Trouble at Mill

Belted Galloway Bull

Pale Green Vortex is not usually in the game of commenting on 'current affairs'. However, in a hastily-arranged meeting of PGV staff, it was decided to make an exception, and botch together a sentence or two after the Bradford West by-election last week.

For any reader unfamiliar with the geographical landscape of Britain, Bradford is a large settlement, part of the West Yorkshire conurbation in northern England, a child of the Industrial Revolution. It is the sort of place that, with its preponderance of working class and poor populations, only needs the Labour candidate to turn up to be elected to parliament with a handsome majority. Enter George Galloway, however, renegade and maverick politician, once a Labour man, now leader of the 'Respect' party. He is probably best known for his fierce and unfailing opposition to the Iraq war - and, less edifyingly, for his participation in a series of 'Big Brother' shows on television. He is looked upon by the 'main political parties' with loathing, scorn, and ridicule in equal measure. Nevertheless, in a way that no mainstream politician or commentator had an inkling of, he won the Bradford West by-election - not just scraping through, but with a huge majority, a swing of roughly three million per cent.

The pros and cons of Galloway's political policies are not the subject at issue in this piece. It is that here, in Britain, that most conservative and traditional (one might say 'dead') of nations politically, large numbers of people appear to have started to see what Pale Green Vortex has been intermittently banging on about for two years now. The mainstream political landscape is by and large irrelevant in terms of the welfare of the citizens of this planet. All players and parties are embedded in the same system/construct/matrix/call it what you will, that does not have the best interests of the majority of people in mind. Its agendas lie firmly elsewhere. Democrats - Republicans, Tories - Labour: all this means rather less than whether you support Chelsea or Arsenal. Similarly the bizarre sideshow of Scottish independence, a local moribund distraction from the important matters of the moment. Of course independence, as everybody knows, immediately confers enormous benefits on the mass of people; we only have to look at the majority of African nations, and how everyone has prospered in a fantastic atmosphere of benevolence and democracy since their rush for independence in the 1960s.

In the longer term, Bradford West might turn out to be insignificant. Yet, as a possible sign of a growing disenchantment with the entire rigged game, of some kind of awakening to what is really going on behind the facade of parliamentary democracy, we can watch with interest.

That clean green wind energy

There is a little-known aspect to industrial-scale wind farm development that should be read about here. With a current malfunctioning of one or two technical functions, I shall merely point the reader to putting 'neodymium pollution' in an internet search engine and reading the Daily Mail article that should come up. That it falls to the Daily Mail of all papers to bring this to public attention should, I suppose, be cause for reflection.

Just in case anybody still hasn't got it, this is my conclusion from six years of research on the subject: industrial-scale wind farms provide no discernible benefit to the majority of human beings whatsoever, and are destructive of the natural world within which we are embedded. They have no redeeming features. Please allow me my moment of absolutism. In this case, it is justified......

Assembling The World

A topic that features heavily in some of the later writings of Carlos Castaneda ('The Fire From Within' and 'The Art of Dreaming' for example) is that of the assemblage point. As is customary whenever C.C. is mentioned, in order to anticipate and deflate the cynics and scoffers, the detractors and debunkers, it is necessary to define the basis on which to proceed. We shall assume that the writings of C.C. are indeed fictional or semi-fictional in nature; and furthermore that the matter of the assemblage point can, if preferred, be taken metaphorically rather than literally. Enough said......

Don Juan Matus, the seer/sorcerer/shaman teacher of Carlos Castaneda, outlines at length and in several places the nature of the assemblage point. The universe, he states, is composed of energy, which manifests as millions of fibres of luminosity. The human being, too, consists of energy and luminous fibres, and can be perceived as something resembling a luminous egg or cocoon. Great numbers of the universe's fibres of energy pass through this luminous egg, most of them outside our conscious awareness. A few, however, channel through a particular node, called the assemblage point. It is these specific fibres that are 'assembled' to make up the world as we normally perceive it. '.... perception takes place because there is in each of us an agent called the assemblage point that selects internal and external emanations (of energy) for alignment. The particular alignment that we perceive as the world is the product of the specific spot where our assemblage point is located on our cocoon.' ('The Fire From Within', chapter seven). But, continues Don Juan, the precise location of this assemblage point is the result merely of habit and repetition; infants have no fixed assemblage point at first. Furthermore, sorcerers can train themselves to move the position of the assemblage point, thereby altering which fibres of the universe go to create the experienced world. In this way, they 'assemble' different realities, each in their own way as real and as 'valid' as the 'normal' reality of human consciousness.

