Month: February 2013

More Funerals than Weddings or Christenings

On: By: Tony Papard

Yes, I’m sure I must have attended more funerals than weddings, civil partnerships or christenings. Not just because of the advanced age of myself, many of my friends and family. Unlike many gay men, it was not because of the AIDS epidemic as most of my gay friends were not directly affected by it, perhaps because they were of an older generation.

Yet it is largely to do with being gay and having quite a few gay friends. Most of these in loving partnerships never had the opportunity to have a wedding or civil partnership as they did not exist for gay men before one of the partners died. This applied to me and my partner who passed over in 1991, also to many others. I know of at least 4 other gay couples who never had a civil partnership. Either one partner died before they became available, or being of an older generation it was probably something just too new and alien for them to get their heads around and accept. Some, living outside London, just didn’t want the nature of their relationships publicly announced, even if it was pretty obvious.

Of course there was no gay adoption either, so christenings wouldn’t have entered into the picture. Quite apart from the fact that few of us were churchgoers, maybe others agree with me that children should not be baptized before they are old enough to understand what it is all about, but should be allowed to make up their own minds whether to become religious or not, and if so, which religion to choose. I was baptized as a baby in the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in London but never attended that denomination, later became an atheist, and am now a Survivalist or Spiritualist. So the Christian baptism meant nothing, quite apart from the fact that even if I’d been a teenager I wouldn’t have understood a word as I don’t speak Greek!

I suppose all this is on my mind as I have three funerals to attend in as many weeks. The funeral of my music colleague Tony Wilkinson today, my mother’s younger brother last week, and an uncle by marriage (my mother’s sister’s husband) next week. All of an advanced aged  69, 88 and 91 respectively.

I can only recall a few weddings I attended. A few cousins, one civil partnership reception (not the actual ceremony), a friend of a friend’s wedding reception. Don’t recall any christenings I attended, was too young to remember my brother’s or any others I might have attended as a child.

So among the hatches, matches and dispatches I’m to be seen more frequently at the latter I’m afraid. The flip of the coin, of course, is that I am sure they had some sort of welcoming party on the Other Side. In fact I now try to think of the anniversary of my life-partner’s passing as the day he was born to a new and better life in Spirit.

You’ve Never Had It So Good

On: By: Tony Papard

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When I was a teenager and in my very early twenties, male homosexuality in Britain was an imprisonable offense, totally illegal. The gay scene was therefore underground and extremely difficult to find out about or break into. I never knew such a scene existed, so remained a complete virgin till well into my 22nd year.  It didn’t help that we moved out to Welwyn Garden City when I was 16 where there were no gay bars or clubs. In fact there was only one straight pub for about every 5,000 people as everything was planned down to the last detail. Although I commuted to London to work for 6 of the years I lived there, I was always home in Hertfordshire by about 6pm, and rarely ventured up the West End. So I would never come across a gay bar or club accidentally.

It was only the publicity around the 1967 Sexual Offences Act which alerted me to the fact that there was a gay scene, but even then it was almost impossible to find it and gain admittance. There were no gay guides, there was no gay press back in 1967, and even if you found a gay club you could not gain admittance unless a member introduced you. Not knowing any gay men, apart from my mother’s boss and his partner who lived miles away from London and didn’t go clubbing, I was refused admission. I only found out about that club and other places by seeing an American gay magazine by chance on a stall and then sending away to Los Angeles for a world gay guide, which incidentally, had lots of errors in it.

My gay life partner and his friends found the gay scene, but most came from the provinces or were thrown out by their parents and so hung round the West End, where they met other gays. Many lived rough on the streets, going ‘on the game’ to earn some money, as landlords threw you out if they found out you were gay. Bringing a guy back for a one night stand could get you thrown out, and living together in a stable relationship was absolutely impossible, and illegal. Some managed to do it, but were always in danger of arrest so had to be very discreet. It was easier if you owned your home, of course.

Back then, when it was illegal, most gay men who were active on the scene first found out about it in ‘cottages’, i.e. public toilets. As I very rarely used these, on my mother’s instructions, I never came across even a hint of homosexuality or a gay scene until some newspaper articles in 1967.

