantasize having signs on my narrow road, which is subject to race-champion practicing by young guys challenged to speed (as I was once myself years ago) and very dangerous. Every day squirrels, skunks, deer bite the dust. The most remarkable experience I’ve had with an animal came a couple of years back.
I came onto a straight stretch of the road, luckily, and found a deer that had just been struck. It was still alive but stunned and lying on the pavement. I swerved around it and stopped, then walked back to it motioning to an oncoming vehicle to watch out. I then stroked the deer, spoke to it, and pulled it out of the road. What impressed me then and now was the way it looked back at me. It’s hard to describe its look–it seemed to be smiling in approval. I pulled it away and drove on, and on return some hours later was happy it was not there anymore. Apparently it had just been stunned.
The look on that deer’s face, plus I had another of the same look from a dying crow that I found in its last throes, and had picked up in a shovel to remove it to a shaded place for it to die, convinces me that animals have intelligence and souls, as we do, making them a lot more like us than we normally assume.
Aldous Huxley, I used to work in an animal shelter. So I’ve seen many animals meet their end and had similar experiences to yours. I know they have intelligence and souls. And dignity. And they know things we’ve lost the ability to know.
Yes, “they know things we’ve lost the ability to know.”
Lol
“Awaiting for approval“
Got a new playbook?
Please try to recall the fact that random comments will sometimes get put in pending, and resist the temptation to use these accidents to inflate your sense of importance.
A justification worthy of Eichmann?
“ your sense of importance.”
I had to remind myself whether Projection was a Jungian or Freudian philosophy.
‘ Freud considered that, in projection, thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings that cannot be accepted as one’s own are dealt with by being placed in the outside world and attributed to someone else.’
I am not getting reply emails, in addition to any formatting buttons and it seems the up/down has suddenly vanished in the last few hours.
Ho hum. 👌
Give it up, D. This is not acceptable use of our bandwidth
One of my last dozen or so posts was. I’m guessing you’re using generic posting software which does this kind of thing.
Either that or you’re colluding with Gates.
They are the only two options.
Dungroanin,
Have you got any photography, you took, or by any of your friends when you were…
“Reminds me of why I took up diving – I wanted to see the giants -Manta and Whale Shark.”
Because I have got absolutely nothing, (maybe pilots log book in the attic) except I was wearing a Yorkshire Gliding T-Shirt, when my new girlfriend was doing the rowing on the River Cam….in Cambridge amongst the punters. I took the photograph, then she did. we didn’t get married but such is life. we are still friends over 40 years later.
However I have got absolutely loads of photography, when I, my wife and kids started diving, when I unexpectedly received a lot of money in 1999
My wife and I were pretty crap, but we didn’t panic.
I had done a lot of snorkelling before, but at first she didn’t like putting a mask on her face.
I asked my boss at work, could I take two weeks holiday in about a months time.
I had absolutely no idea he was a diving instructor.
So he trained us all, before we went in his local swimming pool which also ran diving classes on a Wednesday night
Our kids were like fish, and got their full PADI’s – when she was 15.
https://www.padi.com/dive/start-your-adventure?utm_campaign=uk-en-entry-pros-search-startyouradventure&utm_source=google.com&utm_medium=cpc&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0fit8o6l6gIV8IBQBh0TjwSqEAAYASAAEgIElfD_BwE
I have all the photography. Much in HD. I have had at least one underwater camera since 1999.
Strangely enough I believe you.
Do you believe me?
How’s Craig Murray – I’m amazed you haven’t been banned too.
N_’s the best on there.
Tony
Compo, how very cynical of you not wanting to believe me. 😢
I learned completely by chance and off the background of being a very bad swimmer! Because I was on a boat with trainee padi youngsters and I like boats and it was a tropical island, and I had heard there were Mantas and Whale Sharks to be seen from the surface. I fancied a bit of snorkelling WITH a life jacket. They weren’t the brightest trainees, naturally nervous, but suddenly were 10meters below me as I struggled to push my head below the water (life jacket!). Anyway I thought if they were capable I’d give it a go. Managed it in 3 days.
