PARANORMAL FLASH – SIX

Friday Flash 55 and 3 Word Wednesday
Have you had a go?

PARANORMAL FLASH

Six – FutureNow

So far in this study certain factors are arising. First of all, culture
seems to play an important part in what is paranormal. Second, far
more information enters the mind than we consciously realize. And
finally, the ‘tags’ we use for a particular phenomenon hide the fact
that there could be ‘mechanisms’ that can answer many phenomena.

Could these elements provide
an answer for premonition?

We can ‘see’ the future in many ways. Typical is the precognitive
dream, where a person dreams of a coming major disaster. However,
looking at the literature of such abilities, they usually arise when
there are fears in society of a particular kind of disaster. Hence,
culture predisposes the dreamer to dream such things. We can
combine this with chance. On any night in the UK, for instance,
there will be well over a quarter million nightmares. Combine this fact
with cultural disposition and it is statistically inevitable that some
people will have nightmares that can be accurately compared to a
disaster that occurs a few days later.

Other premonitions are
more personal.

A typical case will be of someone dreaming of an explosion and, in a
half-awake state, taking action to remove themselves and family from
the scene. Moments later, the building blows up following a gas leak.
To answer this and similar cases perhaps we need to look at the wider
information we unconsciously receive about our environment. So
unconsciously the mind registers gas. A dream image surfaces into the
mind, makes the person restless, and just conscious enough to act
upon the information. Of course, these ideas do not cover all of
premonition – we will return to the subject later – but it begins to
suggest that what we class as a premonition is nothing more than
unconscious analysis of the present.

Other Posts

WORLD NEWS: Afghan strategy is
coming in for much criticism, in the UK as
well as the rest of the world. It all comes down
to what we’re really there for. If we’re there to keep
the terrorist camps shut, it’s a sensible goal. If we’re there
to build a democratic state, we’re interferring too much and it’s
destined to fail.

BRIT NEWS: The BBC’s decision to have the British National Party
leader on Question Time is forcing Labour to rethink their
policy of not debating with the extreme right wing.
For once the BBC have done something right.
Labour’s feeling of superiority in thinking
their ideas cannot be challenged is
not as vile as the BNP, but not
far behind.

STRATEGIC SUCCESS

Fiction: It was mayhem. The noise erupted all around me, flashes
lighting up the dark. At first disorientated, I acclimatized myself –
moved forward towards the target. I passed bodies moving from one
surreal pose to another as they writhed. I wondered how long they
could last. The target was surrounded by various obstacles. Using all
the tactics available, I negotiated through them, leaving many
defeated men in my wake. And finally I was there. At first I just
stared, weighing up the best moves and then I went into action. The
target was easier to disarm than I first thought. And within minutes
we left the club. Went to her flat – to engage.

FLASH 55 – GOING HOME

Fiction: He walked down his street – passed
the houses. Thoughts invaded his mind; of his
friends – his neighbours. He looked at their
houses. Remembered how it had been. Affair
in that one. The next? Divorce. The one after
that? Murder. He approached his own house.
Opened the gate. Walked up the path. Paused.
Thought. Walked away.

© Anthony North, September 2009

PARANORMAL FLASH – FIVE

Friday Flash 55 and Three Word Wednesday
Have you had a go?

PARANORMAL FLASH

Five – Discarnate, or What?

When a mind intrusion occurs, such as a reincarnated person or
contact with the dead by a medium, we can rationally say it does
not involve existing dead entities. But to do so, we must try to
understand where the invasions come from. Two factors are vital.
Why does the entity appear so real? Where does the sometimes
accurate information come from?

Brain physiology can offer an
answer to the first.

In the split-brain concept we know that the two cerebral hemispheres
of the brain can have opposing function. The left brain tends to be
the rationalist, whilst the right brain is the fantasist, adding emotion,
artistry, etc. We live in the left brain most of the time, but it has
been argued that the right brain can often intrude. When it does, it
can appear like a discarnate voice or entity. To the creative type,
this is the muse – the centre of inspiration. To others, immersed in a
different type of culture, it could well be seen as the voice of the
dead. But what about the information an entity can convey?

