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The ebook contains every post on this website from its inception in March 2018 up to and including 3rd March 2026

Middle East Slaughterhouse

Who’re you rootin’ for?

The Authoring of Reality – A Creative Cosmos

We humans are the mechanism by which the universe explores itself. We are a part of the universe thinking and deciding what it wants to become next.

To Touch the Face of God

The formless and ineffable source and pattern of the cosmos.

Trump Uber Alles

Heil Donald.

Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains

As the world writhes in the grip of rapidly increasing extremism and greed, it would be as well to imagine what a better world might look like

Barbarians at the Gate

And they have always been there. The question is what, if anything, to do about it.

Peace and Love

They were right all along, the peaceniks and beatniks, the hippies and the ban the bombers.

Free Will?

An enormous amount of bullshit on the topic resolves into two simple polar opposites.

The Psychological and Physiological Reality of Meditation

I write as a personal testimony, and out of gratitude.

3 Evil Men

Why does a population of 9 billion allow itself to be enslaved by a handful of tyrannical despots?

Ditching Belief….

… and the “Need to Know” is a big step on the road to peace and the elimination of suffering.

Who needs a guru?

Nobody does. Certainly not the variety on public offer.

Letter from a Senior Devil

I have found that meditation does exactly what it says on the tin.

War and Peace

Slash and burn, kill and maim.

An Atheist’s Guide to Nirvana

Transcendence is a reality and can change life for the better.

Extremism

If there can be said to be a “root” of evil look no further than extremism. Here are a few…

No Man is an Island

Peace can be found by treating life as a whole, and not otherwise.

Eudaimonia

A description of the state of being and of mind achievable through meditation.

Transcendence

Not an impossible dream.

It’s the Bloody Immigrants

They’ve ruined the country.

Welcome, Deepseek!

Scientific advances in AI belong to all humanity. Not to monopolistic and greedy Tech Titans.

How to Meditate

I am no teacher. All I can tell you is how I meditate and what it has done for me. Anything else would be a shocking arrogance.

Czech Art

I was following Moscow Rules as I turned left out of Bywater Street and headed along King’s Road for Sloane Street and Harrods.

Welcome Back Donald!

As we shuffle forwards once more towards dystopia and death camps.

Contemporary Art

As a pacific anarchist, I find up to the minute art much to my taste.

“Just the chemicals”?

Or does meditation reveal the face of god?

Life becomes Meditation

I find that my entire life has become a meditation. And that it has brought me peace.

The Terrorism of Ideology and Dogma

Original ideas, whether in religion or politics, may originate as beneficial and humane but all too often become adopted by a group of thugs who take it upon themselves to imprison, torture and kill.

…that Peace which the world cannot give…

If you are a subscriber to the guilt ridden miseries of Western religion, then peace will indeed be unobtainable.

Meditation – a wider perspective

So much can be found on the internet on the subject of meditation, and so little of it has any value.

Letting Go

I wondered whether I was small and insignificant enough to pass through the eye of a needle.

Jean-François de Troy Time unveiling Truth 1733

Opinions and the Opiniated

I have become very wary of expressing any opinion – it can so easily turn into aggression.

Nothing Matters

Except how you treat others.

The Migrant Rat

Even the housewife realised that the kingdom’s ills were caused by migrants.

Song of the Abbey

In an ancient abbey on a remote hilltop they sang to their god in harmony.

A Meditative Road to Enlightenment

Is it too immodest to suggest that one may have found a path?

The Unwashed

Tate Britain has become very political and I cannot claim disapproval.

Dune!

Another day, another superhero.

Getting it Badly Wrong

Note to self: “Must try harder”.

Gnosis

Being the Greek noun for “knowledge”.

Puzzle’s Stable

Or, if you prefer, Plato’s Cave

The Road to Nowhere

A series of what others of a more conventionally religious persuasion might call revelations.

The Wardrobe

I have been through the Doors of The Wardrobe and I do not intend to return.

Communing with the Infinite

It is hard to express the profound experience to be found in meditation without sounding oily and unctuous.

A Great and Mighty Wonder

Few would dispute that a mystery lies at the heart of our reality.

Quo Ego Vado?

I want to write about my experiences with meditation, in the hope of helping anyone who seeks relief from suffering. And release from the need to seek an answer to that question.

Hoc Futui

Which sums up everything I now believe in.

Purpose in a Meaningless Universe

You are unlikely to find it, unless you provide it yourself.

Peace

Internal or external, the path to peace is the same.

Credo

Too often have I pronounced upon that in which I do not believe.

ILLUSTRATION TO JOHN BUNYAN'S "THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS" (COMPOSED C. 1824-27)

Vanity Fair

Who treads the path and why.

Meditation – Nonsense or Nirvana?

Somewhere between these two extremes perhaps.

Pilgrim

One who travels to a shrine or holy place

King Charles’s Roman Circus

Today’s £125m fancy dress party both amused and bemused me.