According to Castaneda, 'the world' is something we assemble on a moment-to-moment basis. Many people take this world to be the only world, but this is erroneous. Other realities, sometimes operating to different laws, are equally real, yet most people are unaware of their existence, solely because their assemblage point is fixed in one spot.

Deep meditation and energy work, conscious dreaming, work with entheogens, shamanic journeying, sensory deprivation, trance dance and the rest: cultures throughout human history and prehistory have developed a range of techniques aimed at deliberately shifting the assemblage point. It is ordinarily located on the surface of the luminous egg behind the right shoulder blade, according to Don Juan. In fact, a quick internet search reveals that Castaneda is far from alone in acknowledging the existence of the assemblage point, but different healers and researchers may locate it in slightly different places. It seems that, while a large shift in its position may catapult the subject into unrecognisable worlds, a small shift can affect mood, and physical and emotional health - hence its value for healing.

And with the notion of the assemblage point, humankind is divided neatly into two different groups. Those who acknowledge the teaching of the assemblage point - that reality and the world are the constructs of perception, which in turn can be altered. And those who reject the idea, clinging to the belief that 'the world is the world', that experience is fixed and immutable, and that is that. It's a difference in perspective of enormous import. It lies at the bottom of, well, almost everything.

The sorcerers of old, says Don Juan, moved the assemblage point to all manner of places, thereby entering a host of outrageous magical worlds. Their aims were at times less than noble, however: manipulations for personal gain, for example, or to get one over on another human being. But for Don Juan and the modern seers, shifting the assemblage point is the key to freedom. To change the terms of discourse: experience of shifts in the assemblage point is a precondition for a more fluid, less fixed, sense of ego identity. Who I am, what the world is, become more relative. They are matters of personal perception, alterable and always altering, rather than absolutes; a truth that needs to be experienced directly, not just reflected on and thought about, to be effective. As the sense of fixed self and world dissolves, so comes freedom, liberation; the ability to fly everywhere and nowhere. The teaching on the assemblage point shows itself as a key to infinity, to freedom.

Organised Religion and the Limits on Gnosis

Tripped up by Holiness: Dr. Rick Strassman

Rick Strassman has turned up before in Pale Green Vortex. In 'Bring on the New' (October 6th, 2011), he was cited as an example of somebody educated within the scientific orthodoxy who was forced to revise his world-view, based upon rational materialism, as a result of his own scientific investigations. In some respects, the most remarkable aspect of his research - into the effects of DMT (the 'spirit molecule') in the early 1990s, if you recall - was not the testimony of his subjects who volunteered to take this powerful psychedelic. Even more noteworthy was the way he actually succeeded in obtaining U.S. government approval for his research in the first place, the first officially recognised of its type for twenty years. And, secondly, that throughout this entire period Strassman was a practising Buddhist. It is this latter aspect, the interface between his Buddhist life and the DMT research, that is most revealing here....

Strassman first came across the U.S. Zen monastery with which he was to become affiliated in 1974 through a meditation retreat ('I felt as if I had arrived home' - yes, a familiar feeling!). In classic Zen fashion, his main practice was to 'just sit', though he substantially augmented his understanding of the mind by means of teachings such as those on the Abhidharma, a catalogue and analysis of different types of mental states, received from the Nyingma Institute of Tibetan Buddhism in Berkeley, California. He later ran a Zen meditation group in his home; underwent a lay ordination into Zen Buddhism; was married at the Zen monastery in 1990. In other words, he was the 'real deal', a serious and sincere practitioner, not at all an armchair Buddhist.

Strassman's approach to his research in psychedelics was accordingly infused with his Buddhist practice: how he would adopt the inner attitude of 'just sitting' while attending his volunteers' sometimes existentially-challenging DMT experiences; assisting those same volunteers to let go of the contents of their mind if they became stuck; and so on. The crossover between his research and Buddhism was further pointed up when he discovered that the majority of people involved in the Zen monastery had initially been propelled in that direction by their experiences with psychedelics.