We live in a world of information
without realizing it.

Indeed, we only ‘remember’ information upon which we focus our
attention. Yet, the rest of this information does not disappear.
Rather, it seems it goes straight into the unconscious. In a
phenomenon know as Cryptomnesia this information can rise into
consciousness. And it can be quite startling. Cases of reincarnation
have been traced to novels, films or articles, sometimes with errors
intact. In one case a Swedish girl remembered a Medieval song in
Old English from a book she simply flicked through in a library. When
regressed hypnotically to remember a past life, the song attached
to the life, colouring a fantasized entity with fact. And cryptomnesia
can go on to answer so much more …

Other Posts

MEDIA NEWS: Murdoch Jr has
given a speech in the UK slanging
the BBC as state sponsored journalism
which is impeding media. I’d like to agree with
him but I can’t. When ‘free’ media is controlled globally
by a handful of Big Biz propagandists with a united agenda, I’d
rather keep an outlet with a different agenda to keep the balance.

TV WATCH: I watched the new ITV adaptation of Wuthering
Heights at the weekend. The greatest love story ever,
Peter Bowker’s adaptation was first class. Cathy
and Heathcliff were played to perfection by
Charlotte Riley and Tom Hardy, and Sarah
Lancashire was excellent as Nelly Dean.
So often TV adaptations fail to grab
me, but I thoroughly enjoyed this.

THE LUSTER

The Luster is a predatory sort,
Sexual threats he turns into sport,
Always recounting his latest conquest,
Problem is, people glare and detest;
His salacious ways make them baulk,
Meaning, of course, he’s usually all talk

FLASH 55 – THE INFORMANT

Fiction: Don’t call me an informer. I don’t like it. It’s not fair. We have
to speak out, and there’s nothing negative about it. He did it. He did!
I was there. I saw it all. AND I suffered. I really did. Yes I DO know
the code. We don’t tell. But he did it … Mom!!!

THE THREAT

Don’t we just love a treat,
Things that lustre, or to drink or eat;
Problem is they are usually bad,
To resistance we glare; be so sad,
So we indulge, never mind the regret,
Forgetting an ‘h’ in treat is threat

THE GLARE

Oh, what a lovely glare,
I stand silently – but what of despair?
At first it never seemed a threat,
Beautiful lustre – yet …
Now for relief I can but hope,
In the mirror I glare – see sunburn; a dope

© Anthony North, September 2009

PARANORMAL FLASH – FOUR

Friday Flash 55, 3 Word Wednesday and 3 Word Thursday
Have you had a go?

PARANORMAL FLASH

Four – Communal Psyche

When discussing supposed Possessions of the mind by outside entities
– previous incarnations; the medium in contact with the dead – we
must first decide what elements of personality are INSIDE the mind.
At first this seems simple – the ‘self’, the individual – but it’s not that
clear cut.

Jung noted that we seem to share
a ‘collective unconscious’.

Symbols are shared through the species, including character types, or
archetypes, such as the Sage, Mother, Child, Judge, Hero or
Trickster. Campbell showed how such archetypes appear universally
in myth, despite culture. Yet what we actually have in the archetypes
are expressions of our various character types. Myths, it seems, are
our minds writ large.

We can say similar
for emotions.

Whilst they may vary in intensity, and be expressed for personal
reasons dependent upon the individual, emotions are also
characteristics of the species. So what can this tell us about the
individual? We can argue that, rather than being an entity in its own
right, the individual is actually an amalgam of species traits. Hence,
rather than having an exact ‘self’, we all have a little piece of a
communal psyche. Hence, we can not be sure what is ‘inside’ or
‘outside’ the personal mind. Rather, we are fragments of the
collective. And bearing this in mind, it becomes much easier than
we presently believe for a fantasized entity to temporarily reshape
those fragments into another ‘personality’. But from where could
the ‘information’ for such a possession come?