As Man Thinketh in His Heart…

So is he.

Enlightenment

What is this fabled state of being he wondered. After many years of contemplation, he thought perhaps he might know.

A Mesmeric approach to the Dark Night of the Soul

Would Mesmerism prove any more effective than any of the other thus far useless approaches which promised salvation?

Under the Bodhi Tree

A descent into silence and meditation. A search for the soul.

The Door

And here you are, at the center of eternity, the end point of all. You are out of the physical realm here, all is pure thought.

Life on Earth

In a perfectly manicured estate beside the Thames in Central London, he came to the conclusion that life, as such, did not matter so very much.

The Chapter House

Some weeks after their adventures with the Book of Ways, Polly and Eustace sat enjoying a breakfast of boiled eggs and generously buttered toast in their little sitting room…

Seeking economic benefit?

Wouldn’t you if you were living in the Third World on 10 cents a day?

Beyond

The urge to write seems to be a purge, to be taken from time to time to express what it is one believes one has learnt.

Thin Places

“There are more things in heaven and earth than most people would dream of” chuckled Septimus. “If my dealings with Mages and their ways are anything to go by, you have both been called and must not be found wanting. Some great adventure awaits you.”

Time Stands Still

An air of deep unusualness greeted him, as he opened his door on a blustery autumn morning and set out to walk through the woods.

“Worldly”

Some consider it a compliment to be described as “worldly”. To others of a more reflective disposition, such a description might be considered as unfortunate.

Words from a Garden

Why is there something rather than nothing, he mused. Does life have any purpose.

Taliban

Has it ever known peace, this sad and beautiful land.

Sea of Words

Can you count the stars in the sky, the grains of sand on a beach. Can you hear a voice in the infinite Sea of Words unleashed by an age of digits and silicon.

City of Iniquity

Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood and stablisheth a city by iniquity.

As for Man, his Days are as Grass

As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.

Spring

What a difference a few weeks can make and how powerful the influence of the season upon the mood. If ever evidence were needed that we are mere creatures of nature, there be it.

Winter

Rumination, or call it reflection perhaps. Free of the destructive connotations of the former, the latter seems more wholesome. A liberating appraisal of a life lived less well than it could have been.

Which Way

Will you listen, perchance, to a holy man or prophet. Does philosopher or mage have the answers you seek, a fool even.

Meditation – Proof of the Pudding

Does it work?

Doubt and Daemons

While some may appear to lead a life unperturbed by fear and doubt, many are driven by forces less benign.

“What is it like to be”……Trump?

The soon to be ex President of the USA represents everything that is wrong with our species and yet what must it be like to live inside that shell of violent emotion? We should pity the man and people like him.

Gardening for the Soul

Recently, gardening has become more than a metaphor for me. I have followed Candide in a literal sense and found great peace in our garden.

Chaos and Uncertainty

I have not found it any easier to accept uncertainty in recent years despite my intellectual acceptance that it is unavoidable.

The Traveler – Ch. 4

The Bleak
Many eons back and countless light years from anything, in another dimension and another universe, a voice cried out in the cold darkness.

Extinction Rebellion

I find it hard to criticize any of the aims of Extinction Rebellion. Almost all of what they advocate accords with my own deeply felt convictions on what is wrong with our world.

The Traveler

Where he came from or where he went, none knew, and no one could guess. On Arkady, he was simply known as the Traveler.

The Traveler – Ch.3

Back on the Good Ship Lollipop, Aeolus sat on a beach by the sea listening to gentle waves lapping the shore.

The Traveler – Ch.2

The Good Ship Lollipop hung in geo stationary orbit above Arkady, positioned directly over Alomkik. Were it not cloaked in invisibility, the Arcadians would have seen wondrous things indeed in the heavens.

My kind of God

I have been profoundly moved by religion my entire life. I have always believed in the “Good” even though I may not always have done it.

Post Scarcity

How many lives lost in competition for scarce resources.

Moving On

What now I wonder.

On Good and Bad

Will we make a better world for all, a different universe. Or will the wheel of samsara never be broken.

To be Free

Release from the shackles of a mind made prison, sought for so many years and yet so recently achieved.

Equanimity

Equanimity, the acceptance of unity and seeing through duality.

Being

Sitting in the garden listening to the rain.

Meditation

To sit in dappled shade in the late summer sunshine. To breathe the soft cool wind, to close eyes and let the mind wander where it will.

The High Cost of Woo

I find myself wondering how much the historical Jesus billed Lazarus for his resurrection.

Sitting in the Rain

Gene Kelly may have danced; I just sat but with equal pleasure no doubt.

Age or Change

My mind drifted this morning, far from the algorithm I was working on. Was I old I wondered or had I simply changed.

Seeking Meaning

Deep in meditative trance a voice, my own perhaps, told me that I sought a god and had always done so.

A Garden in the Night

Last night was a night of my soul, but not a dark one.