Even after the 1967 Act was passed and became law, every possible way gay men could meet and indicate they were interested in a sexual relationship was still against the law, the charge being ‘importuning for an immoral purpose’. Any public shows of affection were also still against the law, the charge being ‘offending public decency’. This included holding hands and of course two men kissing in public.

Men were still prosecuted for these offenses, and I remember visiting a gay friend in Pentonville for some gay offense.  Even if two men managed to meet, avoiding the long arm of the law, and set up home together, they were commiting an offense if someone else was present even if they were in another room. Also it was illegal if one of the partners was under 21 or in the armed forces.

When my partner first moved in with me four years after the 1967 Act was passed, we were still breaking the law because it was my mother’s place and she was sleeping in another room.

Things all started to change in the 1990s when police began closing their eyes to the illegal gay backroom clubs which were opening in London and other big cities. Previously such places were raided by the police and closed down, since they contravened the definition of ‘in private’ under the 1967 Act.

It was not until the early years of the 21st Century, however, when the European Union forced Britain to stop discriminating against gays. The legal age of consent was finally reduced to 16, the same as for heterosexuals, and gay backroom clubs/saunas, etc. became legal for the first time as the restrictions under the 1967 privacy legislation were removed. It was now possible for two gay men living together to have a friend or relative stay overnight without breaking the law.

Then civil partnerships for gay men and women became possible, and now gay marriage is about to be legalized. Consequently, along with Internet dating, the gay world has changed beyond recognition.

In the days when it was all underground and illegal, furtive, anonymous and promiscuous sex became the only way many gay men could perform. It is therefore hardly surprising this became gay culture.

The idea of ‘cheating’ so prevalent in traditional American Country songs hardly applied to even gay men in stable relationships. The tradition of promiscuity was so ingrained, many gay couples never or rarely had sex with their partners and both used to play around. Sometimes one gay partner would bring a guy home and they’d have a threesome. It was never called cheating, because there were no civil partnerships or gay marriage, and so no vows of any sort were usually taken.

Some couples exchanged rings, but the relationship was not officially recognized, and often, not even by their families. Adoption of children would have been totally out of the question.

Now gays have become fully legalized and nobody bats an eyelid if a gay man or woman comes on a daytime TV quiz show and introduces their same-sex partner.

Truly I can echo the words of the former Prime Minister from the days when I was in my teens and early 20s: ‘You’ve never had it so good!’

Inherited Property

On: By: Tony Papard

This is not entirely a hypothetical situation. It concerns the problem, many would not see it as a problem, if a relative dies and leaves you money or property.

It happened when my father died and my brother and others wished to contest his Will as virtually nothing was left to close relatives. I solved that problem by keeping a share for myself and my mother, and giving his sister a share.

It now may, or may not, happen with an uncle by marriage. His wife’s Will left everything to him apart from a smal legacy to a neighbor, but had he died first (he didn’t, she did) the bulk of her estate would have been left to me, or to two of my cousins had I died before her.

There is a house, a car, the contents of the house and no doubt money in the bank or invested somewhere. Now I have never, ever owned property in the form of a house or flat, or land, and I certainly don’t wish to start now when I’m pushing 70. I recently told my brother if any land is coming my way from my dad’s estate in Cyprus, to sell it. Now there is a possibility, since this uncle apparently had no blood relations, that he too will leave the bulk of his property to me in his Will.

The house is in a place I absolutely hate. I looked it up on Streetview to remind myself and felt so bloody depressed. No way could I live in that house or in that town. There are no buses on Sundays and Bank Holidays as far as I know, there are no parks in the whole town, nowhere to go unless you have a car. They had a car but I don’t drive anymore, and have no wish to start again. Anyway it is a hell of a job for my mother, at 98 and in a motorized wheelchair when we go out, to get in and out of cars. We had to earlier this week when attending another funeral, and it was very difficult for her. Also the motor would have to be taken off the wheelchair to enable it to fold up to go into a car.

The house would probably be totally unsuitable for my mother to live in with me, and I have to be near her as I’m her main carer and visit almost every day, taking her out and cooking her main meal, etc. I don’t think there’s a bathroom downstairs, possibly a toilet but I don’t think there is even that.