Other Posts

GREEN NEWS: Farmers in ancient
times have been blamed for adding to
climate change by their mass use of burning
fields. Yes, our ancestors often did things counter
to the global good. One big difference, though. They knew
no better. We do!

BRIT NEWS: Questions being asked whether this govt cares
for our troops at all. Of course they don’t. Labour has
a tradition of anti-war, so when war cannot be
avoided, it is natural to ignore the
consequences as much as
possible.

FRACTURED LOVE

Fiction: I guess I knew it would happen. It had to. Jung would have
called it Synchronicity – meaningful coincidences are bound to happen
– with a hint of Serendipity if you really want them to. And I wanted
that nurse. So many times I’d tried to chat her up but every time my
hopes vanished. It wasn’t that she didn’t like me, I was sure. After all,
we know these things. No, it was more a matter of my reputation. I
guess I’d made a lot of noise in certain quarters – a bit of a villain.
But the night finally arrived. It was a nasty arm fracture. A lot of
pain, but I’d made it to casualty and I’d had it set and plastered, and
now here I was in the waiting room, waiting for discharge, my nurse
hovering close, hushing about, doing her work – and I’m sure her
occasional looks my way suggested she was feeling for me. Anyway,
that’s when the louts came in – started knocking the place about,
threatening my NURSE. Well, broken arm or not, I went into action,
and soon they were running off, bloodied. And the nurse? Well, she
fell into my arm. Yep, Jung would call it Synchonicity; though I’d call
it £200 for the louts and a lot of courage, breaking my arm like that.

FLASH 55 – THE DESTROYER

Fiction: She’d seen other men die during her
career. Her ambition drove her on, to pessundate.
She leant over the bed and pulled back the
operiment. Watching him, she took out the hypo
and injected him, the words going through her
mind: destroy, destroy, DESTROY!!! Then the nurse
sat down, praying this would kill the infection.

pessundate – destroy
operiment – cover

© Anthony North, August 2009

PARANORMAL FLASH – THREE

Friday Flash 55, 3 Word Wednesday and 3 Word Thursday
Have you had a go?

PARANORMAL FLASH

Three – Minds Possessed

We think of reincarnation and mediumship as separate phenomena.
One is said to produce an incarnation of a previous life, the other
involving contact with the dead. But could it be that the only
difference is culture?

An incarnation can come
in two ways.

Knowledge of a previous life can come into the mind, or the person
can be hypnotized, the therapist asking if other lives are in there.
Interestingly, when this phenomenon was first realized, incarnations
were best produced by a therapist who believed reincarnation was
possible. Hence, a form of transference could occur, similar to false
memory syndrome. And as culture became accepting of the ability,
such incarnations appear more and more. This cultural aspect is
equally valid with mediumship, where an entity comes into the mind
of the medium. Yet this exact process has changed culturally over
time. In the deep past the medium accessed nature spirits; later,
culture decided they were demons; with spiritualism, the dead took
centre stage; and today channellers access discarnate entities or
alien lifeforms. Culture seems to be the primary factor, as if it is
controlling the person.

Psychology can offer a possible
culprit for such intrusions.

In the case of multiple personality, the mind can seem to fragment
into separate, seemingly outside, entities. The process is exact, and
interestingly, literature of the phenomenon shows that sometimes the
entities can appear as suggested by a therapist, as if he is defining
a new culture for the person. Indeed, the process could be easier to
achieve than we think. As we shall see next time, your personality
may not be yours.

Other Posts

SCIENCE NEWS: NASA adsvises
it cannot track all asteroids that could
be a threat due to insufficient funds. This
doesn’t surprise me. Infact, I remember reading
a while back that with a ‘citybuster’ meteor it would
be cheaper to let it hit and clean it up rather than pay to
prevent it.

BRIT NEWS: Martin Bell and ex-Beirut hostage Terry Waite team
up to campaign for a return to honest politics. This is good
to see. People are beginning to stand up against the
totalitarianism and abuses of the Party system.
They degrade true democracy.

