I’ve witnessed something pretty disturbing recently on the Internet. It’s old news apparently, but being in Ireland, certain news usually passes us by.
Hank Williams J.R dropped from ESPN because of comments he made about Obama?
Isn’t freedom of speech the one thing that America has going for it that many other countries don’t? Besides oil, aren’t these same American values the reason why the U.S aims to hold onto it’s “freedom”? Apparently not, if ESPN can legally fire a country singer who has been with them for 22 years.
Perhaps what should be taught to all U.S citizens (and throw the U.K into this too since we are becoming a mini-me country to the U.S) is that freedom of thought/speech can land you in trouble and thus is not necessarily free. Restricted speech might be more accurate, more truthful to what is actually happening
I’ll leave you with a little comment made by the President Roosevelt (who i imagine if he could see what was happening, would be turning in his grave)
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public” (1918)
Recently the sad news came to me of the death of Filip Coppens, author of The Ancient Alien Question. I first came to know of Filip, like many people, through his contributions to the Ancient Aliens TV show.
One thing I admired about Coppens’ approach to the Ancient Alien theory is that he was willing to look at things from a more logical perspective, rather than jumping in with a pre-conceived thought and then bringing together evidence only half investigated. It was always a pleasure to hear his views for this very reason. He didn’t treat the viewers like children. He took his research seriously and challenged those already established within the Ancient Alien field of research.
A good example of this was his disagreements with Sitchin’s theories in his book The Ancient Alien Question. Admittedly I was, and in many ways still am, an admirer of Zecharia Sitchin’s contributions. If it wasn’t for Sitchin, I might never have looked further into the rich vivid mythologies of Sumeria and Mesopotamia, cultures that Sitchin focused on in his Earth Chronicles series.
Filip will be sorely missed by many Ancient Aliens enthusiasts and we thank him for his years of research into the unknown. I consider him, as I consider most investigators into the UFO and Ancient Alien phenomenon, a pioneer of sorts. Most of who seek an answer to the unknown wish more than anything that the truth be unveiled, regardless of what we might find.
Finally. A writer/movie producer who doesn’t want to do another Troubles movie! Philip Henry’s vision extends far beyond the nearly stereotypical theme that Northern Ireland is known for. Being a resident of Northern Ireland all my life, it’s a little hard to get excited about “the entertainment industry” of this country. America has taken Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Aiden Quinn and others (ok not all are strictly Northern Irish of course but you get the picture) and currently New Zealand has got James Nesbitt. As for our own home turf , HBO’s Game of Thrones would be considered the cream of crop when it comes to entertainment for TV/Film (if i am not mistaken), which was of course a well deserved break from the Protestant/Catholic feudal shenanigans we all know and love are sick to the back teeth of!
Philip sums it up perfectly in the video when he says “i believe the best way for a wound to heal is to leave it alone”. So let’s put the word out. We need a fully fledged entertainment industry here. We have the talent for it!
Over the Christmas Break i had begun reading for the first time a book called “The Essential Edgar Cayce” and was amazed at Cayce’s extraordinary life…yet more importantly for me, his spiritual philosophies.
I had first heard of Cayce in 2005 when i attended a psychic faire in Ohio. While i was quite sceptical of the idea of being psychic, and many self proclaimed psychics do nothing to quell such scepticism with their antics and tall claims, i attended nonetheless. While i came away from the faire with my scepticism intact, the name of Edgar Cayce stayed with me.
The Essential Edgar Cayce, written by Mark Thurston, introduced me to some of the core philosophies of the man, and i was intrigued by one of these philosophies in particular.
Success cannot be measured by material standards
“we should not attempt to measure spiritual things by material standards, nor material things by spiritual standards”, according to the book, is something that Cayce stated in a reading to someone.
In other words, those of us who go through life struggling, possibly even struggling financially while doing what we love, should not be considered to be lacking in progress completely. perhaps there is a spiritual progress being made, much like the ascetics in Tibet who own little to nothing. What the human eye sees from a materialistic viewpoint may condemn the poverty stricken because the major centre of importance is on money, of which the impoverished among us, have little to none.