I got a little camera and have taken it out in recent years , if conditions were right and I had a few dives in to be in sufficient control, but it’s not got lights and I haven’t trained to do underwater photography – though I have had the odd shot or two which I like of big shoals and corals… nothing to shout about. Hopefully I can devote some time to it and become proficient with it – but I ain’t holding my breath 😉👍
A man who tells the truth lies dying in a fascist prison…. a great day for self-mythologising and bears.
Congratulations, you win today’s Most Blatant use of pointless One-upmanship & Meaningless Sanctimony Award. Let us know where to drop it off. I imagine you have a dour and self-satisfied blog somewhere. Why not stay there and share your smuggery with the six regular visitors who care what you think
Why remove the voting buttons? I normally think they’re pointless, but I’d really to upvote that response.
Wtf does that mean? Are you actually posting this outside Belmarsh? Do you spend every waking minute there and literally never talk about anything else? Because that’s the only excuse for your posturing. Get outa here.
How about a joke: A media celebrity CIA agent making public worship him that hangs out with Rockefeller and a bear walk into a bar…
the bear leaves
“I am none of those.” Ed, don’t cut off your nose to spite your face! Quick, before you get too old: choose one of those practices which suits your temperament, and start doing what they do: laying themselves open permanently to encounters with the miraculous. Urge your son to do it too, whilst he’s young, so that he gets a good long run at it – which most of us need; it takes a bit of getting used to, when it happens spectacularly; very perturbing. “Acclimatisation and track-record”, as psi-researcher Ken Batcheldor used to say, is the key to being able to stand – and even invite – such close encounters.
https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/kenneth-batcheldor
But forget Harry Potter. You don’t get to acquire a magic wand – or finger – which obediently pours out light-sabre power, and produces PK to order, on your whim. This is about plumbing the profound depths of being, and about serving the great purpose of the mind of the universe: lowering entropy, and growing towards love, as Tom Campbell describes it.
https://www.my-big-toe.com/
Magic – using PK/ESP to order, or “Creating changes in consciousness in accordance with the will” – absolutely isn’t for mundane personal ego-gratification. Strictly for matters transcendental and sublime: serving the great purpose. Attempt to misuse it, and you will garner some really sharp lessons about not fooling with black magic. White-magic intent at all times keeps you safe; keeps you on the rails.
“Because American culture has always been replete with charlatans and scammers who have preyed on people’s gullibility and ignorance, such experiences have gotten a bad name.”
Apropos
“America Is the Only Country That Went from Barbarism to Decadence Without Civilization In Between.”
~ Oscar Wilde
Where did the up vote icon go?
Forget ‘quien sabe?’…who cares who (Should) know………. try Cui bono?, it’s a far more relevant and useful question.
Denying determinism (and objectivity) is oh so fashionable and postmodern. It is also the road to totalitarianism.
Catch up,Steve. The pendulum is swinging again, in the ancient argument between philosophical materialism and philosophical idealism. The latest bout of mechanistic, reductive materialism has run up against the buffers again, particularly with the famous ‘hard problem’ of consciousness, about which materialism is still as flummoxed as ever, and which is currently powering the swing back towards idealism.
Really – don’t expect to be able to stop that pendulum. Too many current new knowledge bays are waiting to be opened up by the reversion to the ancient idea of mind-as-foundation-of-all-things. So convenient, isn’t it, that we’ve concocted the amusement of virtual-reality headsets at such a timely point, to spread popular familiarity very widely with the idea that ‘solid reality’ can be entirely virtual, in fact. I suppose – credit where its due – Hollyshite got it right for once, with the ‘Matrix’ films, since they have done much to prime the public mind – in the barbarous West; other cultures never having lost sight of it – with the idea that the solid world is really a holodeck projection from Big Mind (yep! solid, injury-causing touchability and all; all virtual, including the injuries – though by god they still hurt!). 🙂
PS: I really have no inkling why this should be the road to totalitarianism. There appears to be zero connection.