DECAY

Entropy, the arrow of time,
Decay giving life a rhyme,
Graceful in its orderly way,
Riotous disorder underlaid,
With how it will always be,
You cannot escape entropy

FLASH 55 – FIRST LOVE

Fiction: Tadpole had two disadvantages. He was ugly and he was
young. But he just couldn’t get her out of his mind. He pleaded for
a date, but she wouldn’t acquiesce. Indeed, she would viliorate him
constantly. He wanted to know why. She thought of kissing a prince
and said: ‘Come back when you’re a frog.’

viliorate – denigrate

RIOT

Grievance comes, people protest,
Riot against what they detest,
Police are waiting, batons drawn,
Graceful bystanders feel forlorn,
Forces merge, battle it out,
Societal decay, rule of the lout

GRACEFUL

Proud I am, this is me,
No riotous behaviour will you see,
No decay within the mind,
No lowering of standards will you find,
Graceful in everything I do,
Except, that is, when I visit the loo

© Anthony North, August 2009

PARANORMAL FLASH – TWO

Find Friday Flash 55 below
Have you had a go?

PARANORMAL FLASH

Two – Evolved Consciousness

If the paranormal exists, why don’t we experience it all the time?
There’s a hint from the state of mind of many experiencers. Events
are more likely to happen if the person is tired, distracted – even in
the dream state – in other words, when they are released from
information in the real world.

This ties in with meditation, where
a greater knowing is achieved by
cutting out the material world.

They speak of ‘oneness’ with all, as if they’ve reached a wider form
of communality. And a paranormal event usually involves such
communality – with others or the environment. In the past people
seemed to be closer to this oneness, hence a greater belief in, and
experience of, paranormal events – whereas today it seems to be on
the wane. And I think this is all to do with concentration. We are
different to other species because of our technology, and essential
to this is the ability to place information out of conscious thought in
order to allow us to concentrate on a task in hand.

In other words, we needed a
repository for things we can
temporarily forget.

I’d argue that this is the point where the conscious and unconscious
mind evolved – and as our technology increased, producing more
information, the unconscious grew further away from the conscious.
Alongside this evolving mind came the idea of individuality, the
opposite of communality, so we can argue that communality is an
aspect of the unconscious rather than conscious, thus removing
paranormality from normal experience. However, when outside
information is reduced, the conscious and unconscious could move
closer, allowing a hint of paranormality to intrude into consciousness.

Other Posts

BRIT NEWS: Govt begins a debate
on food security. Can we protect our food
in case of emergency? Bit late to ask that question,
now we’ve decimated our agriculture and are reliant on imports.

BRIT NEWS: As many as 1 in 78 adults could have had some form
of police or local authority snooping against them. This
need to know is now approaching paranoia. We
should be asking if a government can
suffer from mental illness.

FLASH 55 – BODY BEAUTIFUL

Fiction: She knew she had to change. Her present body was so
deficient. Curves in the wrong places; too much weight; and she
needed a complete facial transformation. She felt good as she went
to sleep, knowing it was the right thing to do. And later, the butterfly
felt proud, for only natural change is beautiful.

LIFE SWAP

Swap a life – fed up of this,
Need new adventures, people to enlist,
‘Cos nothing’s so bad as it is right now,
New horizons – furrows – need to be ploughed;
Just a minute, let’s try to think this out,
Change attitude! Get real! Do you hear me shout?

© Anthony North, August 2009

PARANORMAL FLASH – ONE

Find Three Word Wednesday below
Have you had a go?

PARANORMAL FLASH

One – Introduction

I’ve spent over a quarter century writing on and researching the
paranormal. I thought it was time I tried to pull all the strands of my
ideas together – and do it in a Flash format. I’m not sure how long
this series will go on for, but once or twice a week, it could be a few
months.

A paranormal event is being experienced now
not far from where you are.