Admittedly there have been a few friends close to me who have stressed that i have achieved a lot with my writing and art, regardless of if it has actually made me any money personally. Due to the kind of society we live in, more often i am reminded of the complete opposite opinion…that if money is not made from our achievements (excluding parenthood and things of that nature of course) we may well have achieved nothing. If that is the case…considering that not one of us takes any possessions with us to the next life, then the whole idea of achievement must be reexamined.
Cayce, also known as “The Sleeping Prophet”
I am always inspired by the stories of people who follow their dreams or their compulsions, even though they may be downtrodden financially. According to the book, Cayce struggled with poverty during the time of the great depression and his work as a photographer was hindered by two separate incidents where his studio actually burned down.
Vincent Van Gogh, throughout the past few years now, has been one of those figures in history which gives me comfort both as a struggling writer and artist. I am struggling, but i am not exhausted! Van Gogh is now, by many, considered a genius, his paintings fetching millions (mainly bought as a left brain dominant financial investment as opposed to a right brain appreciation for the actual painting itself)
I have wondered if true achievement may be a combination of inner peace, undeterred by both the joys and sorrows of life (which both Buddha and Krishna taught as being the one thing to strive for) an uncluttered mind, and touching at least one person’s heart.
I am open to answers. Perhaps there are more knowledgeable people on the matter. I’d like to hear from you!
As most of you are no doubt well aware by now, even those who have no particular interest in ancient cultures, today, 21st of December 2012, is expected by many to be the last day on earth for humanity. While there have been many similar doomsday dates such as 21st of May of last year, which passed without incident, other dates, like today, were literally carved in stone.
I first heard about the 2012 doomsday prediction in the year 2000 in my late teens when I used to visit a chatroom called All Faiths on the MSN website. This was the first time I had heard of the Mayans, and even the Sumerians for that matter. I thought I should write down the date out of curiosity, thinking that it’s the sort of thing that would pass by without anyone ever talking about it (little did I know they’d base an entire movie around it: 2012). While I failed to write the date down, I needn’t have worried. There is a lot of talk about it regardless.
It has proved very difficult to find any consistent theory based on the event because people have hyped it up out of all proportion. I’ve watched videos where Mayan elders have suggested that there was no such thing as an end to the world, but only an end to the present way of things…which will not be an instant change. I feel personally that this change may have began around the late sixties and early seventies, which naturally does not appear to be so, considering the amount of wars that humanity still partakes in on a regular basis. Despite that though, I think people are beginning to wake up to things. Many are questioning authority…an authority which has held countless generations in place, both in structured religion and in the government itself. Is it all in the mind? Possibly. The fall of the Church, as evident in the countless pedophilia cases, has been a long time coming. There are many changes throughout any age it is true, but none so more than in the last few centuries. That is not my opinion….history itself makes it so.
Our entire world has changed over the past few centuries especially with the invention of harnessing electricity for industrial and home use. The invention of the combustible engine, radio and television. Space flight. The Internet. Nuclear and chemical weapons which have the potential to wipe out millions of people. Even today, as we pass through the digital age, there is a constant push for newer products, rapid updates, to the point where a great many people feel left behind, bewildered at what exactly is going on in the world.
Most likely, the event will pass by without so much as a hint of difference to our lives. The reason for this, I feel, is because we’ve been living through the transitional period. When you go through a transition, there is no such thing as perceiving an end to a particular event and the entry into another. I do believe that at least for the past forty years, we have been moving out of one era and into another.
For a long time I felt that we were moving into an actual technology or digital age, as that seems to be the way things are going. Now I am not so sure. I think the digital age could be a very short phase. By that I do not mean the digital age will end next month or next year. It is possible that it could be fifty, even a hundred years before the digital age will fall away. I think it is running alongside the transitional period between the old way of things and the new. It is trying to vie for our attention, but I think that there will only be so much that humanity will be able to handle.
I was listening to a radio show last night where an author of a 2012 based book was asked why he felt people were taking the whole end of the world thing so seriously. He stated that he felt that a great many people were perplexed about the fast paced world we were living in. Jaded by life and the rapid change to our world in terms of the increasing amount of new technology forced in our faces on a regular basis, mankind had a natural question: Where will it all end. So when an end time date said to be based on ancient prophecy shows up, he is only too willing to grab onto that. The author said that the concerns of the people towards the digital age was in a similar vein to that of dogs who bark before an earthquake. People, he said, felt the signs and began to act accordingly.
