Society stole my Henge.

This weekend I made the trip to Stonehenge. i had never managed to make time to visit before even though i only live a little over a hundred miles away.

All the pictures on this post where taken by myself on my trip. as i approached the Henge i could not help but notice the lack of respect the visitors had for the monolith.

there where people from all over the world who had made the journey for whatever reason to visit this wonderful place and not to pay tribute of just to bask in its history but to take amusing pictures and run and shout. i was horrified at the way people conducted themselves in the presence of suck an historical and epic place.

its not entirley the fault of the visitors though, on the way into the field that houses the stones you are given a digital audio tour machine, its like a little custom build MP3 player with a man telling you all about supposed official history.

I can’t help but wonder if the flooding of such a site with the electronics and power inside the recorders is intentional. imagine the power you would be able to feel from such an old and important site without it being tainted by our technology and disrespectful tourists.

While looking at the Henge i failed at first to be moved and then as i found a quiet patch of the path i looked on and for a moment i imagined the thousands of years that they have stood there, looking on at the world, i remembered the story's i have heard about the place. earthquake predictions, tombs time travel devices, transportation circles and so many more ideas have developed from standing where i stood wondering why they where put there.

That’s when just for a moment in my mind, i was alone looking at an enigma that would outlast myself and even the silly little gift shop that was just a few meters away.

The stones are thought to outdate the great pyramids and be among the oldest man made (maybe) monuments on the world. i was standing in the oldest place my species has ever created.  for that moment i understood how i was supposed to feel. then  a loud tourist took an amusing photo of her friend acting like she was leaning against the stone (ah the joy of perspective)

I know that things can not be looked upon as sacred forever and i know that eventually the tourists will flock to anything interesting but i think the vision of stonehenge in my mind was the majestic ideal. the enigma that i barely felt and in my mind i will remember my visit as that.

Its a shame though, while i was down in the area i also took a visit to the Tor in Glastonbury and was moved far more by an old church on a hill than i was by ancient stones of mystery.

i think i enjoyed my hour at the Tor far more because there where no loud tourists or gift shops and i was able to focus on the sound in the air (and a very quiet place it is) and look at this strange ‘thing’ standing next to me on a hilltop.

both experiences where worth having and very different, i know that the thing that draws people to stonehenge is its fame more than its history. people don’t visit the Tor so much because its lacks the fame and the hill its really a long hard trek but it really it worth it as much as the henge at least.

anyway, i have things to do and a trip to reflect on. (podcast coming soon incase your wondering)

Remember the hippies?

  The Hippie movement started in the early to mid 1960’s originally in America but soon like all good ideas spread to more countries very quickly.

THIS page on Wikipedia has some great historical information about the movement.

As the 60’s faded so did the movement and most the hippies got jobs and became respectable members of society. To this day there are dedicated believers in the ideals as well as stoned teenagers who think they are making a statement and hippy hating jokes that for some reason appear to still be relevant.

The movement was born out of dissatisfaction with society, government and the state of the world in general. the Hippies stood for change, honesty and wanted a revolution, a revolution of the mind.

The Hippy mind set is still alive and well on the internet with the Open source software movement headed up my many an aged hippy.

I must apologise for rambling on but my thoughts turned to hippies recently when the rather controversial Digital Economy Bill was passed recently over here in the united kingdom, i wont go into any great detail about the bill but it puts things in place that tighten the controls over digital copyright as well as putting more stress to internet service providers to enforce the existing laws.

it’s a strange thing because the DE Bill introduces a strange dynamic because it is a law that has been forced through by an industry and serves to do little other than highlighting existing laws.

it is in short the first step towards the death of creative freedom on the internet. soon enough there will be procedures and fee’s and contracts even to blog. it is the end game, assuming your guilt of copyright theft, guilty until proven otherwise. this will reduce the numbers of people contributing to the internet as a whole.

so, my question is, where have all the hippies gone? the world is in a much worse state now than when it was in the 60’s and with wars declared on phantoms, politicians taking it upon themselves to enforce laws that protect the music industry what can not protect its own products. lies, tyrants and oppression is everywhere. We are in short due for that revolution of the mind now more than ever.

 

In the 60’s the movement did not spread as widely as it could have done because so many people where against the idea of creative and spiritual freedom. this time however its 2010 and  everyone i know at work and in my personal life wants change and freedom so come on hippies, save us. I am not convinced that there is a more qualified group anywhere.

Best Fit Theology.