Over the years of his research, Rick kept informed of progress his trusted monk friends, as well as seeking out their advice on occasion. To begin with, all was well. Come 1994, however, personal doubts about the value of the research were growing, and circumstances led to his moving to Canada. There he attended the local, monastery-affiliated Zen group, where he met Venerable Gwendolyn, with whom he discussed the research project. A week after the meditation retreat, he was surprised to receive a phone call from Gwendolyn. 'I was sick for three days after talking to you........ I called the abbot who, as you know, is near death. This is the first issue he has taken a personal interest in for over a year. He and I have talked, as I did with other senior monks. We have decided you must stop your research immediately......' A catalogue of accusations was harshly addressed at Strassman by Gwendolyn and others within the monastic community. Strassman was eager to discuss, but 'none of (my) attempts at enlarging the dialogue met with any success. What was going on?'

The end came when, in autumn 1996, Strassman wrote an article for 'Tricycle' magazine, a prominent western Buddhist publication, entitled 'DMT and the Dharma'. Among other things, he suggested that members of the psychedelic community might benefit from the discipline and structure afforded by Buddhism. At the same time, certain Buddhist practitioners, dedicated but with only limited success in meditation over the years, could conceivably gain assistance from a carefully-organised psychedelic session to accelerate their practice.

The nastiness escalated; anybody wishing to detail its course should read up for themselves. How Strassman, manifesting in his suggestions those most Buddhist of virtues helpful speech and compassion for his fellow human beings, was treated is both salutary and shameful. But for Rick, what was happening began to become clear. The abbot was dying, and wanted to leave his teachings unsullied by controversy. Even the monks, those former users of psychedelics, who Strassman had once treated as confidants, were up for promotion in the ranks, and similarly wished to appear clear, clean, and pure ('Who was the most zealous defender of the teaching?'). It was imperative to 'prevent mistakes from being made in the name of Buddhism'. It's what I, less charitably, call the stink of organised religion. As Strassman says 'Holiness had won out over truth. The particular brand of Buddhism was no different from any other organisation whose survival depended upon a uniformly accepted platform of ideas.'

Holiness winning out over truth? In the Catholic Church maybe, and among the more rigid orthodoxies of Islam. But in Buddhism? Aren't Buddhists nice people, striving selflessly towards the Enlightenment achieved by Shakyamuni Buddha 2500 years ago? Well, sometimes, it appears....

My conclusion, based upon reasoning, personal observation, and direct experience, is that, the moment any 'tradition of awakening' becomes reified into a formalised structure and hierarchy, its integrity stands to be compromised. That is not to say that there aren't individuals within those organisations who are fantastic folk, seriously motoring along the sacred path. But when the religious instinct comes to roost within a formalised context, it will inevitably encounter the pitfalls and distractions inherent to that approach.

Buddhism is, typically, a subtle example. While Catholicism, for instance, is structured in a simple hierarchical pyramid of authority and control, with the Pope at the top and the multitude of ordinary sinners at the bottom, Buddhism is best considered as multicentric. A web of schools, sects, and traditions has grown up over the years. Yet each is its own little formalised pyramid with its own agenda that, to varying degrees, concerns continuity, corporate survival, group identity, and appearance to society as a whole, as well as it does personal liberation.

Let's take the example of the Dalai Lama. A few naughty websites aside, the consensus is that he is a great guy, always talking up compassion, peace, patience, and all sort of worthy stuff, invariably with a cheeky smile on his face. But take a step back and consider how totally compromised the fellow really must be! Given his status in the political arena and role as spiritual leader for the people of Tibet, the number of things he can say or seriously allow himself to think is probably outweighed by those that are off-limits. Take a piece of paper and make a quick list of the viewpoints he will not be able to have. Is this really a recipe for the great liberation of Enlightenment? For sure, this is one dignitary who won't be recommending the integration of Buddhism and DMT in a hurry......

Then there is the small matter of personal experience. It is not my intention to belittle the undoubted benefits I accrued through my involvement over more than two decades - at first wholehearted and enthusiastic, later on less so - with a particular Buddhist organisation in the U.K. But there again I encountered a dynamic that is subtle yet clear. In retrospect, I can say that my experience was of a constant uneasy alliance between 'the development of the individual' on the one hand, and 'the needs of the movement' (the organisation) on the other. Over the years, an inordinate amount of time and energy has gone into trying to create that 'uniformly accepted platform of ideas', as Strassman so brilliantly puts it. With the wisdom of hindsight, I can affirm that there were times when my own best spiritual interests were sacrificed for the 'greater good of the needs of the organisation'. More than a several times was I exorted to 'give the benefit of the doubt' when I questioned the wisdom of some edict from those apparently more experienced than me. Sadly, I suspect that I succumbed to the great 'benefit-giving' teaching myself on a number of occasions, when speaking to relative newcomers. I apologise to anyone whose intelligence I may have insulted in this way.

