Comment on the proposed pardon for witches in Scotland

This is Sabine McNeill, a modern hunter of witches, who subjected a whole community of London to terror by accusing them of ritualistic rape and murder of children from 2014 onwards. McNeill is doing nine years jail time for her activities. It is vital that the narrative of those accused of witchcraft is not obscured by empty pardons and apologies, because people want past events to fit a politically correct and santised modern interpretation, as it helps those like McNeill to do exactly the sort of things that got thousands of innocent people killed for witchcraft hundreds of years ago in Scotland.

A petition has recently been submitted to the Scottish Parliament with three demands in relation to 4000 witches who were executed under the Witchcraft Act 1563 demanding: a pardon for all those convicted under the act; an apology; a national monument.

The petition has drawn a mixed response from people: Solicitor advocate Andrew Stevenson called it “shameful and absurd”, examining the legal issues around the petition; the historian Dr Peter Maxwell-Stuart of St Andrews University called it a “dishonest gesture”, an attempt to rewrite history; supporters of the petition insist that “victims of witch trials deserve a pardon”.

As both a campaigner for religious freedom, as someone who advocates for justice, and as a historian, I also have reservations about the the idea of a pardon and an apology; but support the idea for a monument.

As a historian, I feel that the trend to demand apologies and pardons for historic and unpleasant events or injustices is an attempt to hijack and rewrite history, which does neither the victims of the past, or, potentially, victims of the future, any justice. For politically correct or feel-good reasons, campaigners feel the need that if the narrative of history is added to, that in some manner it will be changed, but in doing so, they will deny a dark narrative for which the living can gain from. History is only useful if the story is something that the living can learn from, so that it is never repeated. History is saturated with injustice and dark events, but, if obscured by rewrites, people lose part of what made them what they are; for individual, community and society is the sum of all that has gone before.

The injustices and dark events of history only are helpful to the living, if they stand raw, bloody and nasty for all to see. Pardons and apologies does nothing for the dead; it does nothing to undo what the victims suffered, their lives cut short. The dead do not care, they are dead; even if some believe there is life-after-death; the dead have moved on to other things such as via reincarnation. The narrative of history is useful to the living, if people can emotionally react to the raw unfettered narrative, not a rewritten feel-good version.

I have to deal with a modern day version of witch hunting against alternative religions and innocent individuals. Just as in the days of witch hunting, people are being accused of rape, torture, murder and eating of children in “Satanic” rituals. The whole community of Hampstead in London have suffered years of witch hunting, accused of Satanic Ritual Abuse, for which they are still being harrassed for seven years after the allegations were first made in 2014. A vindictive individual called Becki Percy has accused her family and the people of Hull UK of the systematic murder, rape and eating thousands of children in Satanic Rituals. It is because of the allegations from individuals like Percy that many innocent people were murdered in Scotland due to false allegations of being witches; and it is because of allegations by those like Percy, that people in the modern day could be harmed. But, if we cannot learn from the raw narrative of injustice in history, because it has been rewritten by apologies and pardons, then the injustices of what the dead suffered will be repeated upon the living.

I ask: why must the child feel shame and apologise for the sins of the parent? The living, and the instititions they run, are not responsible for the injustices that killed thousands of people hundreds of years ago. Why must those individuals take upon themselves the shame, the responsibility of their ancestors, for apologising for the decisions and deeds of people have been dead for hundreds of years? Someone of the living is being asked to take on the burden of thousands unjustly murdered in order to justify an apology for those injustices. Shall the one who apologises, be also expected to walk naked through the streets of Scotland, pelted by rotten fruit? This is how stupid this idea is to ask the living to apologise for the deeds of the dead hundreds of years before.

The laws of the time was what applied for the beliefs and needs of the time. It is a nonsense to attempt to try and rewrite the laws and judgements made hundreds of years before by trying to use modern legal systems to rewrite those long since invalid laws to satisfy modern cultural opinions and feelings. What does this achieve legally? We, in the modern world, may dislike the decisions and events of laws of hundreds of years before, but that is what they believed and acted upon in their society and time. Those peoples of hundreds of years before will seriously hate and oppose the modern laws and deeds of our modern age.

