The Fool’s Journey
The last few weeks have seen me return to thoughts about the Way of the Fool. As if by magic, this has been reinforced as I reread a book called The Zelator which outlines the Way of the Fool extremely well. I will post a review of the book when I am finished with it but I can highly recommend it none the less. All this thought took me back to Inner Journeys in which the prologue is a poem I wrote about the Fool’s Journey. Here it is…. If you need some answers Look deep inside your mind For the inside is the outside Where all answers you can find On the Fool’s long journey You must start right at the end And walk your way backwards Imagination –
Read More »Time for Change
Just recently it seems a lot of ordinary people have gotten quite angry. In India, the brutal rape and, let’s call it what it was and say murder, of a young innocent student has caused a backlash of ordinary people demanding the government finally deal with the issue of rape. In the USA, anonymous is making sure that everyone is aware of the repeated rape of a high school girl by the town’s popular high school football team is kept in the news and they are not allowing the town to conveniently sweep the event under the carpet. In Pakistan, a teenage girl shot by the Taliban for defending women’s right to an education has caused a similar outcry. This is good but it’s not enough. We live in a
Read More »A New Year
Perhaps you are wondering why I have gone so quiet? Maybe not but I havent posted much here for a couple of weeks. The reason is I am hard at work on my new book – a novel – and I cant stop working on it. It has become my obsession and every spare minute I am writing. The book is called The Last Observer and I first thought of the concept about five years ago. I discussed it with my eldest son in a pub in London around that time and he was very taken by the plot…so much so he keeps asking me how it is going…. So here we are in another new year. In reality, its just another day and I have always wondered why folks
Read More »Dad and Magick
I was thinking tonight about the fact that I always had the thought that my Father had something important to tell me. We discussed it a few times but never could come up with anything that seemed significant. Tonight, I was thinking about magick, reality and imagination. Suddenly a thought popped into my head. Driving around and around the block in Brno one night with my Dad sat next to me looking for the elusive parking space Dad said “When I need a parking space I just believe there will be one and you know, there always is.” Blow me down with a feather – my Dad was a magician and in that one innocent statement he described the art. I am sure I heard him chuckle….
Read More »Living a Double Life
And now for a small expression of frustration! Actually, this is another take on what is a theme for me I think. You see I seem to be a double act. On the one hand we have the ordinary me. I can be described as a somewhat cantankerous, somewhat perverse person who is prone to be lazy, probably selfish and always seems to have no time. I am ‘sucked in’ by the sheer pace and complexity of life; big job, lot’s of stress, worried about the kids, worried about the fact that I am worried, scared half shitless when I look in a mirror and realize I have wrinkles, gray hair and a belly and time is running out. Frustrated that I cannot quit smoking and I seem to have
Read More »The Hexagram and Kybalion
The new book – The Mystical Hexagram: The Seven Inner Stars of Power by SC Vincent and myself – gets into a discussion of what I call ‘polarity’. The Polarity displayed by the Hexagram as a symbol is actually best viewed when the Hexagram is overlaid on the Tree of Life. In fact, the book looks at the three types of polarity implicit in the Hexagram as well as what I call the Three Cycles (which interestingly enough equate to the three Alchemical Principles of Salt, Mercury and Sulphur!) as well as the Fire and the Water triangles that, interlaced, form the hexagram. But … back to polarity. Today, I was re-reading the Kybalion book by the Three Initiates. It suddenly struck me that the three polarities observed in the
Read More »There Is Nothing New in the World
Except maybe self deception! (no – that is not new either). Today there is an explosion of articles about the mental nature of the Universe. Here is one example. I am glad. But lest these quantum physicists get ahead of themselves lets face some facts…. Man has known this for millenia. The knowledge was passed on or obtained through meditation and other such techniques but kept quiet. In a sense, it was suppressed by those who knew because of persecution or the lack of readiness of others to accept it. It was hidden. It became arcane or occult knowledge and it is therefore one of the foundational tenets of Magick. There is nothing new in the world. In fact, I will go further. Scientists are not yet even as far
Read More »The Flame of Desire.
Fire is the first born and fire is like desire. The desire to know, to understand, to be who you are. Once this fire is lit it will burn even if that burning is just a smoulder. This is why people say that ‘they will light a fire’ under someone. They mean that they wish to see more desire. This search must start through contemplation – inward looking searching for the real Self. This can take many hours, days, weeks even years or more but in the cloud there is the light of knowing. In the center of your darkness it is doused with the light and as that light extends outwards and through your soul more and more is exposed. Many will stop at the first flicker not liking
Read More »Writing
I love to write. I always have. For many years I wrote songs and poetry. Playing the guitar, many of these were also set to music… I have a couple of songs that I think are quite good the rest, well, I had fun. Some of those songs and poems are in Weird Tales others are in a huge file of yellowing papers many dating back to 1973. In my professional career, I have also written many many articles and three books. I also have chapters in three other books. All on energy and commodities. One of the articles was even quoted by the US Congress report into the impact of speculators in commodity markets…. However, it was Inner Journeys that I think marked my first real effort at writing
Read More »This Time of Year
I love this time of year. The cold crispness on starry nights and the halo of ice crystals around the Moon or the cold dampness after a cleansing rainfall. The idea and joy of life as everything is dying as winter approaches. There is a magical feeling to it. The cycle of life as the leaves fall to eventually create the rich humous from which new life will blossom. As a teenager, we used to go camping for Bonfire Night down by the Humber near Goole. It was damp, misty and cold but magical. I have an abiding memory of how that felt that can be triggered into full sense at anytime. The colours of autumn are unique and to be treasured. As I said above, the feeling of being
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