Rather unkindly, maybe, I have been known to wonder whether, had certain individuals put the same effort into their personal practice as they have into creating systems, elucidating principles, and evolving all manner of processes that protect people from the thornier reality of actually working things out for themselves, they might be fully-fledged bodhisattvas by now. As it is, in an echo of Strassman's Zen group, the head of the Order appears, in this late stage of his life, to be greatly concerned with expounding and clarifying the platform of ideas that he would like to be as universally accepted as possible, and which he is anxious to be seen as his legacy.

The main hope, I feel, for the future of this Order as a genuine vehicle for awakening and liberation lies with those members - some friends of mine included - with sufficient experience and maturity to cast an eye over these more formalised aspects before just getting on with their own walking of the sacred path.

For me, things could easily have been far worse. Extreme disempowerment is something I avoided, but it can be the sorry bedfellow of formalised hierarchy in religion. In 1976, during my quest for a suitable Buddhist group to get involved with, I attended a three-week retreat at the then newly-established Manjusri Institute in north-west England. This was the real deal, with proper Tibetan lamas, and I intended to move there and get stuck in immediately afterwards. The retreat proved to be fairly rigorous in a rather uptight way, including a week of doing the monkish thing of one meal per day, with no food at all after midday. One evening, in the midst of our endeavours, an extremely strong atmosphere manifested in the shrine room; many of us, me included, were well and truly 'blissed out'. I was quietly horrified the following morning, however, when all the talk was of how the lamas must have been beaming down really strong energy from their quarters above the shrine room. Er, excuse me, but what about all our blood, sweat, and tears shed over the past fortnight in pursuit of our spiritual ideals? That, apparently, counted for nothing, and I realised that this gurucentric stuff was not only deluded but downright dangerous. So certain had I been previously that this would become my spiritual home, that I had given a good portion of my post-commune savings to the Institute. However, I could not go ahead with the move. This was no place for me. I went to London instead, to walk the gold-paved streets with the group I have written about above.

A side issue to emerge from this article is how it points up the 'anarcho' element in the anarcho-shamanism of Pale Green Vortex. Taken in its more serious meaning, 'anarchism' denotes a minimisation of formal and organised hierarchy. It emphasises that direct and unique contact with the sacred, the divine, our authenticity, or whatever, is more likely outside the constraints of organised, 'officialised' groupings. One reading of the history of religion over the past 5000 years or more involves the progressive removal of the possibilities for direct experience of gnosis from the general populace. At best, it could be mediated by members of a priestly class (who, at worst, turned out to be self-serving bullies). Those who claim that the context of a formalised organisation is necessary for personal awakening are, frankly, speaking through their hat. My admiration extends to someone like James Hillman, whose work has profoundly influenced many people, but who strenuously and persistently refused to accede to the formation of a James Hillman Institute or any other reification of Hillmanesquerie. It is not uncommon to hear the refrain nowadays that the day of the guru and the cult is over. I tend to agree.

There is a second side-show elucidated by the anarchism in anarcho-shamanism. Historically, shamanic techniques have not always been used for the good. Access to other dimensions has been attained with the aim of getting one over on your neighbour, for taking out a rival, for power and domination; black magic, in common parlance. It is important to recognise this dark side to shamanism, if only to acknowledge its existence then move on. 'Anarcho' connotes a lack of hierarchical power games since it connotes minimising hierarchical power. It has no truck with this kind of stuff. Its concerns are with healing and, above all else, gnosis. It is to this that Pale Green Vortex is primarily dedicated.

All quotes in this piece from 'DMT: The Spirit Molecule' by Rick Strassman, M.D.

Dark Unveilings on the Monadhliath

Photos: Near the Allt Duine; trying to protect the Allt Duine.

Bit of a long piece, this one; I've divided it into two parts. Thanks for reading.

Part One: Dark Unveilings

Elegant and simple as it is comprehensive, 'The Gates of Awakening' is Neil Kramer's map and model of the process that comes under a whole variety of headings: 'finding yourself', 'walking the spiritual path' - you get the idea. The Gates are four in number, to be opened both successively and simultaneously. First up is 'engagement', characterised by an enthusiastic recognition of the 'subjects that really matter' in this world, followed by the study and other forms of investigation that are the natural consequence of this initial realisation. Second come the 'unveilings', which are of two types. Look behind the curtain and you can find the 'Light Unveilings': that the universe is essentially magical, formed of different densities of energy; that all phenomena are interconnected and inseparable; that consciousness creates reality; and so on. But take another peek behind the barriers to deeper perception of what is really going on, and you will encounter the 'Dark Unveilings'. Which is where we come in today......

