Archaic Deity – Archaic Iconography…

Many depictions of deity are a tad dated. They arose in times when the power of kings and emperors was quasi absolute. The iconography has “radioactive” halos around sainted beings, chariots, swords and thrones. There are arguments about who stands or sits around the throne and on which side various beings are to be found. There are crowns and often a patrilineal succession of power. Humanity obsesses about organisational flow charts of the heavens and in the past who had career advancement amongst the Gods depended upon level of obedience and sycophancy. The celestial “human” resources department had severance packages to negotiate.

Fear of God put bums on seats and pennies on the collection plate.

These days the power of kings is much diminished. We don’t drive roman chariots all that much. The machete has replaced the short sword. The Heckler and Koch automatic has replaced the spear. The ultimate symbol of mundane power is a ginormous nuclear powered aircraft carrier equipped with stealth bombers. Thrones are old hat.

In constructing a deity and a pecking order of them, whether that be of Gods and angels or Buddhas and bodhisattvas, the notions are related to the mundane order of things. The iconography perhaps an aid for the illiterate. In many cases the “clergy” asserted power over flock and encouraged supplication therefrom. The “clergy” encouraged a notion that they were higher, perhaps better and more revered than the lay. The churches and temples extracted wealth and called it meritorious. It might help your journey in the afterlife to fund the claret of a bishop. It was a good pitch. People can read and think now.

I am not sure older notions of Gods and Buddhas wash as well these days. Despite what fragrances Unilever might add. Subscription to religious providers it probably falling all over the world.

There is a glaring difference in iconography between the seated tranquil garden statue Buddha and the tortured crucified Christ bleeding from his crown of thorns. This despite much similarity in their teachings. Man has emphasised the suffering of Jesus over his peaceful message. It prefers to show images of internecine cruelty and suffering rather than brotherly love. In our time there is much need both for tranquillity and for love.

Religious iconography is very often chavvy and overly ornate. It is showy and “look at me”.

“We have shit loads of gold! We the clergy must be powerful! Kneel pleb!”

Modern military power does not lend itself to very personal, even familial iconography. There is no big hearted daddy on the throne. Rather a couple of old men, fingers above a red button, ready to embody Shiva the destroyer aspect of deity. It is not an image of fatherly love. It is one of pendant wrath and nuclear winter.

Notions of deity need updating in a manner more suitable for modern mind, modern living. And no I do not mean a Marvel escapist universe. The sublime needs divorced from the family drama and the incestuous and the Machiavellian.

Spirit and consciousness needs to evolve away from the zoomorphic whilst retaining the feelings and value. A new form of understanding might spring from where we find ourselves now, so very obsessed with corporeal image and public relations spin-bullshit. Petabytes of images are quite a quagmire for the minds of mankind.

Yup…I think the old forms of iconography and depictions of deity are looking rather dated and may no longer be fit for purpose.

We may even need a thorough review of what we imagine deity and/or a God to be.

I wonder how might we imagine and create a God 2.0 ?

“Spiritual” Journeys

I have used inverted commas quotation mark here because I struggle a little with how words have in a sense become tainted by multiple usage and being bandied about as PR. Spiritual as a word has had its impact and meaning downgraded to the point of near meaninglessness.

I am going to attempt to put into words something which I have hesitated to do. It is close to impossible. This cannot be undertaken without emphasising just how important a few years of my childhood were in my development, in this life. One constellation in particular left its mark deep in my psyche.

It was by its light during an English language common entrance exam that I foresaw events near two and a half decades later. It was the harbinger and the key of a volte face in life. I left the harbour alone in my coracle adrift upon the Southern ocean lit by its solace. I left Cape Town after being burned on table mountain.

Later I had another foreboding which was also to find consummation over a similar time delay. Each of these were pivotal. That foreboding prevented me making a UCAS university choice against the advice of my school teachers.

When I was young and in an English boarding school as an expat child I got to read the lessons and the prayers in church. While the others sat with parents. It was like a duck to water that I took to the lectern and the prayer “chair” deep in the nave. There I found St Francis of Assisi.

« Seigneur, faites de moi un instrument de votre paix.
Là où il y a de la haine, que je mette l’amour. »

« C’est en pardonnant qu’on est pardonné,
c’est en mourant qu’on ressuscite à l’éternelle vie. »

This man was in tune with the Mahayana bodhisattva ideal. His words touched.