So what to do with this unwanted house, car, etc. should it be left to me? Only one sensible thing,  sell the house and share out the proceeds among the nephews and nieces, my mother and I keeping our share. We are quite happy living in our two rented apartments in London. I am just 5 minutes’ walk from her, and we are near the shops and public transport, which is quite suitable for her and her motorized wheelchair. There are lovely parks and the River Thames within a short walking or bus ride distance.

So, should the property come to me, I’d probably give the car to the neighbors/executors who looked after my uncle in the last few years with a cash legacy if he has not already left them one, get an estate agent to sell the property after all relatives had taken what they wanted from the contents, and share the proceeds as outlined above.

To live in a council flat and not have a car is not a matter of shame or a mark of poverty, it is a lifestyle choice made with a lot of luck which enabled single people and childless couples, for a short while, to qualify for a council flat in high rise buildings. Now that high rise has been sold off as private apartments, and I live in a low-rise council block near my mother, who’s now in sheltered accommodation run by a housing association. We don’t need a car, which would just be a hindrance or a useless and expensive status symbol sitting out in the road, and we certainly don’t need to become property owners responsible for maintenance and repairs at our age.

So, nice thought of my aunt to make us respectable by leaving us a house, car, etc. but some of us just don’t aspire to such things. If my uncle who survived her has decided to leave his estate to charity or to share it among various friends and relatives, that is fine by me and frankly, a great relief.

Socialist Democracy

On: By: Tony Papard

 

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A friend in Brazil emails me regularly, but we disagree on politics. Although he is always complaining about the terrible poverty in his country alongside great wealth, about low wages for himself and others, about the poor private health services, etc. he regards politics, and Socialism in particular, as anathema.

Hugo Chavez of Venezuela he regards as a dictator, and seems to think Socialism is by its very nature undemocratic. In complete contrast, I regard capitalism as by its very nature undemocratic, and by all accounts Chavez and some of the other leftwing leaders of Latin America have been democratically elected in free elections.

Many people have commented on how dictatorial leftwing regimes often describe themselves as ‘democratic’. Thus we have the Democratic People’s Republic of (North) Korea for example, and we had the (East) German Democratic Republic. When working at International Telegraphs on the GDR circuit a senior operator actually queried why countries like East Germany called themselves democratic. Being a Stalinist member of the Communist Party at the time, I instantly replied  that it was maybe because they considered Socialism more democratic than capitalism.

In fact I still believe, in theory at least, this is true. If the means of production, distribution and exchange is publicly owned and controlled, then the system must be more democratic than capitalism where most of these things are controlled by capitalist millionaires and faceless shareholders gambling on the stock exchanges.

However the crucial word above is ‘If’, and clearly in the Soviet Union and the Socialist countries allied to it there was no public control, but instead huge, bureaucratic State monopolies which were often inefficient and wasteful. The same is true, to a large extent, of nationalized industries in Britain and other countries, though despite this I still think the railways and utility companies (gas, electricity, telephones, etc.) worked much better as nationalized industries than they do under privatization. Not least because all the above require nationally maintained networks and grids to work efficiently, and this is surely best done by a nationalized industry.

Huge bureaucratic State monopolies, however, are not the best way to achieve public ownership and democratic control of most industries. Worker and consumer cooperatives, alongside individual publicly owned companies with worker and consumer control, are much more competitive, efficient and provide a strong incentive for the workers to be productive since they, along with the consumers, share in the profits instead of going into the pockets of faceless shareholders and company directors. The Yugoslav system of Market Socialism worked very efficiently along these lines.

In the political field it is true that Soviet and even Yugoslav Socialist Democracy left an awful lot to be desired, to put it mildly. The idea was that a single political party, the Marxist-Leninist/Communist Party (or a coalition led by the Marxist-Leninist Party), was all that was necessary to implement Socialism democratically and ultimately lead to the self-governing utopia of Communism Proper where the State would have withered away.

It was envisaged that the broad masses, the proletariat and their allies, would join the ruling Marxist-Leninist Party and other State organs and through these would exercise true Socialist Democracy. Operating under the system of ‘democratic centralism’ decisions were supposed to be taken at regular Party Congresses based on debates and discussions from the grassroots membership. Congress decisions were to be binding on the Central Committee and the People’s government. Between Party Congresses decisions would be taken by the elected Central Committee, and all Congress and Central Committee decisions were binding on all Party members.