It would be legally unsafe and unreasonable in my view to do a blanket pardon for crimes of witchcraft of hundreds of years ago. If it has been the decision of the people of the time that if black magic has happened, that on conviction, the penalty is death; and if black magic is real, and there has been a victim of black magic, then amongst those thousands of cases there will be some cases justified for that outcome. If the position is taken that black magic is superstition, but that there have been people who have used the superstion of people to harm them, for which they then get accused of witchcraft, and executed; are they the agents of their own misfortune? There are ocultists in the modern age such as Nathaniel Harris of Bristol UK, who is actively casting ritualistic curses on the victims he is harrassing; and there would have been a number of individuals like Harris who have been executed for this type of abuse amongst those Scottish “witches” who have caused untold suffering on a very superstitious people. It is belief that gives many magical systems such as Voodoo their power over people, thus if an indivual believes they will die by a curse, they can die from it. In addition, in the age when witches were executed, people could be executed for stealing a horse; so if some fraud had gained a horse by reason of claiming to be a witch, the penalty of stealing that horse by the fraud is much the same as stealing it – death. To give a blanket pardon is not justice; because to be just one has to examine each case individually, where records are poor and would take up an awful lot of resources that would be better applied to the cases of unjust allegation making of the living.

Having a monument to the injustices visited upon innocent people of allegation making of witchcraft is something I fully support. A monument draws attention to the cruelty, injustice and superstition that caused the deaths of so many innocent people. Many of those victims, who a few minutes before they died due to the charge of witchcraft hundreds of years ago in Scotland, would have a position that their descendents never suffer a similar fate. A tribute to the fate of those victims would be to give them a monument, but never obscure their narrative with empty pardons and apologies; because the legacy they would have wanted is to have their fate not visited upon the children of the modern age; the deaths of those victims will be for nothing, if their raw bloody story has been lost to history thanks to politically correct touchy-feely sentiments, who dislike the dark narrative of what those victims suffered.

The murder of Sarah Everard and the issue of the rights of women

The younger generations do not have the same limitations or anxt over gender issues and rights as older generations, which will come as a surprise or shock when they gain influence in UK society.

Earlier in March 2021, a 33-year-old woman in the London UK area was walking home at night when she was kidnapped and murdered. The body of Sarah Everard was found about a week later dumped in a builders bag, mutilated enough that she had to be identified using dental records.

The murder caused great anger in both the public and the media in the UK. One cause of the anger was that a police officer was charged with the murder of Everard, raising a sense of betrayal and vulnerability, that the very agents of safety in society (police officers) had become the predator. A second cause of anger was the initial reaction of authority figures that women should not be walking the streets alone, which quite rightly inflamed the anger of women about a limitation on their rights based upon gender. The situation was further inflamed when a protest by women about the issues around the murder resulted in police action to enforce covid restrictions; leading to emotionally well timed photo opportunities showing police officers holding down and restraining women, reinforcing the two initial causes of the anger around the murder. The police officers suffered unreasonable criticisms by politicians for doing the job of enforcing covid lockdown laws that the same politicians told them to enforce.

When one takes an objective step back from the emotional turmoil that the murder of Everard has caused, what then is it that society is demanding? And, are these demands possible to meet? Two themes that I observe is a demand of the rights of women to walk the streets of the UK unmolested, and a demand that something must be done about violent men. There has to be a realism here that some demands can and will never be met.

The reality is that the streets of the UK are unsafe for everyone, not just women. As a male, I have suffered attacks on the streets, and have been chased a number of times by either individuals or gangs of people in unprovoked attacks. During the pre-lockdown era I often read in the local media of unprovoked attacks on males late at night or the early hours of the morning, leading to deaths and serious injuries. I am dealing with the case of a little boy who was kidnapped on his way home from school by an organised group of male and female religious fanatics. It is unrealistic to ask for the streets to be safe just for women, since the attacks and kidnappings impact all genders and ages; and the police are on the frontline to make this happen.

