Month: December 2010

A search on YouTube will reveal how the more adventurous scientists and others are continually discovering that materialism is outdated, that Mind or Conscience is the prime creative force in the multiverse, and therefore that it existed before matter and survives the destruction of matter.

Indeed the whole material multiverse is an elaborate illusion created by Mind. We are indeed living in a virtual reality created by Thought. The immediate Spiritual planes closest to the Earth plane are also virtual reality environments, designed by Thought to make the newly arrived Spirits feel comfortable. In reality we are all pure Energy, Mind or Spirit and need no material bodies or environments to exist.

My mother was here Christmas Day, and I took the opportunity to play her a bit of the recording of a Direct Voice seance by the late Leslie Flint. He was relaying, thru his ectoplasmic voice box, the post-humous voice of the Spirit of Dean Inge of St Paul’s Cathedral. The Dean died in 1954, and this recording was made in 1960.

My mother’s first job at the tender age of 14 was at The Deanery, and Dean Inge was her boss. The kindly man on at least one occasion saw my mother struggling with a heavy coal scuttle, and carried it for her. She listened to the snatch of recording, and said as far as she could recollect (it had been some 81 years since she had heard his voice) the recording sounded like Dean Inge, his manner of speech, and the way he emphasized words and syllables.

Leslie Flint was investigated many times, and found to be genuine, and my mother has now helped to verify at least one of his recordings.

On the Diana front, Christian/Andrew is still without a permanent residence and as the Diana Speaks site already has a lot of information on it, more than enough to keep people busy for months or more reading and listening to the contents, the site is not being added to at the present time. Some of us feel getting his own life in order is the priority at the moment, too much concentration on the channeling of Diana and his guide Cheng is perhaps not healthy at this moment if it prevents him from settling where he’s going to live and a source of income.

When Christian/Andrew is more settled, and of course if there are any new developments, the site will be added to. Meanwhile we await the release of the Keith Allen film ‘Unlawful Killing’ held up, presumably, for legal reasons. It deals with the events in Paris in August 1997, and includes Christian/Andrew channeling Diana. Including the question to her about the accident in Paris, to which she replies: ‘What accident?’ Exactly! What accident indeed? Anyone who still believes it was an accident has simply not investigated all the known facts.

My deceased partner continues to keep in touch, and when I suggested to someone in an email I might need a sledge to carry my mother from her place to mine on Christmas Day because of the heavy snow we had before Christmas, George (my partner in Spirit) immediately commented that a sleigh might be useful – more appropriate for Christmas than a sledge of course.

Another friend passed to Spirit recently. No word from Brian yet, but he was ill for a long time before his passing and will no doubt need time to rest and recuperate, as do many Spirits arriving on the Other Side after a long illness.

I personally have no doubts about the afterlife as apart from the evidence to be found on the Internet I’ve had personal communications from my life-partner George, from my maternal grandmother, from my father and many others in Spirit. The communication with my life-partner is ongoing. Recently when considering a new background picture for my computer, he made his views explicitly clear: a montage of parades and politicians of the old East Germany would have greatly saddened him, so I put a more appropriate one on instead. Never one to hide his opinions or refrain from giving advice, he continues to do so.

While they may seem like nice ideas for health, environmental and animal welfare reasons, Vegetarianism and Veganism if adopted universally are totally impractical.

I tried to go vegetarian once and it made me very ill indeed. Part of the problem being I just cut out meat and continued eating the vegetables without meat or meat gravy. You just can’t do this and stay healthy, you need a meat substitute such as nut products, but I detest all kinds of nuts. I did have some soya-based substitutes, but I had constant flatulence and excrutiating stomach pains so had to go back to a carnivore diet.

Not only that, but I realized if I was going vegetarian for animal welfare reasons it made my life impossibly complicated, in fact the only answer was suicide or admitting defeat. If I wasn’t going to eat animals killed for food, was I going to allow flies, vermin, etc. to invade my home? What about my shoes – made of leather or suede, was I now expected to buy vegetarian shoes? What about medications and other products tested on animals or containing animal products? Even if I somehow cut out all these (and how was I to know which had been tested on animals without a great deal of research), what about fighting infections? After all bacteria are a form of life so where do you draw the line? Even vegetables and plants are living, and apparently suffer stress. When I worked for a human rights organization we had an email demanding we campaign to stop carrots and peas being boiled alive and silently screaming in the saucepan!

So we must assume vegetarians/vegans have decided to draw the line somewhere above plant/vegetable life, being willing presumably to kill bacteria invading their bodies, and humanely catching spiders, vermin etc. that invade their homes, though how you humanely catch flies I have no idea.

For those who can cope with it and who wish to do so, going vegetarian or vegan is fine, but it seems to me to be totally impractical on a wider scale. What would happen to all the farm animals for a start?

I have visions of thousands of sheep, pigs, cattle, poultry, etc. just wandering around the countryside, belonging to nobody, not being fed, and causing absolute chaos. They’d be fighting for food, and many would die of starvation. They’d breed of course, and their numbers would multiply.

Someone would have to fork out money to either sterilize the animals or cull them, probably both. It then makes no sense not to use the meat from the cull.