Unfortunately those with the skill of a chameleon can adopt any mask, any direction, any character they choose. Believe me I learned how to blend. And in blending one loses authentic essence.

At the end of my schooling I took general studies courses in Buddhism, cooking and Rastafarianism. Ever Jah, ever loving, ever faithful. Rastafari. I read all that I could on witchcraft and alchemy. I made “friends” with the librarian in our town.

The Buddhism was presented in an intellectual descriptive manner in which the various fetters were enumerated for debate. Although I understood, the manner was for me boring and definitional. I sensed beyond that which was being professed. It was during intense meditation sat in seiza at karate that I learned that I had in fact been meditating all of my childhood. I used to sit and observe. I used to wait. I was touched directly by the dreamtime out in the shimmering bush of western Queensland. The aboriginal pointing stick had cleaved something open.

And then when I went to university I mostly forgot. By the time I was doing my Ph.D. research I figured that I had found something I was good at. So maybe this was the future. I enjoyed “pissing about with lasers”. I was to an extent, life and soul of the party. It was only in the early nineties that I started to withdraw, as if driven by a deeper current, out into the hills, the mountains and the countryside. It set up a kind of imbalance. On the one hand was a “normal” life and career. On the other there was silence and quiet. My reading was more intellectual philosophy, science and philosophy of science. I noted that despite mundane academic achievement many of “the greats” struggled with non-salary paying bigger questions.

I was offered a choice. Fort Collins Colorado or Bern Switzerland. One of those would have brought me quicker into contact with things “spiritual” than the other. The Swiss francs were certain, so I saw the Berner Oberland and learned painfully of “qualität”. Something which I tried thenceforth to express.

In the mid nineties at the place of my prior foreboding I was brought to my knees. Despite writing excellent research proposals I was stymied and unfunded. A grudge held by a “competing” senior academic could kill a proposal with a mere word. I had a breakdown. The answer to life the universe and everything could no longer be found in the laws of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. It seemed there was more. It was around then that my ambition faded and the picture of a life academic dimmed. I began to search in earnest. I opened myself up wide. Again I largely forgot and tried to rebuild a life after breakdown. For some unknown reason money for research and start-up came more easily. I was “successful” for a while.

In the very early part of this century I was tested by power. I had a taste of it and did not abuse. Like Galadriel I refused the ring and was no longer sorely tempted thereby. It was around this time that a series of what might be called micro-renunciations began. In which step-wise I renounced or was forced to renounce the accoutrements of normal life. Each one was more difficult and profound than the last. Slowly life was stripped of all that made it busy and hectic. Until in the middle of 2006 I renounced all and walked off into the metaphorical “wilderness”. Dramatic as that sounds, at face value it looked simple, at core it cleaved and parted, severed and up-ended.

I did not become a wandering mendicant with charnel grounds for abode nor skull cup for beverage. Though adrift I most certainly was. I had already learned as a child, the nature of impermanence. Strangely without accoutrement life did not cease, the world did not implode, nor did it stop.

When you are thrust  from an Outlook calendar ruled life, with hours dissected into segments, with meetings set for you, with each action seemingly accountable, into nothing. The meaning of time changes in an unalterable and irrevocable way. It is no longer a spreadsheet thing. The boxes, the rice paper walls of the day, dissolve.

At end of 2008 I left the map so to speak. I began a series of meditations which went beyond. There was nothing, despite my research skill, which I could find written. These “meditations” continued in the UK in houses close to civilisation yet separate in the English countryside. I can say that the rigor of these was high and they continued for many years. In around 2010-11 I began having Buddhist dreams.

In the early part of the century whilst still teaching physical chemistry I had a series of waking visions in which I had “om mane padme hum” tattooed on my forearms in Sanskrit and with me in monastic robes. These visions were sufficiently powerful to be present whilst I was lecturing Chemical Reaction Kinetics to undergraduates in South Kensington. It was around then that I got to express my compassion for others, to care for them.

Overlaid on a “Toltec” background was a distinctly Buddhist vibe.

All the while I had a seemingly normal life as a married man doing for quite a while “A” level science private tutoring. The outer world and the inner world differed and markedly so.