I personally was never that convinced about the 2012 doomsday date, not even when I first heard about it twelve years ago. I was quite a fundamental Christian in those days and was convinced that there were a lot of prophetic events that needed to take place before the official end of the world. As time has changed, and my fundamentalism has pretty much faded away, I was still not convinced by this actual date.
One thing that has convinced me that the date may be some kind of spiritual awakening, as opposed to an end to the world, is the Hopi prophecy concerning the emergence of the fifth world. From what I have read, the Hopi had a total of 9 signs, eight of which seem to have come true. The Hopi, according to the book “The return of Pahana”, published by Bear and co, the Hopi believed that they emerged from a world of destruction into the fourth world where they, and we, are now. It was said that the some of the same machines and technology that we have now, were the same machines that destroyed the world back in the ancient times. That may seem strange to a lot of people, but things go in cycles.
(From White Feather, Bear Clan, Hopi Tribe)
The Fourth World shall end soon, and the Fifth World will begin. This the elders everywhere know. The Signs over many years have been fulfilled, and so few are left.
First Sign: We were told of the coming of the white-skinned men, like Pahana, but not living like Pahana — men who took the land that was not theirs and who struck their enemies with thunder. (Guns)
Second Sign: Our lands will see the coming of spinning wheels filled with voices. (Covered wagons)
Third Sign: A strange beast like a buffalo but with great long horns, will overrun the land in large numbers. (Longhorn cattle)
Fourth Sign: The land will be crossed by snakes of iron. (Railroad tracks)
Fifth Sign: The land shall be criss-crossed by a giant spider’s web. (Power and telephone lines)
Sixth Sign: The land shall be criss-crossed with rivers of stone that make pictures in the sun. (Concrete roads and their mirage-producing effects.)
Seventh Sign: You will hear of the sea turning black, and many living things dying because of it. (Oil spills)
Eighth Sign: You will see many youth, who wear their hair long like our people, come and join the tribal nations, to learn our ways and wisdom. (Hippies)
Ninth and Last Sign: You will hear of a dwelling-place in the heavens, above the earth, that shall fall with a great crash. It will appear as a blue star. Very soon after this, the ceremonies of the Hopi people will cease.
It was these prophecies that made me wonder if 2012 was not the end of the world, but the end of a particular era. While I feel for some time we have been moving towards this new era, perhaps 2012 is the official marker of such a transition.
For many, Christmas is a time of family get-togethers, much sitting about eating chocolate, drinking wine and putting on the pounds. For others, it can be quite a lonely time, which seems to drag on and on. In such times, some people like nothing more than to dim the lights, curl up on the couch and read a good book. With Christmas almost upon us; a time to celebrate the life of Jesus Christ, i felt it was appropriate to share the free ebook Conversations with the Christ, which, despite being a short novel, took about four years in the making.
Conversations with the Christ is an ebook which is available on Smashwords.com and is written by me, Alphonse Bocelli. It’s a completely FREE short novel about Christ’s return to earth, where he talks to American, Israeli and British soldiers among others, and the fate of Jerusalem itself. Some may find some of the topics in the conversations throughout the book to be controversial, but there is a feature at the end of the story, which explains all of the hard to understand parts of “Why Jesus would say that kind of thing”. Despite very little effort put into marketing so far, it’s already been downloaded 60 times and the number continues to grow, so if you’d like to read one of my books over the holiday period, or you’d like to recommend a free book to your friends, feel free to pass along the message!
Writing articles over at thelifeexplorer.com has been a great pleasure…though admittedly it has brought with it a little difficulty. While I normally write about political/religious/controversial topics here, I’ve had to find a different voice for thelifeexplorer, which aims to be a kind of hub for all things helpful and uplifting. One such topic that has slipped through the net though, is my article about terrorists and my questioning of whether there is a different way of looking at things. I guess in some ways the article could create awareness of being able to see things from more than just one “correct” perspective…
I was listening to the radio today over a coffee and the dj was talking about Rod Stewart’s new book that’s going to be released for Christmas and how it is outselling Cheryl Cole’s book. Anyway, that wasn’t what was interesting. He’d went on to say that he’d bought a few celebrity autobiographical books and things of that nature and how they seemed to drag on forever.