Or indeed other animal products from either such a cull or animals which die a natural death, such as leather/suede, fur, etc.

The fact is that the food chain is part of Nature’s way, one species feeds on another. It controls populations, and is part of the evolutionary process.

For those of us who are Spiritual, death is not the end anyway, and whatever you believe it is an inevitable part of the life cycle.

As human beings our obligation is to treat animals as humanely as possible, and to try to insure that even in the production of meat, etc. the methods used in abattoirs are as humane as possible.

Here religion gets in the way, as some of these do not allow stunning of animals to take place. I live in an area where only Hal-al food is available from most take-away stores, and in other areas only Kosher food is available. Many consider neither of these methods humane. For the same reason I try to avoid shellfish which I believe are at least sometimes put alive in boiling water.

By and large, however, I can see little alternative to eating meat and using animal by-products. Unless millions of people are willing to keep cows, pigs, sheep, etc. as pets and feed them and their offspring indefinitely.

Even with vegetarians who eat/drink dairy products  you have the problem of what to do with unwanted bulls and cocks who produce neither milk nor eggs. Perhaps vegans/veggies are willing to take these as pets as well and feed them?

I love vegetables, most of them anyway – mainly the old fashioned kind popular in Britain decades ago. But I also like my meat, and see no sense in avoiding it if the animals would have to be culled anyway to control their numbers.

Oh, and what would we do with all the animal carcases if we didn’t eat meat or use animal products? Cattle cemeteries/crematoriums? Wouldn’t these alone fill the ground or pollute the atmosphere? Let alone cemeteries/crematoriums for pigs, sheep, chickens and all the other farm animals.

And what do we do about life forms like bacteria, insects and vermin which invade out bodies and homes if we strictly stick to not killing any life forms? Even then, according to the email correspondent mentioned above, you still leave the baby peas and carrots screaming in the boiling water as you cook your lunch!

Whether they were all students or not the fact is that agitators and troublemakers have always latched on to demonstrations. Some are anarchists out to smash the State, some other revolutionaries, some just out for the ‘fun’ of it, and some may well be government agents sent to infiltrate the demonstrations, start violence and thus tarnish the image of the demonstration in the eyes of the general public.

The fact that Charles and Camilla were caught in the thick of it and had a window of their luxury limousine smashed and paint thrown at it brings memories to me of the early 1960s and the State visit of the fascist Queen Frederika of Greece to London. Queen Elizabeth II was booed outside Claridges Hotel where she and the Greek queen were dining, creating headlines. The direct action Committee of 100 had an anti-Greek Queen demo banned, and we ended up charging the walls of Buckingham Palace from across Green Park, since we were barred by a police barricade from marching up The Mall to the front gates. I got halfway up the wall with the help of other demonstrators, saw the vicious looking spikes and thought better of it, but one demonstrator got over the walls. The Monarchy survived his intrusion!

The British anti-nuclear weapons movement got involved in these demonstrations in the 1960s because a Greek leftwing MP, Lambrakis, who came on an early Aldermaston March had been murdered by the Greek regime. Frederika had been in the Hitler Youth, and was even photographed in her uniform.

So anti-royal feeling has always been prevalent in leftist demonstrations. At a Conservative rally at Luton Hoo around this time CND  infiltrated the crowd to boo Harold Macmillan, then Prime Minister, who was speaking. Afterwards they played ‘God Save The Queen’ and Tory ladies looked at us in disgust when en masse all the anti-nuclear demonstrators remained firmly seated on the ground during this sorry apology for a National Anthem. I’ve never stood up for ‘God Save The Queen’ since, but would willing stand for ‘The Red Flag’, ‘The Internationale’, ‘England Arise!’ or even the EU anthem ‘Ode To Joy’. Not for a song about a hereditary monarch, one who has launched nuclear armed submarines capable of creating another Holocaust. Why she needs saving by God or anyone else has always mystified me.

The royal family are, of course, puppets of the Establishment, but they are also symbols of it. Their display of ostentatious wealth does not always endear them to those who feel disadvantaged, so whoever allowed the royal car to go anywhere near the West End when there was a big demonstration taking place in the area either got it wrong, or it was a deliberate ploy to discredit the students knowing someone would be bound to attack the royal car.

As to the student’s gripe about university fees, while I sympathize with them, coming from a generation of working-class school leavers generally denied a university education, I can’t help feeling those who today attend university are rather privileged themselves. I’m not sure all realize quite how privileged they are.

In this area of Battersea all the State schools are over 90% ethnic mainly from the surrounding council estates, and I doubt many if any of them end up in university, any more than my working-class white British generation did.

I never approved of the grant system since so many students abused it. I knew middle-class people who studied totally useless subjects which would never get them jobs or careers because they fancied a few years break from working for a living, or alternatively they never worked but stayed at university from their teens right into their forties and maybe beyond. Why should working-class people who never got a chance to go to university subsidize lazy middle-class layabouts to while away their time at university learning nothing that would make them productive members of society?

On the other hand I don’t approve of the current fashion of everybody living on credit or in debt. Even though student debts don’t have to be repaid till the graduate is earning a certain amount of money, there must be a better way of funding university education.