Everyone has a right to feel safe from kidnap and murder on the UK streets. To be objective, it is a rare situation that an individual is kidnapped and murdered in the UK, especially of women and children. Alas, there is not much difference between the level of violence today as it was in the newspaper reports that I have read in the Victorian era in the UK. In my local area a police officer was involved in the rape of a woman in the 1800’s but escaped conviction after being forced to resign. The levels of violence in the Victorian era of men on women on the streets was no different in level to the modern era, despite the population being less than half of that of today. This reality that nothing changes despite a hundred years when it comes to street attacks presents the grim fact that the streets will always be unsafe for everyone, of all genders and ages, and people will have to adapt to that situation. There is no magic pill to change this reality.

Another significant issue that everyone miss over the Everard murder is that sexual and physical violence often happens between people who know each other: it is often in the home; and the victim and perpetrator can be any gender. As a child, I was witness to domestic violence by the male on me and on the females. My former male boss was a victim of domestic violence by a female upon him; and I was personally aware of another male associate who was also victim of domestic violence by a female on them. The cases of the Hampstead Satanic Ritual Abuse hoax and the Wilfred Wong case involves perpetrators abusing children from both genders, with some females heavily involved in abusive activities such as Angela Power Disney and Ella Draper. There is still a long way to go when addressing domestic violence in the home by both genders, and, which seems to be failing to address the needs of children in those situations.

What happened to Everard was a terrible thing, but an objective look at how things are in UK society compared to other nations helps keep things in perspective to avoid getting into the emotional state that UK society currently feels over the murder. Brazil in one year suffered 50,000 murders; Brazil has a serious problem with drugs, corruption and the murder rate. In some nations of Africa, whole schools of children face kidnap, and villages face massacre by roaming gangs and bandits. In Iran and Saudi Arabia, women have limited rights. In India, there is an ongoing problem that both women and children continue to suffer sexual attacks without justice.

One can not miss the fact that gender rights has advanced at an impressive rate. When I was a child, soccer and skateboarding was a male-only interest. Now, it is common that girls play soccer and do skateboarding. It is no longer rare to see boys wearing pink, or using makeup. The concept of gender has faded into a spectrum of definitions and fluidity amongst younger generations. An individual is no longer obliged to fit into a gender stereotype or definition. Female teens such as Greta Thunberg can stand up and speak about something they are passionate about, and the world listens. Younger generations come to the table without any baggage when it comes to gender; if they want to do something, they will do it. If there is any issues about gender rights, it is with the older generations, and the younger generations shows that such issues are not as concrete and a problem as people think. Violence is as much a reality of life for younger generations in schools, by and against all genders, as it is on the street; there is no magic pill to deal with that.

Coming out of the existential crisis triggered by the murder of Everard is an unrealistic demand to turn the male into something they are not. Visiting YouTube videos about the experiences of parents and teachers with children, such as Supernanny, shows what happens when a child feels invalidated, which includes any attempt to suppress or change what they naturally are. It is a natural thing for males to express bravado, to enter into actions of risk of injury and death in displays of skill and strength. Males do not process feelings as easily as females, thus, if invalidated or abused, they can get angry, and do get violent far more often than females. A male who is sexually abused can fall apart quickly into self-harming, drug abuse, crime and mental illness. There are no positive outcomes if people go down the road of invalidating, abusing or trying to change the male into something they are not.

I have no answers to the violence that impacts UK society at all levels, only to say that one has to be realistic, that there are no magic pills, and the issues impact all genders. It is hoped that there will be justice done for the murder of Everard, even though she can never be brought back to life. If there is one ray of hope, it is the younger generations, for when it comes to gender, whatever issues the older generations experience, the younger ones won’t experience or tolerate it.

Robinhood app: investment vs gambling

The only real paradigm for investment is by creating a tangible product or service that people need, not one based on wild speculation for large profit through short-term gain and no effort.

A horde of small investors shocked the financial markets during a January 2021 investment spree, through the use of apps such as Robinhood and social media such as Reddit, to act as a mob investing in a failing company called GameStop. This action caused major losses against hedge funds, who had invested in a gamble that Gamestop shares would collapse; where simple market demand for the shares drove the share price up, and the hedge funds had to buy shares at hugely inflated prices at massive losses.

The result of stinging the hedge funds by a mob of individuals investing en mass at the same time was hailed as a success against the system and the elites; but there was no paradigm shift; the impact was temporary. GameStop shares became a bubble that quickly burst, and many of the crowd of gamblers suffered severe losses. The financial markets such as Wall Street are built around the paradigm of gambling, greed and short-term profits. The army of speculators became a mindless conformist group of slaves manipulated by a few people to act like lemmings making money for people such as Elon Musk, throwing money away they could not afford to lose. These gamblers supported the system they wanted to sting, motivated by the same greed, gambling and short-term goals as the hedge funds they despised.