To me as a member of the elephant dreaming class there is no problem with the scholastic wisdom teachings of Siddartha and the more dramatic Toltec corpus. The latter is a guide, when viewed with clarity, to the navigation of glamour and illusion. There is probably only one truth expressed via many different approaches. The Tower of Babel has a lot to answer for…

This is probably enough for today…

Eight Tibetan Houses (seats) Dream 19-02-2025

This came after we watched a documentary on how China is changing Tibet, making it more Han Chinese.

The dream starts in South or Southeastern Tibet. There is a sense of Shigatze. I can see on a map eight Tibetan houses or seats. They have terracotta roofs and although they appear as houses, I know that they are seats, monasteries, in the sense of high lama thrones. They are linked to lineages and are the bricks and mortar, the physicality. I collect them in a sense. I coral them in my non-physical arms. I am wearing magenta and saffron Buddhist robes.

The scene changes and I can see the same eight locations but now I am seeing the spirit, the ethos, the essence of these “houses”. It is the near indelible mark of the spirit of these places, how they have energized the world.

I wake briefly.

I am back looking at the map of Tibet. Again, I can see these eight centres, only now I can see history, lineage stretching back over centuries. This is the past, the lineage which has been cultivated in time and through time.

I wake briefly.

I am back again looking at the map with these eight houses highlighted. Now I can see mind, mind-stream and even the awareness or consciousness associated with these centres. I sense in the dream that this represents future in that the centres live not necessarily physically but in the mind-stream, the Buddha field.

As I awake, I joke to myself that is must be weird Wednesday as opposed to freaky Friday.

Importance – Protectors Dream – 4-12-2008

This dream came a few days after first contact by Djwhal Kuhl et al. during dinner on the 1st of December.

I am in a large house and we go upstairs to a library. We are joined by a German man and he is dressed in a white clergyman outfit with a big red hat. There is also a small American man. They have reserved this room in the library in advance. The German man is speaking to me in high German. The essence is that I am too important for them to let me waste things, I am too important to lose. These two are now my protectors, my guides and my servants.

They turn to my wife and ask her whether she like what she sees.

Yes.

“When he lights up all the centres fire, do they not?”

Yes.

“He really must slow down. Do you understand this?”

Yes.

“He is assimilating too much too fast. This could be dangerous.”

The American says that I must take the way of the spirit – which is slower. That this is the way into the pink. He restates that I am too important to lose. He says that what I am trying to achieve takes time and that I should go easy on myself.

We leave the building and I go outside. My mother is there and she starts to have a go at me for moaning. I say to her that I never moan and that she is seeing the reflection of her own moaning which isn’t actually there in me. The American sees this happening and says that he will take care of it.

I know that there are protectors around me now and that they are watching over me.

Dream ends.

I resolve to slow down in my assimilation of the blue books opus.

Boulanger – Dawn – Harbour – Naked – Trinity or Triquetra – investigation Dream 26-09-24

On a restless night a few days after high does Prednisolone.

The dream starts in a village in France. The village is on a hill and I am with an Asian Indian man. We are looking to buy some bread. We try one boulanger and it is closed, we try another. It is also closed. We run down the street to a third and it too is closed. The man is upset that all the bakers are closed.  I note a corner shop which is open and go in. In the back room there is a small rack of bread. I select a roughly triangular loaf. I note some bottles. I select a clear see through, as opposed to green, bottle of Sprite. I go to the till to pay.

The woman won’t accept payment. In English she says that she has been given a budget to pay for bread because the bakers are closed. She says that she will put my food, my lunch on her card.

The scene changes and it is the next day around dawn. I am only wearing a white duvet which is secured around me with a wide royal blue plastic belt. The belt trails behind. I am at a hewn out Mediterranean port.  The stone is sandstone and there is warmth in the air. I see a truly magnificent pale yellow dawn on the soft blue sky. It is so bright I turn away. I turn back it is so yellow, radiant pastel. This repeats several times.

Across the harbour I can see some boys and teenagers chasing fish in the water. They are shouting to scare the fish. I get into the water naked to intercept the fish. The fish change direction and swim back towards the boys. Several flying fish launch themselves out of the warm water and fly off.

I head up into the village naked. I go into a village meeting clothed. There is a bingo like game going on in which audience members are drawn out of a hat. The last two drawn are winners. Twice a young man called Mark and I win. He is a student. Another draw is made and he and I win for a third time. I ask him what he does. He says that he is an actor and is currently playing a murder victim in a play.