Best Fit Theology is the name i have given to a phenomenon i have began to notice in society.

I think its been around for a while now, but to be honest i am not sure, it would seem that rather than sitting down and having a good old think about the universe people would rather pick the religious system that best fits their life.

As you may have noticed i am breaking up the seriousness of this topic with random and amusing theological motivational posters. i think if anything this adds to the stoic nature of the message i am going to try and convey.

 

If you live in mainland England and come from one of those passively religious families you may consider yourself a member of the church of England or as is better known, a protestant.

if you come from a catholic family you will probably be less passive in your beliefs but still quite sure your soul is safe.

There maybe many Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists reading this but i have little experience in those faiths so i don't know for sure that you are all passively faithful and unquestioning. for the sake of argument I am going to assume if your honest that's probably how you are.

My quest here is to try and wake you up to something. and please excuse me here, as I am not a member of any religion (this will become clear later) and i think all of them are probably right. I think that belief in its most basic form is a wonderful thing. however i would like to ask a question.

Why do you think you are correct?

I know, its a bold question and whatever religion you are has thousands of years of history (maybe more, maybe less) and smarter people than I have been part of all of them.

I am not arguing that your system of faith is incorrect, or correct. i am simply asking you to have a go at seeing the other side.

if your a Christian (any one of the 30+ denominations that i am aware of) have you read the bible? have you read the work of the religious competition?

i think we owe it to our immortal soul to make sure its in safe hands. just because your family are sure that Jesus died for our sins why are you?

shouldn't you check, just make sure that your religion echoes love and salvation to YOUR soul?

 

I think that people, ALL people should read and learn and understand and question and never become blinkered by faith. its important in all religions to ‘love’ and what’s more loving than trying to understand, do you think any creator you may have will disapprove of a philosophical yearning that HE/SHE/IT put into you in the first place?

The native people of Australia talk of dreamtime, a concept that i am only familiar with in passing (at the moment, i will read more as soon as i have time) the basic idea as far as i understand is that the creator sends a part of himself to the earth to become a person and experience an epic story. then upon death that part of himself tells that story, then that shard may return to experience a new story or stay and be part of the creator again. its a wonderful idea, is it true? i don’t know but i would not tell some one they are wrong for believing this.

I heard a historian named John Anthony West say something the other day on a radio show i listen to that made me think. i can not remember the exact wording but he said this

If a life that lasts one minuet is born at night in a storm it will never know there is anything else, when he his told of a summers day he will this it is nothing but a legend.

yep, i think i nailed the basic point he was trying to make (my memory is rubbish when it comes to wordings, i remember the concept but not the wording)

The point he was trying to make was that even though you think you know everything about your reality its based on such as small moment in cosmic history that it may as well be that moment in a dark rainstorm.

 

There are many other more hip religions you should look into as well, granted some of them are bonkers. That faith of the Ceiling cat who is locked in an eternal battle with basement cat

Don't forget the secret cult of the Flying Spaghetti monster, and the crazy ‘Last Tuesdayism’

yes, there are many choices but why stop at one. but what ever your do, please have a think about it, and never tell anyone they are wrong, that's just rude.

So, I have prattled on for quite a few badly assembled paragraphs now, and bashed theological complacency for long enough.

you’re probably wondering what i believe by now. a while back (years in fact) i was thought i was a child of the pagan mysteries, then i thought that Buddha was a safe bet. Time passed and i followed the breadcrumbs of my ideas, threw some out, got some new ones and at this moment i think that the universe its self it a/the (G)god (not sure on capitalisation in my soul or in that sentence) i think that time is probably a lie and we are all part of it.

I also think that Bill Hicks had it pretty close when he said this back in 1989

“we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves”

I follow no religion so i have no bias. That being said i may have one one day, that's cool, after all in the end no matter what you think of your creator he still thinks your pretty cool, unless there isn't one, or he is you…. but you get my point.

Ill leave you with this random song lyric….

Did music save your immortal soul, my my, miss american pie… [some other lyrics i cant remember] and i knew i was out of luck the day the music died.

Book Report: Infinite Love is the only…..

as a diligent blogger and committed seeker I have decided to start providing reviews of the books i read that maybe of interest to the RHE readers/listeners.

So, why wait any longer, here is the first one.

this is a short outline of the book. just to give you an idea about what its about.

Infinite Love is the Only Truth - Everything Else is Illusion: Exposing the Dreamworld We Believe to be Real

Written By David Icke

Amazon UK link

Okay, so first off, its not a new book, i never said i was going to be at the cutting edge but i did read it recently.