One way would be to provide it free for everyone, funded by the taxpayer. This would not only be very expensive, but would not solve the problem of students wasting their time and studying subjects which would be unlikely to help them get jobs or good careers. Not unless the subjects were limited to those useful for careers, and not unless students were forced to attend lectures rather than waste their time in other activities nothing to do with studying.

The best way, surely, would be sponsorship from companies, organizations and government departments which require university graduates to fill posts. This would mean only useful subjects for careers would be sponsored, and the salaries for these careers would reflect the fact that their university education had been paid for by their employers.

This system would also mean that subjects not likely to result in careers would not be sponsored, so anyone wishing to study them would quite rightly have to pay for the privilege, if indeed they remained available.

Foreign students also provide much money for British universities, but this has always irked me greatly. While millions of working-class British people are denied the opportunity of a university education why should foreigners get this privilege, even if they or their government is paying for it? So British students also study overseas, but they are again mainly middle-class, not those from council estates.

It seems when it comes to university education our priorities are all wrong. It should not just be available to those who have the money, either by taking out student loans or being funded by foreign governments. University education should be available to all our citizens first and foremost thru sponsorship deals, and only spare spaces should be allocated to foreign students from abroad.

So I have mixed feelings about the student demonstrations. Never being part of ‘uni’ culture the whole concept is alien to me and many working-class people of the older generations who had to go out and get a job at 14, 15 or 16, not lounge around in ‘uni’ for years living off grants paid for by the workers. Those studying useful subjects then got salaries most of us couldn’t dream of, while those studying less useful subjects were really just wasting taxpayers’ money.

Sponsorship is probably the best solution since it would do away with student debt, and be available to everyone capable of passing the entrance examinations. It would also make it much more difficult for students to choose subjects to study which would be of little use to them in finding jobs afterwards.

Last weekend I went with Lee Wilkinson to the Wildest Cats In Town Xmas Party at Pontins holiday camp, Pakefield, Lowestoft in Suffolk. It was Lee’s first visit to the camp and this particular Weekender, but I’d been many times both to the Weekenders and the Golden Breaks (over 50s) Mondays-Fridays with my mother.

Pontins are now in Receivership, but over 50 buyers are interested. I just hope they keep the Pontins camp more or less as it is. The self-service restaurant (meals included), and chalets (electricity, etc. included in the price) are all very good value compared with most other holiday camps, and the facilities are also good. The little garden with the fish pond is an oasis in the Summer which my mother really enjoys, as the steep path down to the beach is not negotiable for anyone in a wheelchair. For a beach you have to take a bus into Lowestoft town.

The July Wildest Cats In Town features the classic car cruise, a band on the promenade in Lowestoft, the headliners welcomed by the Mayor, and a party on Pakefield beach with The Two Hound Dogs DJing. Things are a bit quieter at the Xmas Party during the day, but I caught a few bands, and as usual met up with two friends from Norwich on the Sunday.

Headlining on the Sunday evening was Linda Gail Lewis (Jerry Lee’s piano-playing, singing sister) and her daughter Annie Marie. Had a chat with them both, and enjoyed their rocking performance, which was very well received.

Old favorites on other nites included Crazy Cavan and the Rhythm Rockers, who I’ve been following for nearly 40 years, and as usual I and loads of other Teds got on stage with the band for a couple of numbers. Also German band The Lennerockers, who perform acrobatics with their instruments, and even throw in a bit of skiffle as well as Jerry Lee numbers and songs they write themselves. Both these bands are excellent.

A group called the Red Hot Rockers were a nice surprise, very good, but poor old Jim Reeves might be turning in his grave (or more probably enjoying their performance in Spirit) – they performed a rocked up version of  ‘He’ll Have To Go’ and it worked beautifully!

Mike Sanchez did a rockin’ performance on piano (plenty of pianists this weekend) obviously specially tailored for the audience. He usually does more R&B, while Linda Gail sometiimes includes gospel and Country, but this weekend the focus was on rock’n’roll and rockabilly.

Frank Walker shared our chalet, and was rockin’ all weekend as usual, not leaving the hall till the last record was played around 2 am. At 78  he has more energy than some cats half his age, boppin’, strollin’ and even jivin’ with the champion female jiver. Her usual partner is also a champion, but another guy wearing a shirt reading ‘Grandad Rocker’ or ‘Rockin’ Grandad’ (can’t remember which) cut in on this couple, but gave up after a few seconds. He was a great joker, and indeed the whole weekend was very friendly as usual.

All the Teds posed for group photos in our drape jackets and drainpipes, and promoter Ritchie Gee now has two full Weekenders a year as the Xmas one now lasts from Friday thru Sunday.

Heavy snow in the days preceding the Weekender, but thankfully most of it had melted by the Saturday morning. The camp, which specializes in ‘Turkey and Tinsel’ mid-week specials this time of year, pulled out all the stops for a Christmas dinner on the Saturday – three courses including turkey with all the trimmings, Christmas pudding and brandy sauce and even candles and crackers on the table.

A great weekeend, now looking forward to the next Wildest Cats in July when the weather should be a lot warmer.