Make Believe

While there may be no god and no objective morality, we may act as if there were. Some of us find that we must.

Ancient and Modern

While mesmerized by the beauty of nature and the past, naive Luddism is not a philosophy I espouse or admire.

And Did Those Feet

I felt it as soon as I sat down, the presence. Or was it a smell, a feeling a sound of silence.

The Past is a Foreign Country

They do things differently there. Or do they? Man’s real fear is of the unknowable future.

A World Without Money

Imagine a resource based economy, where we revert to nature and make our planet a shared resource rather than one dominated by crooked politicians and greedy capitalists.

Lost in Thought

Lost is often a good thing. Thought may not be so good.

Unspoken, Unwritten, Unthought

The happiest mind is the empty mind. The mind of pure experience. Empty of though but full of what is.

From the Hymn of Empedocles

We overlook everyday beauty dogged by anxiety about the future.

Nu Couché au coussin Bleu, one of the finest examples of reclining nudes by Modigliani, 1916

Achievement

What does achievement mean? What have you achieved and by what standards will you be judged? Will you be found wanting and if so should you care?

The Medici

If you are tempted to envy the wealth, power and influence once wielded by this famous Florentine dynasty, consider what it took to achieve and maintain it.

Mystical Unity

Hard as they are to describe, if I had to use one word to paint a picture of a mystical…

Anger

It is very disappointing to have given in to anger, which in retrospect could easily have been averted by withdrawing from the scene.

The Path of Slowness

Slowness is a vital ingredient, in my case at least, in encouraging me along the path I wish to follow.

Mystical Experience of Reality

There are certain activities or states of mind which trigger in me what Abraham Maslow calls “peak experiences”. Reading Keith Hancock’s Mystical Experience of Reality does just that.

A Funny Old Monk

My 26 year old son is clearly a perceptive fellow and he hit the nail on the head when describing his father as “a funny old monk”.

To Seek Silence

Silence is not the absence of sound but the absence of noise. Noise is not simply the presence of undesired sound.

In the World but not Of It.

A while back I found myself disturbed that a blogger could crusade in favor of violence and dissension and against ecumenism.

Nosce Te Ipsum

Can we ever know ourselves? And what is there to know?

A Road Less Traveled

If we seek reality, I am told that we look in the wrong direction by obsessing over the human condition. I think that is right.

So, ecumenism is bad for society?

I was sad to come across a post on the internet entitled “The Ecumenical Slope” whose author is both anti ecumenism and pacifism and who appears to believe that such doctrines destroy “character”.

I’m off to Narnia

When it comes to parallel universes, it does not get much better than Narnia. Where better to escape the troubles of a world which at times feel overwhelming.

Glimpses of “Truth”

Enjoying the cool spring sunshine this morning, I had a moment of truth as my eye was caught by dew drops in the long grass. I was sitting in our beautiful patch of wild meadow at the bottom of the garden.

Edge of the World

I wonder if this is what it felt like during the phoney war in 1939? A period of almost surrealistic calm before the horrors of world War II really began.

Preparing for the Apocalypse

I’m pretty relaxed about the whole thing and since I have self isolated now for nigh on 30 years, I’m not too bothered about keeping myself to myself. If the writing is on the wall, so be it.

William Blake – The Lamb and The Tyger

I decided to read and record two poems from William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience. I chose the Lamb from the Songs of Innocence and its counterpart the Tyger from the Songs of Experience.

An Introduction

I am starting a podcast and those who are in the know tell me I must introduce myself. So here goes.

Doing it Differently

Breaking up my routine seems to add enormously to my well-being. While I might not persuade my wife to let me go trekking in the Empty Quarter, even mild change can be very beneficial.

End Game

There is nothing more sobering than a great deal of time spent in a hospital with the critically ill. Nothing more rewarding either.

Tetelestai

It is finished – yes I think I know just what the poor fellow meant.

Faith and Doubt

Most of us have developed a worldview but I wonder how many of us let doubt destroy it?

I am not Gay

Nor multicultural, nor multi gender, nor am I trans….and, odd to relate nor am I a bigot or a racist.

Is Consciousness an Illusion?

Many now hold that consciousness is a trick, wrought upon an illusory “us” by physics and you may therefore wish to contemplate whether you exist at all.

Blogging – A Window onto the Soul

I was struck today when looking at my collection of Blog “Tags” just how much they reveal about my character and obsessions.

Should you Revisit the Past?

No, I am minded to believe you should remain firmly rooted in the present, making new experiences.

The Misnomer of Public “Service”

All too often public “servants” come to serve nothing but their own interests. When entrusted with the property of the…

A Valediction to the Church of England

Only the Church of England would sign its own death warrant.

On Choosing Happiness

I believe on any number of counts, including personal experience, that we have the power to choose to be happy but the road is not altogether straightforward.

Sex Education – Netflix

While the repressed prude may find Sex Education distasteful, those with a more discerning eye will value its gentle humour and shrewd commentary on human nature.