There are many flaws in this system, which was expected to eliminate class divisions and contradictions and prepare the masses for the self-governing Stateless society of Communism. Taking the Soviet Union as an example, what happened in practice was rather different. Under the slogan ‘All power to the soviets’ or workers’ councils, Lenin and his comrades proclaimed power had been handed over to the toiling masses and their allies, and the CPSU, as it was eventually known (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) did indeed achieve a mass membership of many millions. How many of these were politically active, however, is another question, and certainly a majority of the USSR’s population never became politically active in the CPSU, the soviets or the other organs of State. Instead a ruling clique of bureaucrats and careerists/opportunists joined the ruling CPSU and quickly played on the political immaturity of the masses, on their political apathy if you like, and installed themselves in positions of power and privilege. They became a new ruling clique or ruling class, and were almost impossible to remove without another revolution. The Krondstadt rebellion early in the days of soviet power was an attempt to restore the ideals of the Revolution, but Trotsky’s Red Army under the orders of Lenin crushed the rebellion. Things got much worse when Stalin took over the General Secretaryship of the CPSU after Lenin’s death, despite the warning in ‘Lenin’s Last Testament’ to the Central Committee that placing too much power in Stalin’s hands was dangerous. Lenin advised against making Stalin General Secretary, but was ignored.

Stalin’s brutal dictatorship succeeded eventually in eliminating almost all the original Bolshevik revolutionaries, but the careerists and opportunists for the most part survived his purges. This was easy for them as they had no ideals, and just swayed whichever way the wind blew to protect their positions of power and privilege, paying lipservice to Socialism and praising Stalin to the skies. After Stalin’s death the same system continued, though in less extreme form.

I have spoken to a former member of the Marxist-Leninist Party which once ruled Hungary. She was a diplomat, and told me the only reason she joined the Hungarian Workers’ (Communist) Party was to gain privileges and advantages for herself and her family. On a visit to East Germany in 1968 it became fairly obvious to me that our hosts, Eberhardt from the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED), and Dorotee from the State-run Peace Council were far from being Socialists, but were very bourgeois. Eberhardt only seemingly interested in drinking and womanizing, and Dorotee in lounging around in silken gowns, flashing her gold teeth, pearl necklaces and jewelry. The whole Soviet-style system had become corrupted, and without opposition parties and free elections, it was impossible to remove this ruling clique without a revolution.

Nevertheless, it is my belief that even this corrupt and distorted form of Socialism had achieved a lot – raising the Soviet Umion from a feudal, backward country to one of the leading world powers, educating the masses, and in all the Socialist countries, providing good health, education and public services, a feeling of comradeship between peoples of different nationalities, providing basic essentials at low prices, creating full employment, and providing security in old age. Nearly all these things were lost in the revolutions of 1989-1981 which swept away most of the gains of Socialism and, for the most part, kept the corrupt bureaucrats and politicians in power.

The story of Soviet-style Socialism, then exported to Asian countries like China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, is not, of course, the full story. Apart from the relatively democratic Socialist countries of Latin America (possibly excluding Soviet-era Cuba which still survives), there has been a more democratic form of Socialism in many other countries. The 1945 Labour government in Britain delivered a fair amount of Socialism albeit involing State monopolies. The National Health Service was also established under this democratically elected government. Many Scandinavian countries have also democratically implemented many Socialist reforms.

I also question how much democracy there really is even in countries with supposedly free elections. Apart from unfair voting systems, like the first-past-the-post systems existing in Britain and USA which penalize smaller political parties and, in effect, make General Elections decided by a relatively few voters in marginal constituencies or States. These General Elections frequently result in minority governments, i.e., a political party in power with a big majority of seats but which most of the electorate have voted against.

Even in fairer PR (proportional representation) systems one has to wonder how much power really lies in the hands of elected representatives and governments, in heads of state, and how much is secretly controlled from behind the scenes by powerful shadowy organizations. Variously described as the upper echelons of Freemasonry, the Illuminati, the mysterious ‘dark forces of which we know little’ spoken of by Queen Elizabeth II, the Mafia, the military-industrial complex, etc. Indeed I wonder whether it is a world-wide network of these powerful forces which organized the infiltration of the Soviet-style political parties to insure that the rich and powerful even survived under Socialism.