The book is a good and solid read, its what we have come to expect from David Icke, it starts by educating you briefly outlining the body of his work covering the global conspiracy and his views on reality and money

Gladly he short keeps this opening as anyone who has read his earlier books will have read this time and time again, the book then moves swiftly on to the nature of reality and is pseudo religious in its description of how reality its self was created but thankfully the author points out readily that this is his personally uncovered information and he does not think you should blindly believe him.

The main body of the book covers David Ickes concept of interdimensional entities controlling reality and goes into some depth about how reality is little more than a level of a 3D videogame, it does make sense as you read and some of the content is enlightening and almost awakening.

as i was reading it i constantly felt as if the book was going to unlock some deeper realisation than it did at the time, that being said however in the time since reading it i have found myself thinking about some of the ideas talked about in it, and that is the sign of a well written idea.

its the best David Icke book i have read to date and hopefully is work will move in that direction more and more, its deep and outlines some fantastic ideas yet still challenges you to question it. i would advice anyone with an interest in the big questions to read it.

Blog 2, ‘Changing direction - Vampires'

Rabbit Hole Express
Episode 2, ‘Changing direction’
Topic: Vampires, wonderful fantasy or real secret?

I once heard some one say that the reason that the reason they believe in the supernatural is because of the Catholic Church.

The church, they spent all that time all those years ago hunting for witchcraft. They burned countless witches and destroyed so many writings. They hunted every last wise woman and suspicious black cat. Once every trace of the old teachings was eradicated they stood tall and proud and announced that there’s no need to worry because there’s no such things as witchcraft so we cal all stop panicking.

This is the foundation of my interest in the supernatural. It is also the foundation of my ‘angle’ on this topic. You see, the way is see it is that the facts that are at hand are tainted, any evidence of supernatural ‘goings on’ is answered with a barrage of disbelief and much like people find reasons to doubt that man went to the moon because they find problems with the evidence, problems that for the most part are created with a point of view (see last Episode/Blog, I’m not taking sides here)

Much like with the moon landing, people who disbelieve the official story (the minority) have found evidence to prove it a lie (the majority) when it comes to the supernatural the same is true.

My perspective on this is different; let’s tackle this with an open mind. Let’s look at some ‘evidence’ and ignore the preconditioning that other people find, lets use our minds and try to think about something with a truly open mind.

Before we get into the main topic:
I think it is important that we look at some ideas and concepts before we get into the main topic, I am aware that a lot of my point here maybe initially random, but me in the end it will all come together.

Holographic Reality.

There is a wonderful book that I reference far more than I should; it’s called ‘The Holographic Universe’ written by Michael Talbot. Even though it goes a little strange at the end (still not sure that it’s in a bad way or not)

The book covers an idea put forwards by a minority of quantum physicists, it’s a rather complicated idea that I can’t really summarise in a single chapter but at its most basic level it puts forward the concept that everything we understand to be ‘reality’ is energy. Our brains then decode this energy in a way that allows us to understand it.

Yes, I understand that if you have never come across this idea then it will strike you as a bit strange. I wont try and go any deeper into the idea but I assure you the book has all its sources listed at the end and for the most part the ideas it pus forwards have a grounding in reputable (if fringe) science.

The information inside the book offers up some interesting concepts that become plausible once you take into account the main topic.

For instance, most people believe that the supernatural does not happen because they do not ‘see it’ but once you take into consideration that all things are made of energy that is decoded by your mind you must then accept that all things you ‘see’ are dependent on how good your decoder is.

There was a point there somewhere.

History is a liar.
Time after time history ill record an event in an incorrect way, some times due to genuine errors and a lot of the time because as I stated above those keeping the records had a set of beliefs to defend.

There is of course the old line first penned by the author Alex Haley, “History is written by the survivors.”
Remember, even though he is credited with this quote the chances are that he was not the one who said it first, he was the first well documented person to say it.

So as I delve deeper into the topic at hand I ask you as usual to keep an open mind and never trust any fact or record just because you’re supposed to.

Vampires:

Here we go, I have dodged the topic for far too long already. But where to start?

As usual, I think Wikipedia has a pretty good overview.

Vampires http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampires
Vampire folklore by region http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_folklore_by_region
Vampire Literature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_literature
Fictional vampires http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_vampires

As you read the above links please remember that they are written by people who consider the whole thing to be a work of fiction.