Note, I said paranormal and not supernatural. I highlight the difference
because I don’t think other-worldly forces are involved. Rather, it
seems to me that we are dealing with a wider, and rational
psychology not yet fully understood by science.
A major stumbling block to understanding is the preponderance of
labels attached to the subject. We speak of ghosts, of reincarnation,
telepathy, the poltergeist and a host more. To me, these are not
causes, but effects of the forces at work in paranormal phenomena.
This will become clear as the series progresses. But some will say: why
bother? Is it a subject that deserves importance? Yes, it is! Infact,
I’m convinced that an understanding of the paranormal can add
greatly to human experience – and not understanding it leads to many
problems we seem to be unable to overcome. Hope you stick around.

Other Posts

BRIT NEWS: Bank chief says high
bonuses must stay, and they’re in the
taxpayers interest. I assume he means this
encourages bankers to do well. Have they totally
forgotten the ethic of service?

HEALTH NEWS: Ferility test proposed for women at 30
as parenthood is delayed. If we ever manage to
break the ridiculous cycle of matrerial career
and success that leads to boom and bust,
children may become primary again.

THE JINXSTER

Fiction: He knew straight away he’d qualify. It was a new game show,
designed to find the most pitiful jinx. Of course, there were many
unlucky people, but they wanted the ultimate for this show. He
certainly fitted the bill, and he captured the audience’s attention
straight away, beating the other contestants hands down. And it was
predictable that he won. Which was when the reality struck. Won?
How? It was as the audience began shouting ‘cheat!’ that they
realized this was a show jinxed to never appear again.

THE STALKER

Wherever I go he’s always there,
In my face without a care,
He shrinks my world to one of fear,
Every time I feel him near,
Reminding me always of my faults,
Conscience gives a terrible jolt

© Anthony North, August 2009

REINCARNATION

Find current affairs & prompts below.

Mary Lurancy Vennum. a thirteen year old girl, lived in
Watseka, Illinois in 1877. Following a fit, she woke up
claiming to be a neighbour’s dead daughter, Mary Roff.
For four months she literally became the dead girl before
reverting to her former self.

This is one of the most famous cases of reincarnation. Typical was Dorothy Eady, who became convinced she was an ancient Egyptian. She moved to Egypt to live the life of her previous incarnation in a small village until her death in 1981. Jenny Cockell from Northamtonshire had dreams from a child about ‘Mary’ who lived close to Dublin. In the late 1980s she located the woman, who had died in 1932, and met her children.
Reincarnation is the belief that people live many lives, the soul transferring to another upon death. Centred around eastern religions, the belief can be traced back to early tribal societies, who lived according to the cycles of nature.
This understanding of ‘cycles’ could lie at the heart of the belief, with everything in eastern religions being cyclical. Therefore it is obvious that such cycles would intrude upon beliefs in life after death.
Dr Ian Stevenson researched many eastern cases from the 1960s onwards. Typical of such cases is Kumari Shanti Devi, born in Delhi in 1926.As a girl she claimed to be the wife of Kedar Nath Chaubey, a hundred miles away. Taken to his village, she had accurate information about this previous life.
Evidence of reincarnation can come in two forms. Typically, as seen, a child can awake and seem to have knowledge of a previous life. Often the facts are confirmed, but could similarly arise from hearing of a dead person and taking the facts into the mind.
The second form is evidence grasped from past life regression during hypnosis. However, it is often the case that such previous lives are only gained when hypnotized by a therapist who believes in the phenomenon. Has he transferred the belief on?
One explanation for the correct information that can be given is cryptomnesia. This is the ability of the mind to remember facts from films, books, etc, that you seem to have ‘forgotten.’ When remembered, they ally themselves to a believed previous life.
A typical case is that of Jane Evans who, in the 1970s, recounted six previous lives. One was of Livonia from York when the future Constantine the Great lived there. The accurate facts were eventually traced to a novel by Louis de Wohl.
A related phenomenon to supposed reincarnation could be multiple personality. Here, a person’s mind fragments into many different characters which take it in turn to take over the body. A combination of this and cryptomnesia could account for much of what we think of as reincarnation.