So, in conclusion, I would argue that Socialism is potentially far more democratic than capitalism provided there is a system of genuine democratic control of the publicly owned industries and services, and provided elections are genuinely free. All political parties must be allowed to contest free elections, votes must be secret to prevent victimization, and if held under a Socialist Constitution, then that too must be allowed to be challenged by the electorate in a referendum. A substantial majorty in such a referendum would allow the Constitution to be amended or replaced to allow restoration of capitalism, but barring that, free elections would allow different political parties to administer their own versions of Socialism.

However no political system will work properly, and there can be no real democracy, until humankind has progressed spiritually, until corruption has been exposed and eliminated, and ultimately until people as a whole are politically mature enough to take their destiny into their own hands and govern themselves directly, instead of relying on others to do so on their behalf, thus allowing careerists, opportunists and others to create a corrupt ruling clique, either overtly as in the Soviet-style countries, or covertly as many strongly suspect exists behind the supposedly democratic governments of the advanced Western-style countries

The God Debate

On: By: Tony Papard

This relates to the title of the controversial book by Richard Dawkins, (‘The God Delusion’) but to be fair to him, according to Wikipedia, he distinguishes between a personal God or Creator and pantheism, which is a belief that everything is part of a god-like whole. I tend towards the latter, based on the evidence I have studied.

Dawkins argues against the Creationist version of the Universe and against Intelligent Design. These are more complex subjects as they too can have various meanings or interpretations.

Let’s take the Creationist theory first. What does it mean? That God created the Universe out of nothing? Who then created God, or did he, she, it always exist? Perhaps God created itself? So the materialist answer is that this solves nothing, and they came up with the Big Bang Theory, that everything suddenly appeared out of nothing. Both theories seem extremely implausable or actually impossible to me, and explain nothing.

Logic suggests to me that if something exists now, then something must have always existed. Or, alternatively, that Time itself is an illusion, so therefore there is no logic to anything having a real beginning or an end.

Then we come to Intelligent Design, well that too can mean all sorts of things. Usually it is used by fundamentalist Christians and others to suggest God is the great designer behind the Universe. However, if that is the case, why would evolution be necessary? The fundamentalist Christians and others would say evolution is a lie, that it never happened, and that humans did not evolve from animals and simpler forms of life.

Studying the evidence and using logic once again, I would argue that Natural Selection (a theory put forward by Alfred Russell Wallace and then taken up by Charles Darwin in his work ‘The Origin of the Species’) does not fully explain evolution. Wallace has been rather overlooked by materialist scientists because he was a spiritualist who believed in a non-material origin of the Universe.

I would also argue that an all-wise Creator would not go thru the laborious process of evolution, but clearly this is how life has developed on Earth and probably other inhabited planets.

What is far more likely than either the above two theories is a combination of Natural Selection and Intelligent Design behind evolution. If there is, as Wallace suggested and as overwhelming evidence suggests, a non-material origin of the Universe then this doesn’t have to be an all-wise Creator, much less an old man in the sky with a long white beard.

Quantum physics strongly suggests a non-material origin of the sub-atomic particles that make up all matter. Consciousness seems to be what is behind the Universe.

Now this Consciousness does not have to be a personal God or even an all-wise Creator. It could be, as Ron Pearson suggests in his theories, something like his ‘intelligent ether’ or ‘i-ther’, a kind of brain-like matrix which is the background to everything material. It could, to put it in other terms, be a form of energy or Spirit, and it could well be evolving and learning as it goes along with everything else.

All the evidence I have studied, and it is a lot, suggests that there is indeed Intelligent Design behind the many complicated organs of living creatures and that they cannot be explained solely by Natural Selection. An eye, for example, is a very cleverly designed organ, and the same can be said of many other components of human and animal organisms.

Soviet scientists discovered years ago that all living creatures and plants have a primary body, which they termed ‘bioplasma’. Spiritualists would call it the ‘astral body’ which itself is linked to a greater Soul. It seems from all the evidence that consciousness is NOT located in the physical brain, but rather is external to it and that the brain is merely a receiver and a controller of the physical body.

Indeed, if as Quantum Physics suggests, a conscious observer is necessary for matter to even exist, then conciousness cannot possibly originate in the physical brain.