These same speculators worship the rise of cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin, but fail to see the bigger picture that the currency has failed to meet the problem it was trying to resolve, as an alternative token of exchange to paper money for goods and services. Bitcoin has become a vehicle of speculation, where a few mystery players can manipulate the currency as they see fit; with people using the currency to speculate to make profit rather than use it as a medium of exchange. Bitcoin has become too unstable as a token of exchange, for due to the sudden rise and fall of Bitcoin, the price of a coffee in Bitcoin can rise in hours from three dollars to a hundred dollars. Criminals and terrorists love Bitcoin, as it is easy to move around and hide their activities; and the security of the internet makes it harder to defend against theft and fraud of Bitcoin, as opposed to standard paper currency.

The paradigm for investment has always been about creating a tangible product or service that people need, then using that as a trade in exchange for other goods and services. Example: I plant 100 apple trees, and get 1000 apples to trade with; I position 10 bee hives amongst the apple trees, the bees increase the yield of apples through pollination by 30%, giving me 1300 apples to trade with; each bee hive gives me a kilo of honey, so I have 10 kilos of honey to trade with. Whilst there is always an element of risk in any investement, the chances of getting success out of the apple-honey business is greater than following the crowd in mindless speculation.

Dealing with apple trees and bees is a lot of work, an ongoing process of trial and error, where the individual is working with something tangible to bring about something tangible. The hedge funds and the mob of gamblers have no interest in the investment paradigm of apples-honey, as they desire quick profits through little effort. It would take several years of hard work, with a lower yield to gain something from apple-honey ways of investing.

GameStop belongs to the paradigm of apples-honey, but it is no longer offering a product or service that people need, thus it is failing. GameStop provides a service of offering computer games in retail stores, a service people now obtain directly from internet downloads. The hedge funds and the Robinhood app horde were never interested in GameStop as a business, they invested in a gamble on shares, speculating on a rise or fall in those shares. Electronic currency such as Bitcoin, and finanical market shares, are vapid mental constructs, that have no tangible grounding in the real world, which is why people gamble on them. GameStop is a failing business, because nobody needs it’s product and service anymore, which is why it is dumb to invest in such a business.

On the religious hatred of Wilfred Wong and his supporters

On the matter of the religious hatred of Wilfred Wong and of his supporters, and of those who encourage the notion that kidnapping children is okay.

An image of me as a child around the time I was abducted, at an age much younger than the age of the boy allegedly abducted by Wilfred Wong. I know all the feelings that goes through the mind of a child experiencing an abduction. I am very triggered by the Wilfred Wong story; I am very angry. Does anyone consider the feelings of children when they support and encourge vigilantes to abduct children? Do they know what that does to a child?

In early November 2020 UK news media reported about the abduction of an eight-year-old boy in Wales UK where a certain Wilfred Wong was mentioned. The boy was said to have been allegedly abducted after leaving his school by a group of six individuals at knifepoint, bundled into a car, which was stopped by armed police 200 miles away near Milton Keynes. The obviously distressed young boy was returned back to his caregivers, whilst all six alleged kidnappers were remanded in jail on charges of kidnapping, with Wilfred Wong charged in addition with possession of a knife.

The mention of Wilfred Wong is significant, for he is a known religious fanatic who has dedicated his life to hunting Satanists and promoting the narrative of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA). What is disturbing about Wilfred Wong is that he dumps so many religions into one basket, from Islam, to Paganism, to Wicca, under Satanism, which he defines as a worldview dedicated to ritually torturing, sexually abusing, murdering and eating children. Wong has called upon the UK Government to establish an official body with powers that the police, social workers and the courts answer to, in order to investigate anyone he thinks are Satanists (i.e. any religion not Christian) with view to SRA. Wong has also demanded that SRA be a crime in its own right with criminal penalties of life in prison or execution. Wilfred Wong believes he should head such a body, a sort of Spanish Inquisition run by Matthew Hopkins type of Witchfinder Generals.