It leads to totalitarianism because emotion substitutes for evidence and reason.https://viewsandstories.blogspot.com/2018/06/emotion-substitutes-for-evidence-and.html
Evidence and reason are fully compatible with totalitarianism. Indeed, totalitarianism is almost always devoid of emotion – which is precisely how they get away with it. The hyper authoritarians always tout “science” as their one and only guiding principle.
Using the word science as a rhetorical device, as the government in the UK is currently doing, is not using evidence and reason and is in fact substituting emotion.
Ah! You haven’t yet come across the large body of very high-quality evidence-and-reason-soaked scientific work which demonstrates (beyond doubt for any intellectually-honest onlooker) the substantive reality of these things, then? Really Steve: catch up!
Dr. (of philosophy) Dean Radin, chief scientist of the Institute of Noetic Sciences – whose latest book is titled ‘Real Magic’ 🙂 – is an excellent exemplar of this top-quality experimental investigative work.
http://www.deanradin.org/
If you can fault Dean’s meticulous dedication to classic scientific-method work, that’ll be a first. As rational as they come; and therefore well aware from his extensive work that these things are as real as anything.
Oh – and I still see no slightest connection between them and authoritarianism. Couldn’t be more unlikely. Check your personal psi-resistance, Steve! Seems to be up there in the James Randi hyper-level. 🙂 Cheers!
PS: Can’t say that I disagree with anything stated on the link you give, Steve. But what has any of that to do – at all – with the resurgence of philosophical idealism. There’s no obvious connection that I can see. Sure, the current orthodoxies of the ‘elites’ of the Anglozionist empire stink to high heaven; but linked to idealism? How? More linked to the socio/psychopathic gangster-capitalist mindset of the empire’s ruling oligarchs, surely?
Oh, and my remark about Randi wasn’t meant as a dig. Really, we ALL have potent psi-resistance, without exception, it seems. Some to the extent of poor old Jim, who’s made the work of the latter half of his life – after being a stage illusionist – to the cosmically-futile effort to demonstrate that black is white; that psi doesn’t exist. But if you really want to, you can work your way past this block and out the other side… It’s a beneficial work.
How does is relate to idealism: postmodernism is an idealist philosophical position; it is relativist, it denies objectivity and determinism, construing them as mere narratives, no more valid than any other narrative.
I clicked the link and of course it is nothing but advertising for his books. Perhaps, you could provide a link to his research published in a peer reviewed learned journal?
Er – not at all nothing but, Steve! Didn’t you notice all the options on offer on the front page of the website? Try the ‘Events’ button, for example. Dean has certainly pursued the peer-review-and-publish path with diligence.
Perhaps the most exciting stuff on offer to physicists, besides Dean Radin’s work, is to do with the upcoming set of experiments – delayed-erasure variants on the original double-slit experiments – which Tom Campbell is organising right now with university teams. His videos are the best source of information about his entire oeuvre – in particular the 2016 LA presentation, or – best of all still, by my reckoning – the earlier weekend presentation and workshop at the University of Calgary.
I have to say that, whilst post-modernism may be an idealist doctrine, it’s not the only possibility in that direction, and several of the other possibilities – such as Tom’s Big TOE – are a universe less fatuous than post-modernism; which I grant you is pretty silly, and certainly seems to breed the seeds of peremptory, prescriptive authoritarianism within it’s foolish political correctness. But there are other philosophical options with more gumption about them. Even Schopenhauer’s, with its nihilist basic drive-source.
I have no idea how much of his work Tom has submitted to peer review. With the old-guard Witchfinder-Censors of materialist doctrine still very much in charge of the official narrative about what constitutes authentic science and what doesn’t, I doubt he’d get much honest justice for his ideas – and discoveries; not just yet.