He ushers me to follow him. We go to a wood panelled room where he shows me various lengths of rope. He hands me a thick crimson red rope the thickness of my thumb. It is longer than me. It is inlaid with a single fine gold thread and tied into a trinity knot or Triquetra at its middle. The knot is comprised of exact circles. If one grabs the end of the rope and swings it the knot can be used as a whip. The feeling is that this is a Welsh as opposed to Irish version. He gives me the knot and says that I need to remount it in the church.

The feeling is of Brittany. I am in a brightly lit room which has a church like feel. I am trying to mount the rope on a leaded glass window. People are watching and commenting. The place is a shit tip, a huge mess and I am finding it hard to work. There are bits of window frame and hinges everywhere. I am up a ladder fixing the bright red rope to the top of the window. The sides of the rope will be attached to the horizontal lower part with a vertical piece dissecting the window in two.  The rope and the knot are special, relic like and mine.

As I am doing this M walks in and sits down. She is very much younger and now with blonde hair. In walks J. She too sits down and starts commenting on what I am doing. I tell her that I do not need her advice. I ask them what they are doing here in Brittany. M says that someone has begun investigating into my genealogy and family tree. The sense is that the investigation is official.

Dream ends..

Serpents of Wisdom – Caduceus Dreams

I have grouped these together because the Caduceus has two serpents. It is the symbol of Hermes the herald of the Gods who can move swiftly between worlds.

Ghurkha – Caduceus Dream 13-03-2011

I am somehow going around town spraying foam on people I am walking with, and this is for their protection.

I go into a shop. It is old and wooden there. A Ghurkha dressed in a kilt is there, he is talking with the shopkeeper.  I tell him that my dad used to work with the 7th army, specifically he was assigned to the Seventh Ghurkha Regiment.

I note the golden medal he is wearing. On it are a golden Caduceus and an image of a swastika. {the correct non-Nazi way round}. He had not seen the swastika before and is a little upset. I explain that I have a golden caduceus too. It is not with me today as it is being examined by another of his kind who is also looking at my Father’s will.

In real life my physical plane father did indeed work with Ghurkhas in the Malayan Emergency and as I have just found out 7th Gurkha Rifles was there at the same time.  He was given a Kukri by the Ghurkhas as a gift of honour. I remember it well. He was Second Lieutenant acting Captain in REME during his national service.  Because they believed in fate, he said that they had absolutely no fear and did crazy stuff full of courage. I did not know of the number of Ghurkha regiments until 10 minutes ago.


Golden Core – Caduceus Dream 19-05-2013

I am flying in the sky above all the people. I come across a wooden “telegraph” pole like the one we have in the garden. It is mossy and unnoticed. I am the golden core to the telegraph pole. The direct link between sky {heaven} and earth. Though no one appreciates this.

I am then in my flat in an apartment building which is shared by many. There is a sense that this is a learning community. It is not very tidy. From time to time I come upon a drawer which has been rifled through. Over by one of the windows are two very small birds of a peachy-blue colouration. They are not like any real birds. I go over to them and start to mimic their calls very accurately. They hop along until they are very close to me. I speak with them in bird language. Soon they are mimicking me and speaking English. They hop onto my head and shoulders. I let them walk all over my face. I know in the dream that these two birds love me a great deal.

I continue to move around my flat and find that another drawer has been rifled. I take the Swiss army penknife {red with a white cross} and put it in my pocket. I go to where my golden Caduceus is and put it in my pocket. They have not found its hiding place. I am now wearing combat trousers. I notice water dripping from the ceiling and go to investigate the jewellers which is above. As I get to the landing the police are arriving. Someone has broken into the jewellers and stolen many things. The police comment to me that they are amateurs.

I slip a pair of nunchaku into my left trouser pocket and set off into the street. As I approach a building site a lorry containing long strips of wood, sheds it load narrowly missing me. I shout at the builder and pick up a stick not sure whether to give it back to him or attack. I wave it at him. He does something similar. I have my hand over left trouser pocket as I approach him. It is good natured and fun, I go on my way.