Out-of-the-body, remote viewing and near-death experiences provide strong evidence that the Mind and various senses are not confined to the brain and the physical body. When brain-dead patients accurately report what is done and said in the vicinity of operating theaters and locations of accidents  while they were unconscious and flat-lining, then scientists and medical men should take notice, and many now do, witness the many such people saying so on YouTube and the Net generally.

All the evidence suggests to me that all material universes, and there must be many as Quantum theory suggests and as Spiritualists also believe (though they call them ‘planes’), are virtual realities created by Mind or Consciousness.

This non-personal Consciousness, Mind or Spirit if you like is constantly learning and evolving, and we and everything in the multi-verse is part of it. If you like to call the whole thing ‘God’, then that’s fine with me, but it is very different from the concept of a personal, all-wise Creator. It is rather the sum total of everything, including us, but it includes higher and lesser evolved elements or parts.

This would suggest that there is indeed a Supreme or Higher Intelligence, but that it has evolved and continues to do so along with everything else.

Spirit or Conscious Energy/Mind surely plans the next tiny stage of evolution in each living organism, and Natural Selection then sorts out the successful changes from the less successful.

My big question, if you say Natural Selection alone can explain the very complex living creatures that exist, is then why haven’t televisions, cars, computers and all sorts of other complex things designed by humans also come about by Natural Selection, made from organic matter perhaps? Possibly because there is a purpose to everything, and that is to gain experience of a physical existence for humans, animals and indeed plants. Things to make our lives easier or more enjoyable are then invented by humans. Nothing seems to just evolve by pure chance or accident, how useful it would be perhaps it if did.

Logic suggests that if something has a very complex design then some sort of Mind must have designed it in the first place, it did not come about by pure chance or accident. I simply don’t believe the theory that millions of monkeys typing blindly on millions of keyboards for millions of years would eventually produce, in English or some other language, a word-perfect complete works of William Shakepeare. They might well produce a few badly spelt sentences or with poor grammar, perhaps even the odd paragraph. Similarly the complex human body or that of one of the higher animal forms could not possibly have just come about by pure chance with no element of intelligent design behind it.

I believe that both organized religion which believes in the existence of an all-wise, personal Creator or God, and materialist orthodox science which is totally atheistic and believes everything came about by pure chance/accident with the help of Natural Selection are both becoming obsolete. The latest scientific theories, Quantum Physics and evidence from mediums and channelers of Spirit strongly suggest that the origin of everything is non-material and that Mind is separate from the brain. That, as already stated, no matter can exist without Consciousness/Mind already existing.

As to whether God created itself out of nothing, or the Universe created itself out of nothing in a Big Bang, both seem so extremely nonsensical and unlikely that I reject both theories. Time is an illusion, there is no beginning and no end. Everything is, if you like to use such terms, eternal, but constantly evolving. Like a movie – the plot evolves, there could even be several different endings filmed, but it is all there on celluloid, videotape or DVD. Only when you’re watching at normal speed are you trapped in a one-way Time dimension.  You can fast foward to the end, reverse to the beginning, look at various possible endings, then choose which one you want to go with. That, I believe, is what reality is like outside of Time and Space.

As to the Big Bang itself, Pearson suggests this is wrong, and orthodox scientists are having great difficulty explaining why the Universe continues to expand at an accelerating rate, inventing concepts such as dark energy to account for this. They also postulate dark matter, making up the bulk of matter in the Universe. Pearson, however, postulates the Big Breed Theory which accounts for everything orthodox science cannot explain, including survival of death and all things now considered to be psychic. His Big Breed Theory also fully explains the accelerating expansion of the Universe, and is equally compatible with the formula E=Mc2 as Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity uses but with different conclusions. Einstein himself remarked, on his 70th birthday, that he believed many of his theories may have been wrong or seriously flawed.

It really is time for both organized religion and orthodox Einsteinian science to put aside their preconceived ideas, study the evidence impartially with an open mind, and be prepared to re-write all the scientific textbooks while regarding ancient religious texts as highly suspect. The latter were used to manipulate and control whole populations, and the explanations of the creation of the Universe, what happens after death, etc. are highly inaccurate, but perhaps were useful for more primitive peoples who didn’t have the scientific knowledge and all the evidence from various sources we have today.