“I was wondering to myself…is this ever going to end”, said the dj, referring to the book he’d bought for himself over the Christmas season last year. “why does anyone need to make more than four books” he went on to say, a sentiment shared by my brother also. Why does anyone need to make more than one or two books?
I had to ponder that question as I am currently working on something like my tenth, now admittedly they could be called mini books as some have been less than forty pages. I usually refer to those ones as short novels. While the dj’s attention span in his “I was wondering to myself…is this ever going to end” naturally is unique to himself, I had to wonder if maybe the attention span in today’s society was just getting shorter.
I’ve read on various forums that people love short, non-committal throwaway kind of stories and updates in these times, which is why twitter is so popular (I attempted to use it but could never understand both it and it’s appeal). I’ve been told on these forums, and even from other writers, that people enjoy downloading a book that takes about forty to fifty minutes to read, give or take ten minutes, because many books are downloaded to be read on commuting journeys to and from work.
I’ve started to think that maybe I need to break my books up in future into chapter sized books, not because I want to reap more money from my work (although why not!) but for the convenience of the commuting customer. I would of course have my regular sized books for those that are interested.
And, as you may have noticed, I’ve made my blog post a lot more shorter than normal. I must be evolving!
I was walking along the malone road a few nights ago in the city of Belfast recently in an attempt to attend the spiritualist church (which thankfully i managed to attend). It was an evening event related to mediumship and Glyn Edwards was the main speaker/medium. It was actually the first time i’d attended this church and they were so welcoming, so warm.
Yet…as strangly as it may seem, this is not what this blog is about. I have been in the city of Belfast on many occasions, and indeed i have witnessed various scum bags annoying people of all kinds, but as i came of age, i began to see the world differently, even in a more hopeful state of mind. Yet alcohol, when combined with arseholes, creates a terrible combination and i bore witness to it before finding my way to the spiritualist church.
Three drunken beer swilling residents who’d staggered their way through the malone road, on the sidewalk opposite me as i tried to mind my own business, started hassling the various people that crossed their paths. You see, in Belfast, it is not usually a good idea to interact with a group of drunken teens, the reason being that often they are carrying sharp objects and you are never quite sure who’s heart or lung they are apt to pierce. Having just come from Lavery’s bar with my brother, i was not exactly thinking as soberly as i would have liked.
Yet here these guys were now about to humiliate a homeless man by emptying liquid into his begging cup.Now you could be forgiven for thinking that this was a nice gesture of sharing one’s booze in the cold wintery nights, but such was not the case. The amount of ridicule this homeless man received was almost enough to make me cross the road and sort those drunk guys out, but let me explain. It is not like the movies. In the movies, the heroic figure would walk over and smash those guys’ faces off a brick wall, and certainly Belfast is in no short supply of such brick walls, but the movies forget to add the stint of jail time attached to fucking up these scum bags, regardless of the fact that the interventionist was acting solely in the interests of the innocent. Does the law need changed? I do believe so. Many a good man has gone off to jail for an unt0ld number of years for lashing out in bravery at the scum bags of our our lands. Sometimes you have to weigh up the consequences for your actions.
As they poured their alcohol into the man’s cup, i was glad to see that the man turned the whole situation around and said “thanks very much”, drinking the quart cup of alcohol and letting the stupid weasels traipse down into the darkness of where they’d come from. I’m sure the homeless man knew this was the best policy, as no one had physically been harmed, yet in terms of pride i’m sure it was hard to swallow.
We all knew that the homeless man was not given the booze as a kind gesture. He’d suffered the kind of verbal abuse that no man should have had to endure. That’s why i felt compelled to create a video to appeal to people to keep your poor brother’s and sisters in mind. It grieved me and indeed it grieves me still that i didn’t wipe the faces of those fucking little arseholes across the brick walled terraces that they skulked down into, yet i am trying, as a spiritual personm, to abide by the cosmic laws. Sadly nothing short of a combat knife between the ribs would stop those kinds of idiots it seems, but i still, however naively, want to believe differently.