First posted: Dec 08. I’ve done two deeper studies on the subject:

Minds From Other Times
Life Before This

Inde-Pol

BRIT NEWS: So now some candidates
for Speaker face expenses fiasco. Oh, what
have you done to a proud institution you foolish
excuses for Parliamentarians!

GREEN NEWS: Some Big Biz has plans to power Europe from
clean African energy. Seems a good idea, but it does, of
course, guarantee Big Biz stays big.

TV WATCH: I’m fed up of the new ‘family’ on TV,
all PC, never angry, speak to kids like
adults, health freaks. Don’t lie.
They don’t exist!

Carry On Tuesday
Heads or Tails
Poetry Train

FOOLISH

Fiction: Foolish! You would have understood me, had you waited;
given it time – worked it out. But no, you had to go your own way;
express your individuality; do your own thing. Never mind all the
warnings. Never mind the idea that there was more to life than you.
You became the centre of your ‘self’, and that was that. And I was
forgotten, ridiculed – killed off! You had to go your own way. Well, it
has an inevitable outcome – you’ll see that it’s true. Then you’ll want
me back, to care, to cherish you, to be with you. Yes, soon you’ll
need religion once more.

SUMMER YOUTH

Kick the ball, shatter glass,
Didn’t mean to do it, since you asked;
Such an affront, another fight,
Now, now! No need to bite;
A bit of fun, winding people up,
Copper! Thwack! I’ve been cuffed;
Today, I suppose this will all be crime,
In latter days, it was fine

© Anthony North, June 2009

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WE THE UNIVERSE

Click The ‘Y’ Files for more essays in this series

Knowledge and paranormal research seem to be
involved in a clash that appears to offer no solution.
On both sides the trenches have been dug and an
intellectual no-man’s land lies desolate and ghostly.

Why is this? Many will tell you that it is due to there being no rational theories behind paranormal activity. I disagree, but here I want to turn the tables and look to the nature of knowledge itself to see if an answer can be found here.
Knowledge is more than an answer to a question; more than understanding in a particular field. Whatever the nature of the prevalent knowledge, this filters out of a specialised field to become the way of society.
This is so because within knowledge lies power. And the people who control knowledge at any point in history have usually defined the power base of the society the knowledge reflects. And it is all to do with how we see the universe.
In prehistoric times knowledge seems to have been animistic with a physical and spiritual world in parallel. This created spirituality based fundamentally within nature, and all society did reflected the ‘pact’ man had to make with nature.
With the Agricultural Revolution, society became more complex. Man had made inroads into nature, and this was reflected in the rise of Ego in the God-King. The spiritual expression moved away from nature and became a regulator of society.
The natural outcome of this was Monotheism. The previous God-Kings manipulated the parallel spirit world to their political agenda. In Christ, this spirit world was cut off from the human, with Christ being the only One who communicated directly with God.
From this point on there was only the physical world, the spirit world being something you went to upon death. The Afterlife became separate to human experience, requiring us to live a good life in the physical to gain suitable entry upon death.
We can see in the above a constant shift from a parallel spirituality to becoming locked in a purely physical world. With the rise of science, this physical world was defined, given man’s laws, and became mechanistic.
And with the human showing he could understand this physical universe, such laws transferred to society in terms of laws of human interaction. The Enlightenment was with us, and the resultant flowering of rational philosophy, taking the spiritual from society to the individual.
Finally, with Einstein’s relativity, our view of the universe shifted once more, making life relative, and into this knowledge structure came surrealism, relativist history and ‘do your own thing’; and everything became relative to everything else.
Throughout this history of thought, the interaction of the popular paranormal changed in kind. Moving from the animistic nature spirits, Ego caused the proliferation of man-based superbeings, remembered as the great myths.
Monotheism birthed the Devil and his demons. As science and the individual gained ground, the paranormal became man based in the vampire or ghost. And as relativity grew, the alien and UFO burst into popular consciousness.
Yet there was also a paranormal flip side to the process. Animistic powers survived Ego with the soothsayer or Augur. Witchcraft survived Monotheism. Science caused the rise of the western occult tradition. Yet the relativity phase caused a clinging to mechanistic models as anti-paranormal influence in the rise of the sceptic.
In each of these cases, a counter-culture grew to the obvious way the knowledge/power base should have gone, based on the previous paradigm. And this intellectual counter-culture is presently terrifying science into submission in the same way that earlier expressions cast a shadow in previous knowledge systems.
Until science wakes up and fights the influence of the sceptics, knowledge will not advance. For as this history has also shown, the paranormal has always been with us, and deserves rational study.