To many, who do not subscribe to the religion of Christianity, the ideas and influence that Wilfred Wong carries must be somewhat disturbing. Wong is a trained legal barrister who has worked in the Houses of Parliament for Members of Parliament lobbying to advance many Christian causes such as against abortion and promoting a war on alternative religions under the guise of SRA. In the eyes of Wong, any pagan family who for instance go to Stonehenge for a Solstice celebration, is doing a Satanic ritual, and they, plus their children, must be subject of an SRA investigation. Without much of a track record of any accomplishment, Wong has emerged as the leading spokesperson on SRA in the UK with a growing following; and appearing on internet shows hosted by people such as Shaun Attwood that has boosted his public profile.

Within days of the arrest and placing on remand in jail of Wilfred Wong, pending a court hearing on 7th December 2020, the supporters of Wong were organising to free Wong and attempting to spin an alleged abduction of a child as a rescue from SRA. The pro-Wong campaign was given added momentum when one of the alleged kidnappers, Robert Frith, committed suicide by placing a plastic bag over his head. Lurid fictional stories were invented of Wong being castrated by inmates, and of Frith being murdered. Wong supporters pushed the very limits of contempt of court proceedings by speculation and background information about the child in the case. The supporters spun Wong as a hero, and a victim of injustice; creating petitions to President Trump to intervene in the UK justice system to free Wong. The prison where Wong was remanded was spun as a Satanic institution, and the police as Satanic agents of the Crown. Looking for a hate figure, the Wong supporters used the governor of the prison where Wong was remanded as their target of hate, and attacked his character, whilst harrassing staff of that prison.

Of great concern was the approval and justification to abduct the children of any family the supporters of Wong considered as being involved in SRA; for instance, if a child followed the pagan path, then without any evidence of abuse, the religious fanatic was entitled to kidnap them to “rescue” them from “SRA”. The idea that any suspected abuse of a child should be reported to the police for their investigation seemed a crazy notion to the Wong supporters. The religious supporters of Wong promoted an anarchic reality where a religious fanatic could act based upon an opinion without evidence to act as vigilantes with violence to take away children against their will from their families, with specific reference to those following a non-Christian worldview.

Of great fear to the critics of Wong was the attempt of pro-Wong supporters to turn the Wong issue into another Hampstead, where the father and anyone associated with him was spun as a Satanic cult, and the eight-year-old boy the new poster child for the global movement (QAnon) against SRA. Wong, who has no training or track record in dealing with child abuse, or any apparent children of his own, was a surprise figure to be involved in a legally highly risky alleged child kidnapping. Wong, who has claimed over two decades of experience of campaigning on SRA, has been unable to offer any evidence in support of his claims; draws one down a dark road as to what could have happened to this child, if the police had not intervened in rescuing the child from an alleged abduction.

Whilst legally one cannot speculate on the guilt or innocence of the charges the alleged kidnappers of the boy faces, the news media has indicated two will plead guilty; and one individual, Robert Frith, has considered his situation so dire as to end his own life. Whilst I have often entertained thoughts of bringing together a team to drag the child abuser and architect behind the Hampstead SRA hoax Abraham Christie back to the UK from Morocco to face justice, I am fully aware, despite my moral high ground and sense of justice, that if I did that, it would be difficult to fight off any criminal charges from the UK, Morocco or both from what would be a highly illegal operation. The sword works both ways, it is all very well those who promote the fiction of SRA spinning arguments to justify vigilante activity against those of alternative religions, but how would they like it if the alternative religions entertained similar thoughts and struck back at them? To be clear, there is a vastly greater track record of child abuse amongst the religion that Wilfred Wong and his supporters follow than of any other religions they target with religious hatred.

Despite what is a slow and frustrating legal process, often undermined and manipulated by those such as Wilfred Wong, it is only with an act of faith and will that I continue to play along with the legal process. It gets quite hard to sustain tolerance when one comes up against the pure religious hatred of those such as Wilfred Wong and their supporters, to constantly have to suffer this religious hatred without much recourse, and now a new horrifying face that religious fanatics are now allegedly abducting children based upon fictions of SRA.

For legal reasons, this blog post will not allow comments.

Creativity is the liberation of the hidden potential in things

I brought the potential of an oak tree out of an acorn.