However, the younger generation – particularly in physics of all places – are flocking towards the idea that this physical, material universe is most probably a rendered virtual reality, with information as its basic world-stuff (echoing Arthur Eddington’s famous remark that the “the basic stuff of the world is mind-stuff). As that scientific revolution proceeds, I imagine that his ideas will get fairer treatment, without being drowned in materialistic-scientism doctrine – and dawkinsoid adhom shrieking.
Tom is certainly pushing to get the results of his upcoming delayed-erasure experiments put through the review-and-publish machinery. If they turn up the results he expects, it will be something like the final death blow to determinism, which started to die as the early results of the quantum mechanics investigators began to trickle out into the world, near on a century back. Such ‘impossible’ results – according to rampant materialist doctrine, that is – just can’t really mean what they seem to, can they? Just as psi can’t possibly be real, despite all the highest-quality, fully-replicable experimental work which has demonstrated beyond the possibility of contradiction that it is; as do the daily experiences of veteran shamans, mages, and all the other practitioners of the multitude of spiritual disciplines in the everyday world beyond the ivory tower of reductive, mechanistic materialist doctrine.
You do realise that if you deny objectivity and determinism, you implicitly are denying even the possibility of science?
Absolutely not, Steve. I deny the right of determinism to dictate what constitutes science and what doesn’t. Science is the methodical, disciplined, often experimental pursuit of knowledge – about whatever subject happens to engage our attention.
Inevitably, you have to approach your chosen subject on its own terms; whatever it insists on inherently. This will usually require a blend of objectivity and subjectivity. We don’t get to tell reality how it must behave in order to comply with our absurd dogma-rules. We approach it in whatever way it will allow, and do our best to uncover rational, logical, satisfying theoretical models to explain what we see. Reality leads, we follow.
The eclipsing of materialistic scientism seems to be opening up lots of promising new lines of research, each with its appropriate study method. People like Tom Campbell and Dean Radin are scientists in good – and deserved – standing who are doing just that. The old guardians of current orthodoxy are never going to catch up until they accept this force majeure. In fact some of them are never going to catch up. They will maintain their dogmas till death; then the young guard will commence ‘The Rectification of Names’. Sometime in the nearish future by now, I imagine… 🙂
I suspect you think you have refuted my assertion, but you haven’t. You have simply denied it. But your denial is the denial of reality. In order to engage in serious study (not just science, but any serious study), one has to accept (1) that there is an objectivity reality; and (2) cause and effect. Without these philosophical assumptions, it is epistemologically impossible to reach valid and reliable conclusions.
Denied, refuted, which is which? I suppose you think I will have refuted your assertions if I can disprove them – whatever that may mean – to the point where you will admit it. But I don’t expect that, any more than I expect you to acknowledge the high-grade scientific work of people like Dean Radin. It’s commonplace that people attempting to defend the – indefensible – dogmas of materialism will refuse to engage with matters which just can’t be fitted into that strait-jacket. Used to it! 🙂
I do wonder what you mean by objective reality, though. Is it strictly and only stuff made of fundamental particles and energy? If that’s how you’re bending the phrase, then of course I don’t accept it. If, on the other hand, you can accept that mind, for example, has an objective reality of its own, not in any way dependent on fundamental particles or physical energies, and sureashell not just ‘an epiphenomenon of brain-function’ (hah! tell that to the swelling crowd of NDE-survivors, experiencing their altered reality so vividly, whilst their physical vital signs flatline on the ICU machines;) ), an objective reality which insists – inherently – on itself being seen in this non-material way, then yes, we might at least have a common definition. Don’t think we’re going to get there though, are we? I think you’re defending the materialist position obdurately, insisting that I accept your arbitrary mangling of meanings, and insisting that I’m proving nothing, even when I offer you experimental results as good as any you’re going to find anywhere in science. “Six sigma” as Dean likes to point out…
In that case, I can only answer: ‘Dream on in your “mind-forged manacles”!’ and withdraw from further discussion. Please consider that you’ve ‘won’ the argument, if that’s a comfort. Byeeee! 🙂
Another PS: Here’s a talk by Russell Targ – who will introduce himself and his record in the course of it, but definitely a bona-fide professional physicist in good standing. Can you imagine, Steve: the terrified Guardians of Current Scientismic Orthodoxy at TED were so horrified by what Russ said here that they banned his talk: When you can’t deal with uncomfortable truth, censor it! 🙂 🙂 🙂
What Russ draws out briefly here is highly defiant of reductive deterministic definitions of truth and reality, but it is as objectively ‘proven’ as anything can be. Epistemology must bow to whatever nature of things reality chooses to show us:
So where’s the photo of the actual bear?