Having said that, many of the ancient civilizations knew a lot more about the true nature of Spirit and survival than many religious and atheistic people do today. Now, it seems, we are at the start of a big revival of much of this lost knowledge, and are also beginning to expand on this knowledge.

Unfortunately vested interests in orthodox religion and Einsteinian science, as always, despise what they regard as heresy and try to hold back progress and new knowledge. However it is inevitable that eventually they will have to give way to new ideas and concepts based on hard evidence and mathematical theories such as those of Ron Pearson and others now considered ‘mavericks’ by many.

 

Gay Marriage

On: By: Tony Papard

This has passed its first stage in the House of Commons. It now has to go to the outdated House of Lords, but they cannot block it, they can make amendments and suggestions, but the Commons has the final say.

For myself personally, and I think many of the gay couples I knew, we’d have been happy with a civil partnership to put things on a legal footing and to have recognition for our relationships, which lasted over 20, 30 or 40 years till death of one of the partners in many cases.

I’m not clear on the difference between a civil partnership and a gay marriage, but the latter implies to me aping a heterosexual marriage with vows of monogamy and also the possibility of raising children. This would not have suited many of the gay partnerships I was familiar with which were loving relationships, looking after each other in sickness and health, true soul mates in many cases. However children would never have been considered as part of the household, we had pets instead I guess. Also vows of monogamy would not have been appropriate when all the gay couples I knew had open relationships to some extent. They were often emotional rather than physical relationships, at least after the first few years.

This no doubt reflected the times and laws under which my generation grew up, when it was illegal for two gay men to sleep together, let alone live together. So a culture of quick, casual encounters grew up and the habit was hard to break. Many of the gay couples I knew, and some married couples as well I hasten to add, had separate bedrooms.

Things are changing fast, and it is difficult for some of us in the older generation to appreciate quite how they are changing. We’ve only been fully legal for about 10 years in Britain. The 1967 Sexual Offences Act only legalized gay sex in very restricted circumstances. All ways of meeting and indicating you were ‘up for it’ was technically deemed ‘importuning for an immoral purpose’ and all public shows of affection such as holding hands or kissing were deemed ‘outraging public decency’. Men were charged under these offenses right up to the 21st Century.

Also even two men over 21, neither in the armed forces, living and sleeping together were still breaking the law if they allowed a friend or relation to stay overnight in another room. Thus all gay saunas, backroom clubs, etc., then legal in most of the Western world, were still totally illegal in Britain.

We’ve come an amazing way since the start of the 21st Century, and I believe EU legislation against discrimination on grounds of age, sexual oriention, race, religion, etc. had a lot to do with pushing UK into the 21st Century.

I’m still amazed when gay men and women on afternoon quiz shows calmly introduce their partners, and nobody bats an eyelid.

My partner of 21 years (till he died) has been left off the family tree, and legally I’m not allowed to call myself widowed. Present and future generations of gay men and women no longer have to face these indignities and this lack of recognition of their loving partnerships.

Different perspectives, different priorities

On: By: Tony Papard

When I was younger I wanted to change the world, so became very active in the peace movement and leftwing politics. I would still like the world to change, but I no longer go on endless demonstrations, I am far more selective which ones I go on. I sign some petitions on the Internet, but after a lifetime of being disillusioned with politicians and political systems of all persuasions, and seeing so many huge demonstrations just ignored, I now see progress being very gradual. Evolution not revolution as I said in the previous blog.

As I near the end of my life, and I know others of pensionable age feel the same, thoughts turn more and more to departing from this life. Of course your thoughts on this will depend on whether you believe in survival or not, and if you are religious, an atheist, an agnostic or just spiritual with no particular religion.

I fall in the latter category, and spend quite a lot of time investigating the nature of the afterlife and evidence for it. I do want to see a better world, but now believe political systems alone cannot achieve this. Widespread corruption and secret organizations behind the scenes make all political systems something of a sham. Whether it’s bourgeois democracy or some form of Socialism, it seems society can only go so far because of corruption and powerful forces controlling governments, and indeed human nature.