Each year, I make a journey to visit an oak tree I planted over five years ago. This year, the oak tree is now taller than me, and will go on to become a major landmark as a great tree long after I am dead.

Did I create this tree? No. For the oak tree existed already in potential in the acorn. My part in the manifestation of this oak tree was to bring out the potential hidden inside an acorn of an oak tree. I planted the acorn, and looked after the little tree from the first unfolding of its leaves and roots, then planted the tree at the current location when it was three-years-old.

Something is never created out of nothing. If a substance has no potential for a something, then that something will never manifest. The acorn has the potential to be an oak tree, but will never be a living elephant. The process of creativity thus is about bringing out the hidden potential of things rather than creating something out of nothing. The creative person finds the potential, then nurtures that potential into being; this is the real creative process.

Towards a new reality

Our reality is shaped by our environment or by our own attitudes and deeds.

Reality as the individual knows it is shaped by self or by the environment.

Take the example of the agency of coronavirus upon the world. I discovered the joys of cutting my own hair, so I save £8 every month at the expense of a hairdresser. A printer friend of mine discovered that their online business boomed, and started to think they will no longer need their city centre shop, which has been closed due to lockdown. Due to stress, I quit as an administrator of a website, but have started thinking about how artificially intelligent entities might do a better job than a human could do to moderate internet sites. These are all small changes due to coronavirus, which when multiplied, brings about a tsunami of change in the world.

There are many who hang on to the previous pre-coronavirus normal, and will fail. Bars are set to reopen in the UK; but they will fail, because people come out to bars for the experience, and the queues, inconvenience, plastic barriers, gloves, masks and social distancing destroys the experience, and they will not return. The coronavirus has fallen away in US states such as New York, but is surging in Florida; the virus is collapsing in the UK, but is rising in India, Mexico and Brazil. Europe is talking about restricting travel from the USA to Europe.

Coronavirus is not the only agent of change in the world. President Trump will increasinly be the source of ripples of discord for all the months running into his November election. China, burnt by coronavirus, is increasingly warlike with Japan, India and Hong Kong. Locusts eat their way through the Middle East and Africa, leaving millions at risk of starvation. And, Siberia, with record temperatures, echo the global drum of significant global change.

But self is also the agent of change in self, and the greater world. I choose to drink more water, and to take up tai chi. I have lost all interest in being entertained by media. Small changes that impact my body, my mind, and then the world through me.

Here are a few final thoughts. Our thoughts, deeds and experiences shape our reality; we are the sum total of all that has gone before us. All change in the world starts with self.

A life goal can provide stability in times of fast change

By finding their life goal and then pursuing this goal, the individual can find stability in a world of turmoil and uncertainty.

The death of Vera Lynn this morning in Britain at the age of 103, marked the transition of my country from a time of certainty and stability to one of unpredictability and confusion. Lynn represented what was the blitz spirit of Britain that faced down Nazi Germany, when it had empire and a proud knowing of its place in the universe. I live in a time when I am unsure what Britain is anymore, where there is nothing to hold onto that defines my sense of Britishness. I sense that this existential crisis may exist across many nations of the world, where the citizen, in the age of global branding such as Facebook, Nike and Coca-Cola, has had their sense of national identity stripped by superficial cultural garbage.

The philosopher Heraclitus says that all of nature is in constant motion and change; which is to say, that the only constant in life is change. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius observes that events in life and history repeat; today, we have a global epidemic of the coronavirus, in the time of Aurelius the Antonine Plague was ravaging the Roman Empire.

Despite the ideas of constant change and repetition of events, there is an understanding that in these cycles, the pace of change is slow and fast. Vera Lynn might represent to me a time of slower change, but Brexit represents a period changing at a faster pace. Indeed, the speed of change in the world, has made it so confusing and distressing for me, I have a major reluctance to follow the news anymore.

Even as the world moves forwards at a frentic pace, the individual has the refuge of self to turn to, which moves at a calmer pace. The individual can find stability and calm in the storm by reference to their internal self. The individual ages, but feels the same as they did as when they were younger: their heart beats the same; their lungs fill with and expel air; their brain fires, leading to thoughts.

