Alms not Arms
That thine alms may be in Secret... “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face… And now abideth faith, hope, charity… but the greatest of these is charity.” (I Corinthians 13:12-13) Through the dark glass of international politics, witness a curious spectacle. Indian politicians are calling for India to refuse British aid, whilst Britain is pleading with them to continue accepting it. Dissenting voices were also heard in the UK in February, when India chose 126 French fighter jets over British, despite our International Development Secretary making it clear during a diplomatic visit that this was just not cricket. ...
N-Realm Podcast
Saudations, my comrades in Hope and Wonder! In these days when even another decade of relative calm seems like a tall order, let us squeeze each and every minute we have for its full worth. Back in the Hellenistic world, aesthetes had slaves read to them during mealtimes. Today, without any slaves to hand, I listen to podcasts as I do the many chores a pair of twins affords me. Imagine my surprise, as I scooped some fibrous gunk from the sink, to hear pages from my book being read out in a familiar voice! KMO from the extraordinary C-realm podcast had finished ...
Anarchy Inside
(Also published in The Occupied Times of London) “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” - (Jdg 21:25) The School of Ideas returns to dust, and our tents to ashes or landfill, but the seeds of resistance have been planted in the hearts of the tent-dwellers, who ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Eviction. What will emerge from those seeds, what runners and creepers, climbers and stingers are sending out shoots beyond the square mile, and what flowers will bloom in the coming seasons? All sorts ...
Checkmate in Three
or: How to hijack a bandwagon “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil” - Exodus Back in 1961, as the mild-looking, pen-pushing architect of the Holocaust Adolf Eichmann was on trial for genocide, Stanley Milgram began investigating the question of obedience. What he revealed is unsettling, but contains an element of hope for the free-thinking subversive. The basic experiment begins with two subjects deciding by lot which would be the ‘teacher’ and which the ‘learner’. The teacher first watches the learner being strapped into a chair and covered with electrodes. Then the teacher is seated in an adjacent room at a ...
Noetic Punnary
It sounds hard to believe, but Nemu's End has gathered something of a following at Furrowbrow Abbey in Norfolk. In fact, this is one of the finest examples of 14th century church architecture, so I am pleased, if a little surprised, to find that my book has found its way into its cloisters. Stranger still, the abbot and some of the sisters of charity have been sending me poetry they have composed. I can't quite fathom the connection with my own researches, but I will share it all the same. Thoth speaks Thoth speaks. And indeed, Thoth writes. Writes riddles and roles, Binding and unwinding, ...
Prophesy for Profit
One day, every child learns that Father Christmas doesn't exist, but how do you recover from discovering that he was put to work as a Coca-Cola poster boy? Hark ye! It wasn't singing angels heralding the birth of our lord but dancing Santas, festive bargains and Christmas number ones, followed by specials on weight loss plans and detox tea. I can cope with shattered dreams as well as the next man who grew up in the 80s, but what about dreams repackaged and sold back to me? Look closely, children of the nightmare. Shining lights in toy shop windows guide wide-eyed ...
Apoc-cupy London!
The End is Nigh! Occupy! “The End is Nigh!” is a delight to behold, written in bold on a sandwich board or screamed out on a street corner in the ecstasy of doom, but what does it mean? Sadly our own Christian enthusiastics at Occupy London are too busy dancing jigs, hoisting enormous crucifixes about and berating strangers to preach about the latter days, but this relentless reverend does not tire in his evangelism. Once again, oh children of perpetual resistance, let us reoccupy scripture, and rescue the good news from bad translation. “The End of the World” comes from Matthew 13, and the ...
Occupy Matthew!
Subversion on the Mount The bells, the bells, the bells which ruined my blessed sleep on the first Saturday of the occupation barely register anymore, having merged into the general background, but who ever imagined that all this Jesus-talk would become so normal? On the cathedral steps, everyone has become a theologian, taking up whips against the money-changers and rendering unto Caesar what is his. We seem to have agreed that social justice and consideration for the poor are fundamental Christian values, and, along with several important men in frocks, we are prepared to make sacrifices for them. But what kind of tactics ...
St. Pauccupied
I try to guard against optimism in general, but having spent the last three days and nights occupying central London, I must admit to feeling a little cheery. We met at the London stock exchange and, after failing to occupy Paternoster Square, we moved a few yards to the front of St. Paul's Cathedral. A constant stream of cameras filed past to snap my twins, grinning, politicised, and loving the limelight. Julian Assange said a few words, and people shouted through megaphones, but the police were better organised than us, and stormed in after a few hours to make a line ...
The apocalypse is where the veiled is revealed. It is how the unconscious becomes conscious, and how discoveries hiding in the shadows have their covers dissed. Nemu’s End: The History, Psychology, and Poetry of the Apocalypse considers this process as it occurs in our society, in our history, and in our brains.
In science, revelation works through dreams, visions, insights and eureka moments, and is responsible for far more groundbreaking ideas and technologies than rational thinking and tapping on calculators. An apocalypse can be a personal event, when normal linguistic and psychological limitations are temporarily broken down. When this happens, whether spontaneously or through meditation or psychedelics, people may become capable of mental feats which were previously impossible, and aware of things which are usually invisible.
On another level, an apocalypse is an event which occurs collectively during intense periods of transformation. Each time this happens, horizons expand, new scales are opened up, new frontiers are discovered, and new philosophies and technologies are developed, invariably sparking social and political unrest. In seventeenth century Europe, a new order emerged, and was accompanied with an unprecedented body count. It also happened in first century Jerusalem, and there are signs that another upheaval is underway today, which will be global in its implications.
Despite the inelegance of street preachers and the disinterest of the sensible majority, the apocalypse is relevant to our lives, and becoming more so every day. Blinkered rationalism is a bulldozer lurching down a dark cul-de-sac at the end of the world; revelation is a magick bus bouncing down the path of understanding towards the light. This book is the story of the apocalypse, how it has been experienced in the past, and how it is unfolding today. It is written in the faith that revelation is open to everyone, and in the hope that we embrace it before our bulldozer squashes the life out of us.