For instance, under Soviet-style Socialism opportunists and careerists infiltrated all the organs of power, so marginalizing and then suppressing the broad masses. The apathy and political immaturity of the masses enabled them to do this, also the selfishness of human nature where many are only prepared to get involved if there is something in it for them personally. In such a society those with the strongest motives or incentives will quickly take over, and most others will just keep their heads down and try to do the best they can for themselves and their immediate families. Only when things get intolerable will they unite with others and try to change the status quo, and then often not really for the better in the long run.

This is why I now place more hope in the spiritual evolution of humankind. Once we learn that the law of cause and effect always applies, also known as karmic law or karmic justice, then we should become far more conscious and wary of our own actions, for we have to reap what we sow. Whatever we do for others or inflict on others will come back to us in some way sooner or later. There are no saviors from on high to deliver us from the consequences of our actions, no priests, no confessions, no absolution, no Holy Communion or Mass, no Last Rites, no sacrifices, no being a ‘born again Christian’, no martydom – nothing can prevent us being responsible ultimately for our own actions.

There is no Hell of fire and brimstone, that is a distortion of the nature of the lower astral planes. The fact is like attracts like, so once the physical life is over we gravitate to those spirits most like ourselves. So serial murderers and people like Pol Pot, Stalin and Hitler will find themselves in an environment, a reality surrounded by people like themselves. However this unpleasant environment is not permanent. All souls are able to be rescued and to progress to higher, much more pleasant spiritual environments once they have paid their karmic debt and learnt the lessons of their mistakes and misdemeanors. Once they tire of the lower astral environment and call for help, it will be given. It is entirely up to us where we go after the physical, and how long we stay there.

Eternal progression to higher levels of Spirituality is the prospect for all of us, and there is no beginning or end to this process, like everything it is eternal and infinite. Human minds cannot comprehend this fully, living in this virtual reality world where everything seems to have a beginning and and end, and where Time moves in one direction only.

In the higher Spiritual planes there is no Time as we know it – past, present and possible future are all accessible. I say possible future, because there are many possibilities, if there were not, we would not have free will. Like a movie made with many different endings, it is possible to envisage many different futures, but general trends can be ascertained.

At the moment great changes are taking place as materialist science and dogmatic religion give way gradually to the new enlightenment coming from psychics, channelers, mediums, Instrumental TransCommunication, scientists prepared to think ‘outside the box’ and break orthodox taboos, medical men of similar mind, quantum physicists whose experiments reveal the weird nature of reality, etc.

So I do have different perspectives and priorities. I no longer devote most of my energies to achieving political change, as I now feel it is more important to change people and how they behave through the knowledge that we all survive death and are responsible for our own actions.

Those who think they can do what they like to others and get away with it are in for a rude shock. This is not a God-like figure dealing out punishments, but the cosmic law of cause and effect. Ultimately we are all connected, so whatever we say or do to others will be felt by us sooner or later.

The purpose of this is not punishment but spiritual progress. We are here to learn from our mistakes, and the physical realm is where we learn the lessons quickest. This is where we can interact with others who are at different levels of spiritual evolution. That is why Earth and the other inhabited planets in the Universe are described as a sort of school or college where spirits learn and progress.

Progress also occurs on the spiritual planes, but there we mix only with those on a similar spiritual level as ourselves. Teachers can come down from a higher plane to help us, but we cannot ascend to the higher planes till we have reached that stage of spiritual evolution.  Similarly those on the lower astral planes cannot ascend to the Third Level and above till they have evolved sufficiently. Only in the physical Universe, in our case on Earth, is there this mixing pot where we interact and learn from other spirits at various stages of evolution. Make the most of it, or some aspect of your greater Soul (not necessarily the personality you are now) will have to come back and learn the lessons you didn’t learn properly this time around. The greater Soul assimilates all the lessons learnt in various lifetimes by the various personalities within it, and eventually is able to progress further to even higher spiritual levels.

At the higher spiritual levels or on the higher spiritual planes individual personalities can merge to create a greater, more highly evolved spiritual entity. This is how spiritual evolution works. We not only have our Higher aspects or Soul, but we are all connected to Soul Groups or Group Souls where there are other spirits and personalities we relate to. Together, we all progress and evolve spiritually.

As part of this process and as Spiritual Enlightenment spreads around the Earth plane, society here will also evolve. Only when humans are ready, i.e. spiritually evolved enough, will true Socialism or even the utopia of Communism become possible, ending all wars, exploitation, injustice and corruption.