Marcus Aurelius suggests that the individual ceases worrying about the world; to find the goal in life of why the self exists; and then to focus all resources and life to that goal. In embracing and manifesting the goal, the individual finds stability in the goal of their life.

An individual can replace lost money or shoes, but time is unreplaceable. An individual has a finite amount of time of life in their body, just as Vera Lynn was allocated 103 years of time. Too many people waste time worrying about things they have no power over: such as coronavirus; or over matters such as Donald Trump, who will vanish into history one way or another, like so many leaders like him in the past. So, by giving time to things that are irrelevant, the individual sacrifices a finite resource – time – which could have been better spent on the goal in their life.

It is my view that the goal in life becomes the rock pillar of stability in periods of confusing change. The goal gives a sense of purpose and meaning in life, which makes a life worth living, regardless of what the world is doing. Even if Britain or the world has lost all meaning, the goal provides a constant source of meaning to the individual who finds and pursues their life goal.

Everything is a story

Walking and observing, the individual can learn about the elements and relationships between those elements to understand the story of things. This Woodland anemone tells me the woodland is ancient; and the time of year is spring, before the first leaves appear in the woodland trees. Understanding the story, the individual gains the power of storytelling; and the ability to be the master rather than the slave to stories.

One of my skills is that I am a storyteller. I research an area of interest, then I communicate my learning to others in the form of a story.

The story is a system of of patterns that form and transform patterns in the mind of the reader or listener of the story. The story encodes ideas, and the relationship between ideas, in an understandable way to be easily assimilated in the mind of others. This is why story has been a common tool by which people transfer information from one generation to the next since ancient times.

The story appeals to all levels of the mind: emotional; intellectual; sensory. Stories can influence the mind to motivate it to activity. Story can be used to start wars, movements and change the way people think.

The individual can observe and identify the hidden agenda behind the story; for there is always a purpose behind a story, to have an effect on the mind of the hearer of the story. US President Trump recently used the story of linking elements together about the protesters against the murder of coloured people by the police: Antifa; terrorism; protesters. The story transformed protester into terrorist; the protests became terrorism; the police and army became the defenders of the USA crushing the enemies of the people. The story became dangerous, because it allowed the army and police to think of their own citizens as threatening objects to be crushed; to ignore the liberties written into law of the freedom to protest over violations of human rights such as the right of life of citizens.

All branding are stories designed to have an effect on a target group. The Black Lives Matter movement uses branding as a call to action against racism in culture. Statues associated with the oppression of coloured people are being removed worldwide; television programmes that depict minorities in a negative light are being cancelled and taken off air; people in power, who expressed any hint of racism, are being chased out of position; and the powers of law enforcement are being scrutinised and curtailed.

Storymaking begins by identifying the elements and the relationships between those elements in the story. To know the story of a woodland, I will walk in that woodland observing the animals, plants, geography; how those elements relate to each other. If I spot the Wood anemone, I know I am dealing with an ancient woodland of 300+ years of age; I know the time of year, for such flowers emerge in spring before the foliage of trees appear. If I spot Lesser celandine, I know that there is water in the area such as a spring, for these like damp habitats. Thus, I understand the story of the woodland, and I can tell stories about what I learned.

Knowing about the magic of storytelling, the individual gains the power to influence other minds; but also the ability to resist the influence of those that use story to achieve their ends. There is always a purpose behind stories; to identify the effect of the story upon the mind, is to become the master of the story rather than the slave.

Magick is creativity

This spider web is an act of creation by a living thing. The act of living is the ability to create this web, for if the spider cannot do this, it starves to death. Nature adds to this spider web new things such as water drops, to the mind of the observer, a beautiful creation. Magick is the ability to create.

I consider magick as creativity. This blog post is an act of creation. I put together letters to form words; words to form sentences; sentences to form paragraphs; and paragraphs to form the creation of a blog post. There is a kind of magick in this creative process to form an overall pattern out of letters and words, that has an effect on a reader.

Magick is all around us. It is an amazing thing to see when a thousand random people are dumped into a space, and they will like magick, self-organise into something intelligent without an external authority to direct them. This same self-organising principle applies to groups of atoms or ants. So, one can see that a chaotic system loves to self-organise of its own accord into something more complex. The process and the result of self-organisation is creative and magickal.