I’d love to see that.
Reminds me of why I took up diving – I wanted to see the giants -Manta and Whale Shark.
Every trip out there would be reports of sightings. I was always at the wrong site or in the wrong group. Once I’d even picked up a sunstroke and been laying down in the cabin of the boat when a Whale shark had appeared next to the boat. Everyone was able to see it by just looking overboard or jumping in with their mask and fins. I would have too if I could have sat up.
Still waiting for my Whale Shark. I did get my Manta though and was the first to spot it just lurking below the ridge behind us – all I could do was to hold my breath point with both hands and stare at it and hope that some dive master or my dumb buddy would look at my pose and raise the alarm – it was less than 10 feet from me and magisterial.
A moment. A blissful 10 mins before our air was done and we had to leave.
40 dives to first Manta. I await the Whale still.
Only 13% of UK working parents want to go back to ‘the old normal’
Corporatist Media have been stenographers for government. If they’re publicizing headlines like this, methinks something is afoot.
Looks like preparation for the “new wonderful vaccine”. TM Bill Gates.
President Woodrow Wilson has been cancelled. Surely it won’t be long before BLM outrage strikes down FDR and Herbert Hoover. Do Chinese count?
The American aristocracy was financed by opium and all kinds of projects using Chinese workers whom they imported to the USA. In Europe they fought WW1 with Chinese labor. Forgotten now: it was mostly Chinese who dug the trenches.
The Coolie Quagmire: Flogging, Sodomy, and Imperial Overreach on the Rand (blog of Peter Lee a.k.a. “China Hand”) describes an early attempt to turn labor into a controlled, scientifically-managed global commodity to maximize the profitability of resource projects in distant corners of the world: the export 50,000 Chinese laborers to work in the South African gold fields in the 1900s.
Herbert Hoover: Made in China https://chinamatters.blogspot.com/2006/12/herbert-hoover-made-in-china.html
Indeed. The abject poverty and exploitation of the poor Chinese upto their revolution is a hidden history still.
I found this nugget. After the English, French, Germans, Anzacs and others had finished the slaughter, the Chinese were left to gather up the torn limbs and unexploded bombs and make the site look pretty again.
You could not find better evidence for the argument that war is staged by TPTB — see Hidden History by Docherty and Macgregor, 2013.
https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3081749/how-chinese-labour-corps-was-painted-out-world-war-i-their
Didn’t you get the memo that China bad?
There’s no way in hell neo-libs/cons from The Five Eyes empire would ever treat Chinese history with any measure of fairness. Quite the contrary! The far east will always be the great bogey of the west. The powers that be would never go so far as to elevate the Chinese or any other East Asian to the full rank of human.
“such esteemed authorities as Jung”.
Jung’s father happened to be the senior freemason in Switzerland.
The statute of Jung in Liverpool happens to be in the same road (Mathew St) as the Cavern Club.