© Anthony North, June 2009

TONY ON TELEPATHY

Including Friday Flash 55, Totally Optional Prompts and Three Word Thursday.
Have you had a go yet?

WEIRD OBS ORG

Telepathy

Telepathy is thought to involve mind to mind contact, best evidenced
by a person’s name coming into the mind, and moments later they
phone you or you bump into them. Most tests for telepathy show a
slight statistical bias above chance for the ability, but sceptics
constantly question the methodology involved. But could something
else be involved?

The mind takes in more of the world than
we consciously realise. Most of this information
goes to the unconscious.

However, over an average day in a city, a person can unconsciously
input thousands of conversations and actions. Could the mind work
like a computer, analysing this knowledge, and when it finds a bit of
information relevant to a point in time, send it to the conscious that
a particular person had planned to be there, too? This would seem
to be telepathy. Click here and scroll down for a general survey of
telepathy, and here for more on the above theory.

My Columnists

EDITORIAL

This post is in two parts – newspaper and
magazine. Read either or both. It is also
a debating platform, so do join in. Don’t
forget to call again.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

The ‘Y’ Files – Choose an Essay

Inde-Politics & Socio-Capitalism

BRIT NEWS: As senior Labour members
are sacked or ‘quit’, Brown urged to take control.
We are witnessing something dying here. Go! Go! Go!!!

TECH NEWS: Constant chatter on social networking is damaging
idea of compassion, say scientists. Something we have to
certainly be aware of.

BRIT NEWS: Church of England turning away trainee clergy
as financial crisis costs them £1.3bn. I seem to recall
something about traders at the temple.

Call back Sat for more NewsFlash

THE CRIME POST

It would be criminal not to read it

True Crime – Crime Fiction

UNEXPECTED VISITOR

Invited in; they know it’s you,
Nothing here but loyalty true;
What’s that you spy? You want one of those!
This is how the intruders impose,
Jealousy, envy – you feel distress,
Those emotions rising that you detest;
You fight it; you have to; it isn’t the way,
When the unexpected visitor’s in your mind to waylay

FLASH 55 – SEEING THE LIGHT

‘Crime is not evil,’ said the criminologist. There was general
disagreement – until he showed the examples. The first was a
modern city, lawful by day, but at night, the lights out, crime
increased in the dark. The second was an ancient settlement
where, at night, the fear of evil kept them all in their beds.

LAKESIDE
(Quilly’s word meanings below)

It was risible but the fish seemed fat. I was stagnicolous, floating
in the lake by Larry. We often went for a swim here, expecially
when we needed to cool off. We’d argued, you see, and Phil wasn’t
here to invigilate – which was bad. Larry had a temper. They’d
argued recently, too, and I was about to ask where Phil was when
my foot touched something soft. Then I said: Take your hands
off my thro … !!!

risible – laughable
stagnicolous – living in stagnant water
invigilate – keep watch

© Anthony North, June 2009

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American Sandwich
A story in 3 sentences of 17 syllables
Three Word Thursday
The words are: risible, invigilate, & stagnicolous
Tell a Tale
Competition now closed
Acrostic Only
Have you tried an acrostic yet?
Friday Flash 55
A weekly Flash 55 to be done here

TONY’S MUSE DIARY

Last Sunday night the UK’s Channel 5 featured 5 robot films back to
back. A full ten hours of nothing but robots, and Him Outside thought:
who in their right mind would watch all these? Well, the reality is,
quite a few people, and mainly under 30. It seems to be an evolving
mentality. Him Outside watched the first series of 24 and then vowed
never to watch it again. He classed it as obsession media. Now, I’m
an obsessive – but then again, I’m a muse. I can’t do anything else.
Him Outside is now and again over his writing, but he takes breaks –
does something else. But obsession seems to be encouraged
nowadays. Why is this? I guess it’s the natural outcome of a
specialised world, creating what can be best described as obsession
mentality. Which is rather handy for Big Biz. After all, obsessives buy,
buy, buy!!!