If you decide to Google the words ‘real vampires’ your not going to get many results that are of a good quality. Its worth reading anything you can get hold of for research purpose but a lot of people writing things titled ‘real vampires’ are just satisfying a fantasy, a gothic rambling.

In many ways I can see the appeal of the vampire myths, the literature makes them appear sexy, powerful and most appealing of all, immortal.

I enjoy those fictional works but I was forced to wonder where these ideas came from, why certain things are more prominent than others in the literature and most importantly, where is the real world inspiration?

As I researched the history I could not help but become fascinated with the sheer volume of fiction that surrounds all vampire mythology, from Bram Stocker to Bela Lugosi with cartoons and Halloween plays filling in the gaps we are surrounded with vampire story's.

In order to get a better understanding of all this i thought it was best to get a firm grip of the fiction fist, with a little help from the 1931 Bela Lugosi Dracula film and a thumb through the cliff notes of Bram Stockers defining work. all the fiction shares a gothic styling, even the vampires in the well known Buffy TV show have this gothic sexy aura.

while reading through the 'factual' history of the 'real' Dracula, or Vlad the Impaler as he was more formally known (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_impaler) it became apparent that the real man was nothing more than an inspiration for the more recent incarnation of the myth.

What we know for sure?
As I said earlier in this article, I am a very open minded individual, however I am not naive or stupid, so with my open mind in its most heavy effort to 'reach' for an answer I decided to break down the things we know about Vampires.

Sunlight causes pain: it seams that this portion of the myth comes from a rare disorder that seams to have quite a few names including photosensitivity. this results in rashes from being exposed to sunlight called photodermatosis. this can be a simple way to explain away how less educated people can mistake an unfortunate illness for a symptom of vampirism. Its also worth mentioning that there is a documented fear of sunlight called Heliophobia.

Vampires live for a long time and have super human abilities: I really tried on this one but there are no real links between the consumption of blood and enhanced life. if anything drinking the blood of people regularly would make you more prone to illness and all sorts of 'other' things. if its a more supernatural concept than I am able to understand and you add in the possibility that god created vampires to eternally walk the earth for their sins then i suppose it does fit with the myth.

Afraid of Garlic: it has been claimed over the years that Garlic is something that either causes pain to Vampires of the yare simply afraid of it, this seams to come from Rumanian folk lore about garlic keeping evil away, its also interesting that blood sucking parasites such as lice or ticks are less partial to hosts who ear allot of garlic, maybe that's the link.

Crosses and holly water are damaging: some myths claim that vampires where born from human sin, and that it is a curse given to men from god, so depending upon your point of view vampires are damaged by anything that is a tool of faith from any religion I assume. also, maybe its not even religion that's the issue, maybe its the power of faith in the person using the 'stuff'

Different types of Vampires: assuming you ignore the known fiction the topic of vampires is very diverse, different areas of the world have very different myths, everything from the Chupacabra in Mexico (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra) to the overly emotional Psychic vampires of modern culture.

Succubus.
once you think that there is a possibility that vampires and succubus are the same thing (both feed from human energy in one form or another) then the whole thing becomes even deeper. the succubus myth can be found in just as many cultures as the vampire myth and in many cultures (Islamic for example) its taken relatively seriously in comparison.

with a succubus being something that is not human and has never been human then those superhuman abilities that I discounted earlier are possible. if its not human then it maybe faster or stronger and may live longer naturally.

imagine an 'animal' you can not see that sucks your energy while you sleep, its scary and is the topic of a documentary called 'your worse nightmare' where they do a wonderful job of explaining everything from magical creatures to inter-dimensional beings.

Conclusion:
In my opinion it is unlikely that vampires are a fully recognised 'race' of people who live along side humans, assuming every vampire has to feed just once a week and there are a couple of hundred in every major city then there would be far too much evidence to conceal for any length of time.

That's not to say its impossible, it is in my opinion phenomenally unlikely but possible if they where all 'careful' and where assisted my government agencies then it is possible, but its a stretch even for me to believe it.

The other possibility I considered is that there are literally only one or two alive, and there has only ever been one ore two, why its this way I don't know, but its far easier for a smaller number to conceal themselves than a larger ever growing number.

I find it far more likely that the myth of Vampires comes from the Succubus legends, this explains why it appears in every culture, given how we as humans see reality then its completely possible that there are inter-dimensional beings in operation, after all a plant produces the Oxygen that we require to live, is it not likely that out existence sustains another creature? as for why we don't know about it, you have to wonder how aware of us those plants are.