James
Yet another of those books which took a lifetime in the making (ok, well, thirty years to be precise…i hope i still have a long ways to go yet in this life), It begins with my “vision” of seeing Hell at about the age of six and the fears that came along with that, though i would like to point out here that it was not a “23 minutes in Hell Bill Wiese type adventure”. I am not a sensationalist out to steal all your money. Instead i’ve opted for total honesty, regardless of if people want that sort of thing or not anymore. On the other hand It also documents my *ahem* fundamentalism and how i hated the world and everything in it. Yes, sorry people but on various occasions i wanted you all to burn. It didn’t matter if i knew you or not, i wanted you torched…but it’s ok because i got better, right? :O
Here’s an introductory video of my new book “Losing my Fundamentalism”
How would i describe my book in this blog though? I could just copy and paste the same description i wrote on Smashwords the way others have done, but since this is my blog and i am excited about and proud of the book, i’ll let the readers here have a sample read (other than the regular sample at Smashwords). This is a section called “Reteaching My Mind”
“In most religions, it is desirable to let go of ego, to find either a spiritual existence, or Supreme Being. While letting go of ego has its benefits, I feel there is no real benefit in trying to suppress the ego with slander and self-defeatist negative words. None of us really like an egotistical person, but there is a difference between putting an egotistical person in their place and outright destroying every shred of self-appreciation that they have. When I began to look into psychology and how what we tell ourselves affects our gait, our mood and even how we perceive the world around us, I began to see that what many of the Christians were doing (and possibly other religions too) was learning how to develop a pitiful servant attitude. Words like “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me” in the hymn amazing grace, reinforced in our minds that we were wretched horrible creatures. This would be certainly helpful information for a young shy teenager when he was to try and remind himself that peggy sue, the girl from next door, really had every reason to like his personality (I am being sarcastic of course, but sadly the reality of it is no laughing matter). Other much-loved expressions like “our good works are like filthy rags to the lord” instilled great confidence in those who were trying to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to an unconscious person. Words like “vile” “evil” “wicked” and “sinful” “abominations” gave us a very colourful description of who we were alleged to be. Heaven forbid we may have a shred of self-appreciation as we try to meet the world with a positive gait and attitude. The mind is very responsive to what we tell ourselves that we are. The mind, I feel, is a combination of both brain and the soul, and while the brain part helps us function in day-to-day life; the brain dies upon death as it is made of organic matter. The soul lives on; often it is seen, with knowledge of what happened in its life previously. I feel therefore, it is the mind, a combination of both brain and soul that “reads” what we input into our selves by way of both thought and verbal utterances.
In hindsight, I am not completely surprised that the Holy Spirit did not “stick” with me in my youth. If the Holy Spirit were truly holy, it would be repelled by such negative mood swings that occupied my mind. Again, I am not surprised that I had such a negative outlook on life either. I think it’s perfectly natural to grow bitter at a world you once believed to be falling into an eternal fire by the thousands, every single day. It is difficult knowing that you are letting one person roast for eternity (billions x billions of years would seem minuscule in comparison to eternity since it has no end), never mind the thousands you may never reach. I was always told that all of this wasn’t my responsibility, and that only the ones in my vicinity should be my concern. This did not ease my conscience any, considering the fact that most of the countries that had very little knowledge of Christianity either treated Christians very badly, or even banned preaching and the practice of Christianity altogether. Knowing that much of the Middle East was “doomed” along with the Far East, well, how does a real Christian sleep at night? Like I say, I considered myself a genuine Christian, doing pretty much everything by the book. The concept of Hell was at the forefront of my mind; unlike most Christians seem to have nowadays. I guess they are aware of the concept, but it is too unfathomable, especially when it collides with “real” life, the physical one that you see and live and date and enjoy with friends at the cinema.”
So there you have it. Just a little bit of my story. This was a part chosen, as you may have guessed, after i had awoken from my angry confused hate filled stupor as a fundamentalist Christian. I was finally ready to embrace the world, imperfect, even shallow as it was, but still ready to care nonetheless.
My book is on sale at smashwords.com as an ebook for 4 dollars