The Dark Unveilings reveal the other side of the fact that things are not the way they seem. These may include uncovering the roles of illuminist groups and other unelected groups with a globalist agenda, such as the Bilderbergers; the significance of PSYOPs, media propaganda, disinformation, and the rest. It extends over a range of phenomena, from the highly visible - politicians and other public figures - through the realms of geopolitics and parapolitics, to the more fundamental realisation that this entire system of hierarchical organisation and control is itself a manifestation of consciousness; specifically, a particular form of consciousness, a main feature of it being its attempt to contain, to restrict human consciousness to a certain (low) level.

Among people variously engaged with alternative/spiritual things who I am aware of, three broadly different stances are taken with regard to the Dark Unveilings. There are those who are fully cognisant of the machinations involved, but have incorporated this understanding within a wider view of the nature and potential of the universe. This is, I suggest, the place to be. Then there are those sincere and serious practitioners who are either ignorant of the Dark Unveilings, or fail to see their relevance. The western Buddhist movement with which I was once engaged seems to be in this situation, in terms of its public face and activities at least. This I find curious -an unjustified sentiment, since I was in precisely the same position until a few years ago...... But nowadays I find it a significant missing piece of the jigsaw of consciousness. Buddhism overflows with notions such as 'mind is primary', 'Mind Only', 'Our life is the creation of our mind' (verse one of the central Buddhist text, the Dhammapada). So to fail to acknowledge how the minds of human beings are put on by a system intended to contain and deceive - to mould the way our minds are created - and to see that in operation on a daily basis, all strikes me as an omission. Particularly since that system itself is, on a deeper level, a form or level of consciousness. Buddhism might try to encase all this within 'the workings of samsara', but it is too abstract to simply leave it at that. To properly understand some things, it is necessary to examine them precisely and closely, through the lens of concrete examples.

And then, finally, there are those who, often fearlessly, have uncovered layer upon layer of the 'Dark Unveilings', but have got stuck there. This is not a good place to be at all. Ultimately, darkness breeds darkness. Like the process of personal psychotherapy, the task of revealing the shady machinations perpetrated by and through certain human beings is endless. By itself, it will get us nowhere; certainly no solution offers itself on that same level. We need to incorporate and move impeccably on.

My personal gateway into the Dark Unveilings was, strange as it may seem, through windfarms. One of my aims on moving from outer London to highland Scotland in 2005 was to extricate myself, in part at least, from the artificial environment of the Big City. On arriving in the Highlands I was disturbed to see these enormous metal-and-plastic whirling structures appearing in wild and upland places. The general consensus propagated on television and in the newspapers was that large-scale windfarms were an essential ingredient if we were to avoid catastrophic human-created global warming. If it was indeed true that polar bears, Pacific islanders, and the rest of us, could be saved with a few turbines on the hills, that would be a sacrifice worth making, I reckoned. However, just to be sure, I decided to do a bit of research. Surprise, surprise: what I began to discover was that the reality was not remotely what was depicted in the popular media. I had opened a Pandora's box of lies and deceit, covert agenda, a panoply of little-publicised facts about windfarms. A small difference between the official story and the results of my research I could have stomached. But the disconnect was so great that it could mean only one thing: something else is going on. From here, it was only a step towards investigating the entire human-created global warming theory, and realising that here was another can of worms (Peter Taylor's presentation at the First ARC Convention, Feb 2010, was an important stepping-stone for me in this particular unveiling). And from here it was just another small move to begin to look at the deeper realities of Control System dynamics in general - from its lower levels in visible politics to its (ultimately more interesting and significant) manifestation as a certain form of consciousness.