JUNE 6 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the death of noted thinker and psychologist Carl Jung, who famously labelled Liverpool ‘the pool of life’
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/fifty-years-death-renowned-thinker-3371889
http://jungcurrents.com/jungs-liverpool-dream-i-found-myself-in-a-dirty-sooty-city
Maybe I’m biased but
“When the US beat poet and counter-cultural icon Allen Ginsberg arrived in Liverpool in May 1965, he declared the city to be “at the present moment, the centre of consciousness of the human universe”. Perhaps his pronouncement shouldn’t be taken too seriously: he made similar claims for Milwaukee and Baltimore. As Liverpool poet Brian Patten, whose floor Ginsberg slept on, says: “I think Allen believed the centre of human consciousness to be wherever he was at the time.”
Talk about synchronicity! Mention of Jung took us to Liverpool and it just so happens that the book I’m reading is “Creatures of the Pool” – all about Liverpool and written by Liverpudlian Ramsey Campbell! It’s an update on Lovecraft’s “Shadow Over Innsmouth” so possibly not what Jung had in mind!
Ginsberg was right. The same applies to everyone.
I did not know that after years of eulogizing Carl Gustav Jung.
What does that mean of his works?
And the cavern club is a famous lodge is it?
Off topic, yet interesting news from The Hague
“#MH17 For six years Dutch media turned a blind eye to many witness reports of fighter jets close to the moment MH17 came down. Now even the Dutch Public Prosecutor is promoting a fighter jets scenario, be it unintentionally.”
https://twitter.com/beek38/status/1276589234099499016
So suddenly the fighter plane scenario is not so strange at all according to this other spin.
Interesting Twitter response asking why the prosecutor would play this audio clip. It really is a development.
http://johnhelmer.net/
A Russian general will present evidence of Ukrainian Army’s fingerprints on the BUK missile which Dutch prosecutors allege was the weapon used to destroy the aircraft on July 17, 2014, killing 298 passengers and crew.
“Without proof of the weapon, the Dutch prosecution has no case against the four soldiers — three Russians, one Ukrainian — accused of deploying the missile and preparing the attack against the aircraft. If Ukrainian Army fingerprints are verified on the weapon when the crime was committed, the Dutch case, and the worldwide media campaign against Russia, collapse.”
This video banned by BBC on Utube.
Strangely in time for this kangaroo court Luke Harding wrote a puff piece in an extract from his new book for Elliot Higgins, supporting the stupid scenario. The real one was actually reported by the BBC as shown, but then deleted by them. Strange that the facts can be so easily be deleted by the British Brain-washing Corporation…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/23/skripal-salisbury-poisoning-decline-of-russia-spy-agencies-gru
This presents the usual line where we are to believe the Russians are simultaneously stupid and fantastically clever. A kind of cognitive dissonance which can only exist in the mind of an agent of the British Security apparatus. Well done Luke for being so obvious.
Here again we have another case of an Official Narrative flogged for years despite a lot of questioning at the time, and now finally emerging as to Kiev’s role in it. Years have to go by for the false flags to be, at last, opened up on the posturing and bullshit of the Official Story. And now, again. How many years will pass before we get some clarity on the current virus bullshit?
Good post outside of the US and Britain it is already accepted that the Ukrainian fascists shot down that jetliner . Cui bono?
I believe from anecdotal evidence and from pets that have adopted me, that they have well developed instinctive knowledge about us and know whom to trust.
It is almost a given that we know this as we have often heard how animals can sense fear or joy in a human being.
This wild bear just wanted to get a bit closer…how affirming is that !
Awful chattering class slop of the form that fills certain types of American magazine. Low rent writing that certain authors master to make easy money from those who do not know where to find actual quality (or, worse, an audience that actually REJECTS writing of higher quality because it is too ‘challenging’). [Ah, so you had your novel rejected one too many times & decided it was because your writing ‘challenged’ people – ed]
Let me give some advice. All those worthy books you might have thought about reading but never did? Go listen to unabridged SPOKEN versions. More and more people have discovered spoken books, and I have to say the general quality of reading is at a level far above what I might have feared. Even Librivox, the FREE citizen project to record out-of-copyright works, has some stunning readings (tho many classics are ruined by having different people with different recording set-ups read each chapter).
