TONY ON BURN UP, STORM & MORE

Including Manic Monday and ReadWritePoem.
Have you had a go yet?

Welcome to my Monday Magazine post.
Following one of the worst Labour losses in a By-election in decades, rumours are filling the UK media of the end days for the ‘esteemed leader’, Gordon Brownski. A man who never smiled, he seems to have a permanent one now – which is worrying in itself.

He is a disaster of a Prime Minister.

His incompetence is finally clear, and he is also unlucky, which should seal his fate. And as MPs go off for their summer breaks, the country awaits their return in the Autumn, and a round of politics as good as anything Machiavelli could have invented.
It will be interesting to see if he survives as leader until Christmas. But don’t take the Conservative’s cry for an election seriously. The last thing they want is to get in power now. Not with a recession coming. Brit politics should be interesting soon.

BBC2 screened an interesting thriller last week in Burn Up.

Starring Rupert Penry-Jones and Marc Warren, it was from the Spooks team, and concerned everything oil. I won’t give away the plot, ‘cos it may be being screened overseas.
Suffice to say, I found it excellent, and it ranged through all our fears of an oil-based economy. But one message near the end is worth pointing out. And yes, I know it was only fiction. But interesting nonetheless. Of course, if you don’t want to know, don’t read the last paragraph.
Basically, the US government secretly accepts man-made global warming, and are encouraging it. The military option for world domination is too expensive. So let environmental chaos wreck economies, countries and cut back on populations. Being the most powerful, the US administration will be the last man standing, and domination will be complete.
Rubbish, of course, but a thought. How many super-rich megalomaniacs secretly harbouring this thought would it take for things to turn out this way?
Tuesday, an essay on morality. Next Magazine post, Wednesday.

© Anthony North, July 2008

THE STORY OF LOVE

This is the story of the love of a girl,
by a man who’s life began to unfurl,
when he saw this vision of beauty true,
smitten – to his previous life, adieu

Her name was love, and he felt it inside,
so powerful it was, it could not be denied,
when she was not there he could not be complete,
yet little did he know he had to compete

Love was too powerful for only one man,
so many, after her, they ran and ran,
and each thought love was their ultimate dream,
startled by that omnipotent beam

The time came to pass when it was over for love,
peace went away, deserted by the dove,
and man fought man for the ultimate prize,
one fell down – dead, said his eyes

So love turned from something good to bad,
it is always so, isn’t it sad?
Jealousies, desires, stir in the pot,
and man’s existence – turmoil his lot

Wisdom does, of course, decree,
that lessons will be learnt by you and me,
yet although love deserted them all,
it was soon back, assisting man’s Fall

(c) Anthony North, July 2008

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THE STORM – Fiction

How do I explain what happened the night of the storm? Not the big one of last year – the REALLY big one – but this year; which, let’s face it, was big enough!
Lightning lit up the cliffs. Peter and I watched from the window of the house. We had been discussing him coming back into the firm after his latest bout of depression. I knew he had lost his wife in last year’s storm, and this must be particularly hard for him. The landscape, constantly crackling out of the darkness, seemed to add to the surreal nature of it all.
Peter stopped the discussion when he suddenly pointed outside and said: ‘Look!’
At first, I only saw darkness, but at the next flash I saw her, too. A woman, out there, alone. And then she began to run towards the cliffs.
I hadn’t known Peter that long, so I was shocked to see him run out of the house, chasing her, trying to stop her. I followed, shouting, ‘no!’ But it was only when he failed to return, and I made some calls, that I understood that it seemed to be history repeating itself.
Except, this time, it wasn’t his wife’s body found at the bottom of the cliffs, but his.
‘But I wonder what happened to the girl?’ the policeman said after we returned to the house.
I wondered myself – until I saw the photo on the sideboard. I guess I believe in ghosts, now. The woman I saw was his wife.

© Anthony North, July 2008

HOW TO EXPLAIN PSYCHIC CHILDREN

Paranormal literature is full of cases of psychic children. A poltergeist is almost certain to have a child at the centre of activity, and visions of the Virgin Mary are famous for involving children.
Go back to the days of the Witchhunts and you often read of children being easiest to bewitch, and many accusations of witchcraft came from children ‘affected’ by the supposed witch’s spells.

Can a study of children be of value to research?

By looking at the mentality within the child, can we identify elements that show the optimum state of mind for a psychic event to occur? Perhaps it can.
The sceptic will obviously jump straight in, here, and advise us that children are merely more fantasy-prone. Their minds believe more in wonder, so they are more easily conned by a trick, or even an illusion.

This is quite true.

But simply because such factors can be identified, it does not mean the subject is closed. For instance, many children have ‘imaginary’ friends. Do we just leave the subject alone by saying, ‘oh well’?
Of course not. We attempt to discover why this is so. And the obvious question to ask is this: does the average childhood mentality allow the mind to access something that is more remote from the adult?

I’ve often pondered a central sceptic’s criticism of phenomena.

If paranormality was real, why don’t we experience it all the time? And I think an answer can come from an understanding of the human mind.
We are said to have evolved from nature. Yet what is often ignored is the possibility of psychological evolution running alongside the physical. If we were part of nature, then chances are our drives were instinctual.

This would not have required the ability to think as we do today.

However, just as we evolved physically due to technology, I think the same holds for the mind. In effect, by using technology, we were required to ‘concentrate’ on a task at hand.
This would be an ability above instinct. And in order to concentrate, we have to clear the mind of all unrelated factors. Could this have caused the creation of a distinct conscious and unconscious mind – the former to allow concentration on the world; the latter, a repository for memory not required at that moment?
Evolution is thus applied to the mind. And we can argue that instinct was retained in the unconscious, whilst increasing technology, and the information it produces, would expand the conscious and move the unconscious further away from conscious thought.
Such a mind model explains why the paranormal is not experienced as a norm. Residing in the unconscious, it is only accessed when outside information declines, allowing the unconscious to move closer to conscious thought.
But it also shows that the more outside information we deal with, the less psychic we become. Hence, education, work – adult activity in general – becomes inhibiting to paranormal phenomena – unless, of course, they are of a mystical bent, thus being able to cut off outside information through meditation, etc; or retain the sense of wonder of a child.

© Anthony North, July 2008