Part Two: The Monadhliath

All of which led to my standing outside Highland Council headquarters on an icy morning in Inverness two days before the winter solstice. I was not alone: a cluster of good-natured Highland folk were there, along with a male press photographer and a lady from BBC Alba (I think). Our purpose: to let Highland Council (at least those councillors who could bother to turn up) know that we were not impressed with plans to stick a windfarm at Allt Duine, right on the edge (and I mean right on the edge) of Cairngorms National Park. Actually, on the edge of the National Park is the more emotive way to describe this potential catastrophe's location. It's situated on the eastern fringe of the Monadhliath Mountains. These are rounded, moorland-type hills, rather than spiky, dramatic peaks, so they do not get overmuch publicity. One or two books describe them as uninteresting. But there is a fantastic sense of space, of silence, of nature-is-big, on the Monadhliath: in short, a great place for devotees of modern anarcho-shamanism. I have particularly frequented these hills in the autumn, when you can feel like a visitor granted privileged access to different worlds: stags in rut roaring on the hillsides; ptarmigan strutting in their developing white winter coats; if you are really lucky, a mountain hare racing across the scrubby heather near the summits.

An announcement came that the meeting had been postponed until 11 o'clock: the councillors had been bussed off to look at the site of another proposed wind-crime beforehand. So we headed off into town for a coffee and to warm up. 'Stop-trashing-the-Highlands' people I have met are examples of what decent human beings can be. With a palpable love of the natural world of which we are part, more and more of them have a growing sense of the deeper issues shadily informing the windfarm invasion. Deception by governments and energy companies; collusion and corruption; fortunes to be made by the few at the expense of the many; how wild places are being rubbished in the name of wider but often unspoken political agendas. There is an increasingly bizarre disconnect between the global rhetoric on spending cuts, austerity measures, etc, and the millions that continue to get thrown in the direction of an energy technology that is unreliable, unpredictable, expensive, and as green as a red herring. I spoke to one or two people at the Allt Duine gathering who, like me, had no illusions about changing the policies of politicians through our actions. But if even one piece of wild land is saved this ignominy through these efforts, it will have been worthwhile.

While many 'save-the-environment-from-the-environmentalists' people maintain a sense of humour, there are some who are clearly the worse for wear. This is particularly so, maybe, for those unfortunates who have had personal visitations from the intermittently waving machines from hell. Anybody glibly sitting in their armchair saying 'Windfarms are good' should take the time to read the experiences of some people at least who have had turbines foisted on their daily lives. As a moderately sensitive soul, I find it disturbing to meet these people, fraught and drained of lifeblood from fighting an unequal battle against heartless bastards who have made their life a misery. It is, however, imperative to try and avoid ending up like this: doom and despair achieve little. Even John Muir, pioneering conservationist and someone who was not afraid to speak of the sacredness of wild places, succumbed to this particular form of bloodsucking. His vigorous campaigning against the flooding of Hetch Hetchy was unsuccessful; his death from pneumonia was linked by some to his heartbreak over the matter. No. The Dark Unveilings need to take their place within a wider context of light, love, expansion.

I urge any intelligent human being to do their own research into these deeper realities, the Dark Unveilings. In my case, I needed a personal passion to propel me into this endeavour. It is no good to take the mainstream newspapers and television as ones sole source of information; all too often, it is commentary and opinion that is offered up anyway. Personal research is easier than ever, thanks to the internet - I feel we should make the most of it while it exists in its current format. Just start off through a search engine, see where it goes. But you need to go beyond the mainstream sites; look for real reports, reliable data rather than opinion dressed up as something more noble. And learn to discern, and see through the propaganda. Here is a simple example of what I mean by propaganda-dressed-up-as-fact. We are all familiar with the boasts paraded about yet another new windfarm: 'It will produce electricity for up to 40000 households.' Sounds impressive, doesn't it. But stop to reflect that wind is unpredictable, and sometime doesn't blow hard enough to turn the blades on the turbines at all. So it is equally true to state: 'This windfarm will produce enough electricity for as little as a dog kennel.' How come the mainstream media never puts it like that? Why? Why? This is how it works. Simple. Develop your own bullshit detector. And remember: when you watch Fiona Bruce reading the 6 o'clock news on BBC, you are really watching consciousness manifesting in a certain way.

The Highland councillors disembarked from their minibus round the back of the building, thereby avoiding meeting our little group. Still, a victory-of-sorts was declared: they decided that a site visit is in order before a decision can be made. It seems we'll be back.........

James, Thank You.....

I was recently in the throes of writing my previous piece, on Carlos Castaneda. It should have been easy, but turned out to be a real struggle. I reached the section on how our reality is created by the stories that we tell ourselves, when my mind found itself turning in the direction of one James Hillman. Maverick student of Jung, father of modern archetypal psychology, Hillman was the person who first impressed upon me how our life is best read as an ongoing narrative, a fiction. While I had barely cast a glance in the direction of his works over the past three years, in the period previous he had been an enormous guiding presence. I decided there and then to check out what he had been up to recently. The answer, I quickly discovered, was dying. On October 27th of this year, to be precise.