People who today write mid-form or long form american magazine journo style musings are well worth ignoring. Their mechanical technique eliminates all artistic value. Instead consider the vast history of Human literature (in all languages- english speakers are spoilt with some insanely wonderful translations).
I haven’t a clue what Off-Guardian thinks it is doing with such posts (I do- it is a sad attempt to ape awful outlets like the NYT or Guardian). Myself, I cannot understand given the wealth of existant literature why this current model is witnessed in just about every website of a certain format. Well I can- it is to employ and ‘flatter’ a certain kind of current contributer, even when they clearly have nothing of value to say- and worse will lower the intellectual ambition of the readership.
At a time like now, as we descend deeper into Hellworld, and the monsters have success after success, our souls matter all the more. Feeding our souls with the best quality ‘food’ (while we still can) should be a sensible goal for all who can and will ‘read’. I fear there are a sea of fools who ONLY read stuff if it has been written in the current present, preferring god awful ‘new’ to anything tainted by being ‘old’. How else can one explain a healthy market for some of the worst TV (british), films (british and Hollywood) and books ever produced- in other words the ‘art’ of today- when one could be watching/reading art from vastly better times. But the collapse of quality, and the collapse of the audience interest in quality, is one of the main reasons the demons have been able to move Humanity into Hellworld.
Yes, but did you like the article?
A-plus for effort: much writing does suck, if not technically then due to its formulaic construction. We may in good conscience blame a conspiracy for it is precisely a cabal of pen-wielding goons that has pushed language into a corner.
The answer can only be to read literature from better times, to delve to the back of the bookshelf and feast our eyes on page after page of Goudy Old Style and Franklin Gothic and then to come out raging, to write anew and flick ink in their faces.
Come to think of it, stocking up on ink in these times might not be a bad idea.
http://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Iowa-Flattened-Literature/144531/
sunset,
Ed Curtin has a blog (http://edwardcurtin.com/). He writes what he wants. Different sites pick up certain stuff from it. I doubt there’s an agenda.
He was (I think he was fired or offered early retirement) a professor of sociology who taught from a point of view that was inconvenient for the university hierarchy. He was considered a heretic.
Plus, it’s Sunday. Time for a break, for a bit of dreaming, for anecdotes that have a dream-like quality. Lighten up a bit.
Hey sunset – I imagine you took a creative writing evening class one time and have a forty-yr old novel mouldering in a drawer along with 200 rejection slips, am I right? Nothing so full of bitter spleen as an unpublished writer complaining about the standard of published writing.
I’m sorry it didn’t happen for you, and I’m sure your novel is terrific, but Ed writes beautifully and with about as much soul as the best as them. His language and sentence structure are technically excellent, and he is one of those authors we almost never have to edit.
We know why ppl like you come here to vent your envy and spleen. Because you can. Period. Because other sites would delete you. And maybe they’d be right to.
Now do please fuck off
A1 – i have been observing Sunset and had a plan … WTF WTF!
WHY DELETE ME, but not Sunset? ?
Both of my comments were published!
Now you censor?
Having a bad day, or WHAT?
In which case, can YOU at least tell me what the fuck is “schlock weirdness”.
I genuinely do not fuckin’ know … oh, and it is a scientific fact that only male
Bears have a bone in their penis, FYI !
Try laughing, now, and inform me!
We haven’t deleted anything. Sometimes the system seems to ‘lose’ comments, especially replies in a long thread. Maybe this is it. I can’t see anything of yours in spam.
If you check back later it may have restored itself
(FYI, just to show how odd the comment system can be, this comment of mine was just dropped in the pending folder)
Perhaps it’s time for him to ride off into the sunset?