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TONY ON TOLERANCE

Including Friday Flash 55, Totally Optional Prompts and Three Word Thursday.
Have you had a go yet?

POLLY TICKS

Tolerance

Why is tolerance so difficult to achieve? I suppose because some
things we shouldn’t be tolerant about – murder, theft, rape, etc.
But in addition, what we judge as acceptable behaviour depends very
much on our knowledge, which also provides moral values. Hence, it
is so easy for our knowledge to class as immoral something that
shouldn’t be. We should always be aware of this intolerance.

My Columnists

EDITORIAL

This post is in two parts – newspaper and
magazine. Read either or both. It is also
a debating platform, so do join in. Don’t
forget to call again tomorrow.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Eye On the World – Choose an Essay

Inde-Politics & Socio-Capitalism

BRIT NEWS: Dept of Transport gathering
data on Heathrow runway critics while hushing
around in their jackslippers. Orwell does another turn.

HEALTH NEWS: Survey of surveys of tea says 3 cups a day lessens
risk of heart trouble and has possible anti-cancer effect. That makes
me immortal, then.

MAD BRITS: Health & Safety leaflet says wear earmuffs
when working with pigs as the noise can be
damaging. So loud it can make you
squeal, I guess.

Call back Sunday for more NewsFlash

PSI-WORLD

A small step into the dark

My Unexplained Sub-Domain

SONG OF THE DEAD

Wail of the Banshee, a frightening song,
Heard it!? Won’t be long,
Before you’re gone …
Sing another song

Wail of the loved, a sorrowful dirge,
Made it!? You’re on the verge,
With the dead you merge …
Sing another song

Wail of the frightened, a haunting tune,
Seen it!? It’s a full moon,
A ghostly croon ….
Sing another song

FLASH 55 – THE MESSAGE
Word meanings below

The medium picked up the pen, and let the spirit in. Amanuensis
was the plan. She was tyro, but soon scribbled away. By her, the
niddering stood, hoping to get an answer – why he felt so incomplete.
Suddenly the medium wrote the truth. Showed him what he had
written. At that, his ghost was gone.

Niddering – wretch
Amanuensis – person who writes what another dictates
Tyro – a beginner

VAMPIRE’S DILEMMA

So much pain, no respite,
To inflict, such delight;
But no more – it just isn’t right!

No matter how much I fight,
It’s no good, I cannot bite!
Must find a dentist who won’t take flight

© Anthony North, May 2009

SCRIBBLERS’ NEWS

Check out my Writers’ Tips posts

Keep up with the latest prompts and writing
news. Let me know of any new sites.

One Single Impression
The present prompt is: dropped
Heads or Tails
The prompt is: starting with ‘A’
Poefusion
You can usually find a poetry prompt here
Manic Monday
The word is: memorial
Poetry Train
Link any poem here

TONY’S MUSE DIARY

I recall when I first appeared in this mind. Him Outside had recently
come down with cfs and was searching for answers ‘cos the medics
couldn’t provide them. He picked up a book – Mankind In Amnesia by
Immanuel Velikovsky – and began reading. It was a book about
mankind repressing memories of catastrophe in the deep past. He’d
never read anything like this before, and even though the theory is
rubbish, it introduced him to all kinds of concepts – concepts that
have kept him going for over 25 years. And it introduced him to me,
‘cos up I popped into his mind and said hello. And there was a lot of
empty space in there, I can tell you.

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Keep up on alternative news or join a campaign.
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Friends of the Earth
Campaigning for the environment
Liberty
Promoting human rights in the UK

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and campaigns

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