I found myself unexpectedly disturbed by news of James's departure from this material world; unexpected at least given the lack of attention I had paid him in recent times. Yet, from a wider perspective, Hillman can be counted among the dozen or so greatest philosophical, psychological, and spiritual influences on my life to date.

My introduction to Hillman came in a roundabout (yet plausibly inevitable) fashion. Around 1998, in an attempt to find a way out of the cul-de-sac I had led myself up with my practice of Buddhism, I decided to experiment with something else. Shamanic journeying. Once I embarked upon this course of action, quite remarkable things began to happen. During my journeys through the 'lowerworld', as shamanic traditions call it, I found myself participating in all sorts of strange stories, passing through dream landscapes, and encountering all manner of beings human, animal, and 'mythical'. I appeared to be entering an entirely different dimension of existence; only a hair's breadth away and with its own particular coherent reality, yet the door into its magical world seemed normally tightly closed. And participation in this dimension was leading me smoothly out of exclusive identification with the narrow confines of my ego, something which my Buddhist practice, despite its avowed aims, was failing miserably to achieve.

Needless to say, Buddhism as I knew it had nothing to say about the experiences I was having, despite their relevance to the professed goals of Buddhadharma of expanding consciousness beyond the limits of ego concern and identification. In Carl Jung I eventually found somebody who could shed light on all of this. Notions such as 'the collective unconscious' and 'autonomous contents of the psyche' began to provide a conceptual framework for my world-shifting experiences. Most importantly, Jung was clearly someone who had 'been there': a read of 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections', his sort-of autobiography, makes this abundantly clear. And Jung readily accepted the reality and value of such non-ordinary states of consciousness.

From Jung and his archetypes, it was a seamless transition to Hillman's archetypal psychology. Hillman's contention that there is an ever-present archetypal dimension 'behind' or 'beneath' our everyday realities resonated deeply with me. His emphasis on 'soul-making' was a welcome counter to the disembodied spirituality that I had occasion to fall into during my Buddhist heyday. And in his later years Hillman explored with passion anima mundi, soul of the world. By so doing, he was taking psychology right away from its obsession with self and ego, instead aligning it with ancient western teachings about existence. He was saying that soul is to be found as much in the animated, ensouled world around us as literally inside our own limited selves. The title of his 'psychological foreword' to 'Ecopsychology' says it all: 'A Psyche the Size of the Earth'.

In the spirit of my reflections on Castaneda's final book, I would like to say a belated yet heartfelt 'thank you' to James Hillman for his courageous work detailing many insights into the workings of the human (and the non-human) soul. Especially I would like to express my gratitude for these of his works: 'The Dream and the Underworld' for helping me to see that images, and non-ordinary states in general, should be taken 'as is', rather than translated into dayworld concerns; 'Anima' for re-presenting Jung's inspirational notion but cutting through the macho and endlessly oppositional bullshit; and 'Thought of the Heart and Soul of the World' for its masterly deconstruction of pernicious modern notions of separateness and its presentation of a far more beautiful alternative. James, thank you.

A Book For The Dying

The Sonora Desert: but where is Don Juan Matus?

Among the few surviving material fragments from my life in the mid-1970s is the bundle of age-worn faded yellow pieces of parchment-like paper that goes by the name 'Journey to the Centre of the Brain'. You probably get the idea. Much of it is unprintable, consisting as it largely does of convoluted ramblings on the themes of attachment, overcoming the ego, transcending materialism and asceticism, and the like. Yet, sprinkled amongst the purple hippie prose of the sixteen chapters of 'Journey' are, if I may say so, some genuine insights. And there is Chapter Fifteen: the Booklist. Having reminded the reader of the limits of the written word - that it merely points the way, rather than being the way -, I conclude with the sentiment: 'I would like to thank my authorities, the authors.'

The list includes some of the usual suspects for the time: Alan Watts, Norman O. Brown, Herman Hesse, along with my personal Tibetan primer, 'Secret Oral Teachings of Tibetan Buddhist Sects' by Alexandra David-Neel ('The Tibetans have got it all sussed out,' I enthuse in my accompanying notes. 'This is the best summary.'). But pride of place on the list ('Perhaps these are my favourite books.') goes to the first three volumes in a series that was to impact deeply on mine and innumerable other people's lives: 'The Teachings of Don Juan', 'A Separate Reality' and 'Journey to Ixtlan' by one Carlos Castaneda.