There is nothing hocuspocus about magick. The creative person can take a substance such as clay: and can convert this clay into a form such as a cup, brick or statue; each form with a different purpose; but retaining the same substance of clay. The creative person acts with knowledge and wisdom, understanding the nature or essence of the substance they work with: the clay can be molded when wet, but becomes fixed in form when dry; the nature of alder wood is never to decay in water, but becomes hard like concrete, making it suitable as foundations for harbours.

The creative person, as the magician, understands that something can only come out of a thing if there is potential for it. An elephant does not grow out of an acorn, for there is no elephant potential in an acorn. The creative magician discovers the potential possibilities of a substance, and liberates a potential out of it. The oak tree is liberated out of an acorn; a pile of wood is liberated out of an oak tree; a ship is liberated out of the pile of wood; an empire is liberated out of a ship. At the heart of this liberating process is the creative magician.

Magick is a process of action. Acorns must be planted in the ground; provided with water and light; for potential to emerge from them. Knowing the nature embedded in a thing, the magician liberates that potential nature out of the thing to become something more, by a process of active nurturing grounded in action. A plant grows larger by reason of the creative person actively feeding resources to it, mindful of avoiding extremes of the opposites: too much water, rots the roots; too much sun, burns the leaves.

To be alive, is to be creative. Those of the Left Hand Path embrace life, and thus creativity. By being creative, the LHPer is a magician.

The agents of chaos

Those of the Left Hand Path are the agents of chaos; standing at the edge of chaos; and they are the champions of what is just and good.

There are always at least two extremes in life. You know you have reached the first extreme when the police take it upon themselves to be judge jury and executioner. You then reach the other extreme when angry mobs loot the retail stores. Both extremes bring a sense of completeness of absolute stagnation or anarchy, where nothing can live or grow. Death rules over both extreme states.

Both extreme states bring about injustice: the police officer murders the citizen; a retail store owner loses their business. Thus, it is a struggle of justice against injustice, upon which a member of the Left Hand Path stands.

What is justice? The ancient Greek calls justice “becoming.” The Viking word for fate – “Wyrd” – also means becoming. Justice is the middle way between extreme states, the healthy mix between what disrupts against what reorganises. When Heraclitus says “strife is justice“, he means that there is a middle point between two opposites, that mix, join, and become something more. When one opposite is dominant in the extreme, there is no mixing, there is only a state of injustice, for nothing can become from it but the death of all things.

There is a scientific set of thinking tools called complexity theory. The world such thinkers say consists of systems of elements (objects) and relationships between these objects. Through these systems flow: information, patterns that influence the formation or transformation of other patterns; and energy, the capacity to create movement. Either what flows through these systems creates something greater than the sum of its parts (positive synergy) or disrupts the system (negative synergy). The point where systems break apart and reform into more complex systems, these thinkers call the edge of chaos. What emerges from the edge of chaos, they call emergence, which they define as becoming visible after being concealed. And becoming is justice.

The ancient philosopher Heraclitus says “Panta Rhei!” everything flows; strife is the agent and primary principle of change and motion; the unity of the opposites bring about justice and all good things. And thus, the point of two flowing opposites merge into a unity of opposites and justice. And when one opposite dominates, there is only injustice.

Those of the Left Hand Path stand at the edge of chaos – the agents of chaos. The LHPer are the agents of justice: the weavers of fate; the champions of what is good and just in the world. When the swamp stagnates, the LHPer releases a crocodile. At the point when two opposing armies meet, the LHPer builds a city; so the armies forget to fight, and trade instead.

Two faces of the same coin: the police officer that executes; the looter that burns the retail store. Police officer and looter are the same thing, absolute states of an opposite: lawful and unjust. Says Heraclitus: “The way up and the way down is one and the same.” Only where two opposites mix and merge into a unity of opposites at the edge of chaos, is there justice.

Thus the LHPer is different from the crowd, the lonely agent of chaos. The LHPer is at the meeting place of two opposites; as the crowd drowns their senses into the oblivion of one extreme opposite. The LHPer recognises the solution, and moves where the crowd does not. Then, as Heraclitus says, the LHPer is like a child leading the drunk (crowd) back home to what is just and good at the edge of chaos – an agent of chaos.