Unpolished musings

On atheism. I consider new atheism defeated and pompous. You can derive a living spirituality from first principles and the nature of consciousness, understanding the role and value of myth and legend in shaping our collective psyche through history. So the metaphors and language and symbols of religion and spirituality have enormous power simply through their psychological reality. And all we can experience of the world comes to us as "psychological reality", so the life that legend and myth and religion and spirituality have within the collective psyche is the same kind of life as our normal experience of life.
So to just pretend it is all meaningless and without value is to grossly misunderstand yourself, your own own personal and psychological history, and to misunderstand the world.
Our subconscious mind forms gods out of the lives we live for none of us are separate from those around us and ideas and concepts are shared and can be bigger and older than any individual. It…

Signs you're in an emotionally abusive relationship. These are some related but different ways your emotions and experience of life might be invalidated or ignored by the other person in a relationship. Their feelings are regularly your fault, you're responsible for their emotions.When they have an emotional reaction to something the idea that they should do inner work on their character is a great affront and unreasonable.You have to modify your behaviour and character to be acceptable, parts of you they can't cope with are "bad".Their emotions are more important than yours, you don't have real feelings and should look after theirs more.The fact that you're not perfect and have made mistakes in life invalidates your point of view and feelings. You can't have an opinion on yourself or them until you're perfect.Little interest in understanding you as you are, much interest in changing your behaviour to match their expectations and desires.Their unde…

I'm a devotee of several religions, one of my favourites is Thelema which I describe like this: The pursuit of knowing and exercising your true will, in accordance with the great work, understanding that love is the law. Every person is a star. The two most important precepts of Thelema are: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.Love is the law, love under will. We choose to love.Both of these precepts are to do with will and both are to do with the law. The will is clearly of central importance to Thelema. To do your true will is to be the complete and actualised self, the sacred self. Doing your true will is as much about being all it is possible for you to be, the best and most powerful version of you, as it is about knowing what to do. What you do comes out of who you are and in turn shapes who you will become.
But what is the law of which the precepts speak and particularly what does it mean to say that love is the law? The beauty is that these precepts have an intuiti…

I went to visit my Dad today and spent about an hour talking to him before he got too tired. He's dying of cancer but as always he was in a cheerful mood. He told me a bit more of the story about his Dad who he never knew. His Mum hardly ever talked about him so what he knows comes from some of Granny's papers and my Dad's investigation after she died. He found a whole new branch of his family including Aunts and cousins and a Great Aunt Olive.
Before joining the RAF George William Curry worked for an insurance company called UKAPIAN. The only remnant of UKAPIAN now is one page on the website of Axa who ended up buying them, but they started life as a motor insurance company run by a temperance society. Teetotalers are good customers for a motor insurance company but there wasn't enough of them and UKAPIAN had to branch out. At any rate my Dad has George's beer tankard. My Dad's middle name is George, as is my brother David's middle name and my son Benjamin&…

Angels, and knowledge and conversation (K&C) with the Holy Guardian Angel, are important in the religion of Thelema and other mystical traditions. But what is, or could be, an angel?
Our idea of angels and the mythos and tradition of angelic beings largely originated in the Abrahamic religions. Far from the insipid creatures, or babies baring their bottoms, of picture postcards the angels were depicted as terrifying creatures of flame. They brought death and destruction, or great news, and sometimes walked amongst us. The Holy Guardian Angel, within Thelema at least, is an extension of the higher self and a connection with the divine. 
So what could an angel be, do we have to believe in the supernatural to think about them? Angels are myths and legends. Angels are ideas, thought forms. Angels are a part of history, part of our culture, part of our collective psyche and part of our reality through the way those legends emerged from the collective mind and how those stories went on to…

I had more money than I'd ever had before when I went to university. There were no tuition fees then and I got a student loan and a full grant because my dad had recently gone full time self employed and founded 4-sight consulting. Rent for digs at Corpus Christi College Cambridge were very reasonably priced although I never did get that room at old court. The new court is only 400 years old, the old court is 600 years old and is exquisite. The oldest courtyard in Cambridge I fell in love at first sight, past the alley with the bins.
In my first year I had a room off an alley off of new court. In my second year I had a room at Newnham court, where I went mad. Going mad was literally the worst thing I could possibly imagine. That's how it worked. That was my madness. And I hated myself for it. That part made perfect sense, for as far as I could tell everyone else hated me too. 
So now I always imagine that the best might be true, and I go for that. In as much as I am able. And wh…

JudgementDon't live under other people's judgements. Judging people is one of the worst character traits I know. I reserve judgement for those who judge and try to walk with compassion otherwise. Judging people is one of the ways we routinely and callously hurt each other. It's how we enforce social rules of one kind or another, and you know what I think of rules. It often presents as an outright refusal to see or acknowledge a different point of view.
Untangling yourself from other people's judgements, especially if you've taken them on over years, is very painful and hard. Particularly hard and painful if they won't see it of course. 
Then people judge you for rejecting their judgement. In that situation you actually cannot win, they're not interested in discussion only in being right. It's a standard character trait in most people, myself included of course, so it's worth watching out for.
It's in situations where the judgement is presented as a…

I'm particularly fond of Decartes' second meditation on certainty. From this we can derive both the scientific method and a lovely life philosophy.
Descartes' second meditation was on what you could possibly know with absolute certainty. That wasn't a dream or illusion or misunderstanding. His conclusion was famously "cogito ergo sum". Usually rendered "I think therefore I Am", but perhaps more true to his meaning is "there is thought, therefore there is a thinker". Nothing else can you know with absolute certainty.
I quite like my Buddhist rendering "in thought there is an experience of self, in the thought of the world there is an experience of other".
Best of all I like my Judeo-Christian rendering, based on the meaning of YHVH, Yahweh, the holiest name of G-d given to Moses in the burning bush, the fire that burns but does not consume when he asked G-d their name and they replied יהוה.
Read right to left the Hebrew letters yodh, …

The Great Work Here's an example of the great work. Once in a fetish club in Bedford I met a man who said he was learning to be a hypnotist and he asked if could he try and hypnotise me.  He was small and bald and bespectacled and looked exactly as an aspiring hypnotist should look. 
I'm sceptical of and intrigued by hypnotism so naturally I agreed. After an initial preamble he proceeded very assiduously as far as I could tell to do nothing for some moments after which he declared that I could not be hypnotised and bid me good day. 
I do wonder if he's going around and trying to hypnotise people into believing that they can't be hypnotised. I approve.
KarenI grew up in the days of the hippy convoy. Two girls who liked me, Karen and Debbie, called me the hippy convoy when I was walking past Badger's Close to Tytherington Comprehensive school in Macclesfield, carrying my beaten up cornet case as it was the day of my music lesson. I was twelve. Karen was chunky and Debbie …