Meanwhile I hear a rumour spread by my ex-wife that I have lost my Caduceus in the robbery. The story that my Caduceus made by designer XXXX propagates. It has been lost when they broke into the jewellery shop. I touch the Caduceus in my pocket and am very happy to let the rumour propagate for now.

I am now in central London near the Buckingham Palace roundabout. There are many taxis and a wedding procession with a white Rolls Royce. I am on the central island. I can see that a taxi is going to collide with the Rolls Royce. It does so and they both roll towards me. I know I am going to be hit but not hurt. As they roll into me, I bounce a little. The Rolls Royce is crumpled. The taxi driver apologises and asks if I would like a lift. I say, “no thanks”.

I continue my way onto a high-rise construction site. There are many stainless steel girders of a narrow diameter. I climb with ease and get across a gap onto the far part of the building site. There is no obvious way back. A Scotsman appears and I ask him if he will help me. He cannot because he will get into trouble for me being on site. He changes his mind. He can help me if I pretend to be casual labour. The bucket of a crane is there, and it is royal blue in colour. We both get in and return to the ground.

I head back to the learning community.

There is now a scientific apparatus there and some experiments are going on. They cannot see but I am something akin to a left bionic arm. This arm is flesh coloured, very high functioning and its hand is ultra-precision.

In the dream I go back to the telegraph pole and the birds, I check again the Caduceus which is safe in my pocket.  It is now also a part of me. The Caduceus is my golden core.

 The Dream ends.

*Gold is the dreaming symbol for Nagal or Spirit


Dual Serpents of Wisdom – Patent – Attack – Laboratory Dream 17-9-23

I have awoken this morning and my body feels as if I have been doing a great amount of judo groundwork exercises. All my muscles feel heavily used and there was cramping in my thigh. The wife says that I sometimes thrash about when dreaming. I did not exercise yesterday.


This dream happened between 3:30 and 6:45AM.

The dream opens with view of a stone house. The stones are hewn out of a dark sandstone and the house is symmetrical. There are two large bay windows on each side comprising two floors. With each window above the other. The stonework leading to the roof is of a high calibre. The house has fallen into disrepair somewhat. It has a bright light navy blue square door under an elaborate stone worked beam. The door is vivid. The house stands alone on a hill and it is raining, there are passing squalls. It is the only thing on the dreamscape.

Inside the house is an enclosed spiral staircase made out of some metal. There is a handrail to complete the enclosure. The spiral staircase if of a vivid blue colour. Using the Faraday right hand curling rule, the direction of the staircase is up. There is a strong sense that this is a one direction staircase. The internal dimensions of the house are vast much greater than the outside might suggest.

I am stood arms outstretched in front of the staircase. On the floor are two large snakes. They have a pattern of diamond shapes on their backs. Their base colour can be seen to be a dark racing green car paint. There are small shiny blue diamonds {2d ◊} of colour overlaid to give a green/blue diamond pattern on the back. They climb twisting up around my body and open their mouths. I can see their huge fangs. They attach themselves to each bicep by biting into my flesh. With the snakes wrapped, entwined, around by body in a spiral I am transposed onto the blue metal spiral staircase in the centre of the house. On the floor of the house there are now numerous tiny snakes. Each are entwined as a pair.

In the dream I know that the snakes around my body and those on the floor are the serpents of wisdom. I feel no pain from the snake bites. It seems natural. Though I can feel where they were on my biceps as I type.

———–

The scene changes to the ground floor of a modern airport terminal. The escalators lead up to departures. There is a coffee shop / concession. Serving at the concession is PW. Neither of us are surprised at this. He is the barista. I order a coffee and we get chatting. I say that I have recently had a patent granted and that I am flying to Denver. There I will be met by some people from the Ministry of Defence and taken to an unknown location. I say that I do not understand what all the hoo-ha is about. It would be a lot simpler just to converse. He notes that he does not have my new ‘phone number. I reach down into my bag and pull out a small, rubberised for industrial use, laptop and a smart ‘phone. I boot the ‘phone up and just as I am getting ready to give him my number, I notice several men in light grey suits coming towards me. In the dream I know they mean me ill. I say, “see you later” and run up the escalators through passport control and into departures. The men cannot follow and I can see them frustrated making a ‘phone call.

I look down into my bag and it is empty aside from the devices. I hope that there will be a boutique in the hotel where I might buy some clothes.