Lol
what kind of mentally retarded bullshit is that?
Lol
Even though you really are a crashing bore, dear old sunset, I had a big smile on my face by the time I finished reading your comment.
It’s so funny to see someone taking himself so seriously! :o)
That’s probably what most of his rejection slips say
While I agree with you about the modern Readers Digest type of tweeness and reductionism – portrayed in the modern media via the Ted type quivering lip moist eyed twaddle in bite size chunks – I can’t blame Ed for his own personal synchronous musings ; maybe the editors for re-publishing it here perhaps, for whatever reasons…
As for the spoken book! I have long found it to be a mostly vile chimera of the original. Ruined early by the ubiquitous ‘Just William’ narrator Jarvis and thoroughly destroyed by anything Stephen Fry lends a grasping hand too.
It requires either the original author, with due ability, or a trained and knowledgeable Actor or Actors in a semi dramatisation to be effective.
I prefer going back to reread a passage once I have got a hang of the rhythm of it or to reread a particularly good sentence.
Regardless of your discernment, Just in my opinion, I do think that having your comment punctured by the ‘ed’ in italics is unworthy – given that the editors, or Ed himself or Admins easily have a reply option to your comment. As in the very muscular and laddish: “ Now do please fuck off” !
Triggered? A bit maybe??
Laddish? I’m not a lad.
What exactly is it that makes you buy a new phone just for the purpose of turning up here to either embarrass yourself over Covid19 or find wan excuses to snipe and bitch about us like a rejected suitor?
Smh
A1,
Couple of questions to go with the ones you always refuse to answer.
1. Smh???
2. How do you interpret my comment TO Sunset (the second I made on this article- you had no problem with the first, unless that’s your anonymous downtick) as implying you as a ‘lad’?
I go where I want and say what I like.
Politely as I can.
I came here because as the site was supposedly the anti-thesis to the Obssesive OnGrauniad.
In a week where that rag has changed gears in ratcheting up the anti-Russia, anti-Trump and pro Starmer invective by failing to back Maxine Peake’s slightly misspoke but real statement – I was hoping to find the irregular O-G article highlighting that.
👌
I think ed’s interpolation is probably on the money. Hahaha. How many rejection slips is it now?
Hellworld is a long commute with a Spoken Book read by a women putting on a gravelly voice for the men. Or indeed read by anyone who thinks that reading a book aloud is enhanced by their sparkling personality and acting skill.
Most if not all of the books I’ve read recently have been published no later than the end of World War II. Something changed after the last great war, and I still can’t put my finger on it.
And by the way, nothing exists outside the law of cause and effect as this article tries to say by evoking Jung in an attempt to sound sophisticated. But it does make one think and for that I didn’t mind reading it.
“the law of cause and effect”
Is now moot among eminent physicists.
Read ‘The Philosophy of Physics’ by Max Planck.
He writes on the problem of causality as it applies to physics. Quote: “The chaos of individual masses cannot be wrought into a cosmos without some harmonizing force.”
This story reminded me a bit of my recent reading about Julian Lennon and his charity, The White Feather Foundation. Lennon left behind two highly talented and intelligent sons, still out there doing some interesting work.
‘Dad once said to me, that should he pass away, if there was some way of letting me know he was going to be ok – that we were all going to be ok – the message would come to me in the form of a White Feather. Then something happened to me, whilst on tour with the album, Photograph Smile, in Australia. I was presented with a White Feather by an Aboriginal tribal elder, from The Mirning people, which definitely took my breath away.
The White Feather Foundation was created for the purpose of giving a voice and support to those who cannot be heard. The tribal elders asked for my help, as I could bring awareness to their plight and to others who were suffering the same. Having had the White Feather bestowed upon me, I knew this endeavour was to be part of my destiny. One thing for sure is that the White Feather has always represented peace to me, as well as communication’
Julian Lennon, 2009