I took Castaneda, the unwitting and sometime witless sorcerer's apprentice, and Don Juan Matus, his shaman/sorcerer teacher, the 'very wise fool', as I described him in 'Journey', extremely seriously. Long fireside conversations into the depth of the winter night with one of my fellow communards became the order of the day. Like most other Castaneda readers of the time, we didn't think to question the literal veracity of the stories and teachings that cast their spell upon us. Since then, however, a goodly number of sceptics (not to mention out-and-out non-believers) has emerged. For some people, this debunking of the literal Castaneda has been hard to take - a trawl through the internet throws up sites where folk clearly feel betrayed on discovering that Castaneda might have written most of his stuff in the library rather than faithfully recording 'real' meetings with Don Juan, Don Genaro, and the rest.

Just where all Castaneda's material came from we will never really know: it's a secret the author took with him to his grave - or on his final flight from the tonal, as he might put it in his books. At the end of the day, it's a piece of information that I feel is largely irrelevant. Those who bewail the possibility the stories didn't literally happen have fallen precisely into the mindset that the books are intended to shake us out of. They have fallen prey to the same literalism that plagues Christian and Muslim fundamentalists, insisting on the historical reality of the stories comprising their central texts. They have failed to see the narrative basis to our reality; how reality is created by the stories we tell ourselves. Even those who protest with 'I don't fall for this story bullshit, I just believe in what I see and hear' are still telling themselves a story.

All the 'major world religions' are actually based on stories, whether they like it or not. Hindus seem generally more comfortable with this state of affairs, happy to found their systems and practices on myths about the gods and goddesses as communications of deeper realities. And some Buddhists I have known develop a pragmatic approach, pointing out that the historical accuracy of the Buddha's life story is secondary to whether the Buddhist practices work or not.

Whatever the historical status of Castaneda's writings, their continued power as narratives that influence people, and specifically orient them toward wider realities, cannot be doubted. This is as true for the final book in the Castaneda corpus, 'The Active Side of Infinity', as for any other. Penned shortly before he died, it is remarkable for several reasons. While not explicitly stated, one of the prime concerns of this book, written by a dying man, is how to prepare for death. Obliquely, it addresses the question: if we know we are soon to die, what should we be doing? The overall context for appropriate action is provided by Don Juan Matus's instruction to Carlos to 'relate the memorable events of his life.' At first, Castaneda doesn't get it. He relates stories about what he thinks were important moments: being admitted to university, the time he nearly got married. 'No, no,' protests Don Juan. 'These stories are too personal.' Stories that finally fit the bill are ones that 'touch every one of us human beings, not just you.'

Carlos is further instructed to undertake the 'recapitulation'. He has to make a list of all the people he has ever known, and recall everything he can about each one. Carlos soon finds out, as Don Juan says, 'the power of the recapitulation is that it stirs up all the garbage of our lives and brings it to the surface.' Further, he is told to find the people who have been important in his life, but to whom he has failed to express his thanks. 'Warrior-travellers don't leave any debts unpaid,' says Don Juan. 'You must make a token payment in order to atone, in order to appease infinity.' Castaneda must search them out and buy them as a gift anything they may ask for. The people concerned turn out to be two women he had known at junior college, Patricia Turner and Sandra Flanagan. Finding them again requires the service of a private investigator, but atone Carlos eventually does. And as if all this is not enough, he is then confronted by Don Juan with those people he failed to thank and who are no longer alive, including those he did not communicate with because he was blind to their proximity to death. Strong stuff.

To cap it all, it is in 'The Active Side of Infinity' that Don Juan gives his teaching on the 'topic of topics', namely the flyers, the mind predators, an episode previously covered in 'Archons Everywhere', Pale Green Vortex January 25th 2011.

Texts for the dying? The Bardo Thodol (popularly known as 'The Tibetan Book of the Dead')? Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, maybe? But 'The Active Side of Infinity' is right up there as a most instructive book for facing the inevitable disintegration of our physical form. And its final chapter is one of the most disquieting things I have ever read; no happy-ever-after endings in the Castaneda version of life. A chapter that deserves an essay of its own.

Picture: Wise Woman University