I walk through a small group of young American students. They have been here in Europe for a physics event. They receive a ‘phone call and then move to try to detain me. They encircle me.

I hold out both my arms palms outstretched and project qi/prana at them. This comes out in a near visible stream and freezes them to the spot.

The students think that this is neat but cannot move.

I explain to them that whatever powers I have then can never be used offensively only for defence and benign/good purpose. They cannot be used for personal gain. They will be able to move when they drop the malicious intent.

I move off into the bar. It is well stocked and I can tell that the barman is good at his job. I sit at the bar and I order a small glass of ice cold white wine. Which he serves me. It is humid so the glass gets a coating of mist quickly.  I am sat reading a newspaper.

Out of the corner of my eye I see two very large men in light grey suits. The suits are ill fitting and the men are twins. They have shaved heads and thick necks. They could be night club doormen. They make their way over to me and position themselves to my left and right behind my back. They make a move to grab me. I emanate a force field which they are unbale to penetrate and which freezes them to the spot. They persist in trying and the force field flings them away. They fall to the floor. They get up and try again with the same result.

I get up and walk out of the airport terminal.

The scene changes to some kind of English country research campus. I am in a bed with the wife in the manor house. The room is like a hotel room with a four poster bed and has been done in good taste.

In the dream I dream within a dream. In that second dream I wander around the house and can see a group of English men discussing how they are going to renovate the house and turn it into laboratory space. I will be forbidden to enter the house and the laboratory. I can see the dining room being kitted out as a laboratory. Outside the manor house I can see yellow JCB machines levelling the earth.

I wake up in the dream within a dream. I go to the window and the ground has been levelled. There are numerous JCB vehicles parked up. I go to the staircase in the house and the group of men are there talking about the renovation. One of them winks at me. Hew knows that I have seen them already in the dream. I can sense that they are very antagonistic towards me and without any grounds for that antagonism.

I explore that landing leading to the dining room. Inside the room has been kitted out into a high specification lab space with complex synthetic chemistry glassware rigs. I am mildly surprised.

Down on the ground floor the men are taking to a female engineer who is installing the security system and swipe card access. They stress that under no circumstance should I be allowed to enter the facility. She looks across at me. In the dream we both think that the English men are being bizarre, petty, and foolish. There is a sense of paranoia even. She is unimpressed.

The dream ends and I think phew…that was weird and intense.


Bigfoot – Yeti – Serpents of Wisdom Dream 24-9-23.

Here is this morning’s dream…

The dream starts inside a building with whitewashed stone walls. My understanding is that it is in Cornwall. In the room are several male scientists known to me. They are of an age when I last met them ~17 years ago. They are wearing dark suits. They are inordinately proud of a large hairy animal which is sat amongst them. It looks like a Bigfoot or a Yeti. I am observing them in a non-corporeal manner, watching the goings on.

Next, I am walking along the side of a hill by the edge of the sea. On the lower path I can see the Bigfoot-Yeti thing walking along. It is a bit like Chewbacca. One can see that the creature is a man in a hairy suit. There is a visible join where the top half of the suit meets the waist. It is obviously fake and made up, a figment. I find it funny that the men were so proud of something so obviously manufactured.

Next, I am with an unseen male companion and we are exploring further up the hill. We walk through a hole in a dry stone wall, a gate without door, up over the grass towards the fern and gorse line. As I reach the line, I can see a very large snake over two metres long and thicker than my thigh in parts. It is clearly not of the Cornish countryside. I have seen this snake before it has the same diamond pattern on its racing green back as the ones in a recent dream. My companion is afraid. I can now see him. He is a young man with slightly curly-wavy light brown hair. I say to him that this is not a “real” snake it is a serpent of wisdom. There is no need to be afraid. It helps one see what is real and what is fake. This seems to calm him.

I suggest that we leave the snake undisturbed to go about its business and go back down the hill.

As we approach the gate the path is blocked by a “twin” of the snake we have just seen. They always come in pairs I say.  With respect I walk up to the snake and simply step carefully over it. My companion follows suit. The snake raises its head and looks at us, then slithers off peacefully.

In the grass now we can see a small grass snake, typical of the English countryside. A small white terrier comes along the path, sees the snake and starts to bark at it. The terrier has not seen the serpent of wisdom.

My companion and I look at each other and smile.

The dream ends.