Bleeeggghhhh.....

It's Monday and I have caught the flu. This is like the worst time of the week for me to get any kind of illness. I've got 2 blocks of 2 hour long meetings tomorrow with a large group of people. Personally I don't like speaking to large groups, especially about matters related to my current work, but that's life :P

Things have calmed down on the metaphysical scene. I'm no longer running around in the shoes of some of my more "colourful" past lives ... so to speak. I'm now viewing everything with a sort of detachment. It could be that this could be another past life I am experiencing, I'll just have to see. I'm waking up every day to a new understanding of myself and who I am.

In the meantime, this flu business is really getting me down. I thought about a year or so back, I got this problem licked. However, the cycle is returning again. :( I think perhaps this whole thing is probably something karmic. Sigh, I guess it will take me some time to figure this out. It could also be that I am pretty exhausted because I had a weekend of running around with little sleep. THAT also makes me more succeptible to illness. Moreover, on Saturday night I was out late in a turkish place that was really pretty dank and dusty and most of the people were smoking. I guess despite the old-world charm of that place, it does have a version of the sick-building syndrome.

I really gotta be more careful about such places. Also it does have heavy energy :( geeze... sometimes I need to remind myself to make use of my own personal skills to protect myself :P

Back To Work Tomorrow... And I Don't Feel Like Going...

I really don't feel like going back to work tomorrow... I mean I am really lucky to have the "job" that I have but... there's just some things about it I don't like :(

For one thing, I'm expected to be a "role model" for my troops :P That's real great, considering I'm wearing a stupid mask when I'm working. I have never asked the powers-that-be in the establishment, but I don't think they'd take too nicely to the idea of what I do after hours. Anyways, I think that being responsible for guiding 100+ people sometimes really gets to me. At this point in time, I don't really want to stand up in front of them and do the whole motivational thing...:( Especially since not that many of them are in the whole "I wanna be motivated" frame of mind.

And what's worse, I can't really pretend I'm somewhere else and that the people I'm supposed to watch over are in a different situation. I might just say something stupid and out of place... Sometimes, when I'm talking to them, I kinda wonder if my own magical roots are starting to show. Like suddenly weird shadows will appear and I'll turn into a black-robed maniac.

I managed once to catch my own reflection when I was having a past life flashback, in the ghostly image on the glass was an expression I have never seen before. It wasn't creepy because at the back of my mind, I know what is happening, but still, I was breathing a sigh of relief that no one I knew saw it.

It could also be that, after having a break for so long, I'm not really in the working groove. Whatever it is, I am really feeling reluctant... Also I have to get back to sleeping normal hours. Haiz...

Whose Shoes Am I Wearing This Week?

Mid August to around mid October is officially one of my major "bumming" periods. Business is slow and my official "job" is quite literally non-existant. I usually use this period to travel around for the purposes of "business"... but hey, I'm not kidding myself, most of that travel consists of more bumming around and a half-focused search for spirituality and the supernatural.

My travels around also allow me to be who I am without pretending to be someone else... something which I do a lot of in Singapore. It also allows me to go to places where people still believe in magic and spirits... something I really miss. One of the greatest grouses I have with life today is that I have not worked officially as a magician in the established order (eg. government, religion... etc... you get the idea) for like 3000+ years... (that is as near as I can figure)... People in general just don't profess belief in the paranormal as they used to. Especially in the power of magic. Sure, there is still strong belief of ghosts and spirits in Singapore, but few normal people are willing to pay for magical help. And I can understand why... magic has seriously become so diluted in modern society these days that its real power is seldom seen any more.

So it's pretty refreshing for me to go to a place where people still believe that individuals... (not necessarily in the established religion) can do stuff like make everyone in the house fall asleep through chanting some spell... or become invisible...

Back to the main topic at hand...

This particular bumming period has been a pretty strange one for me. It is caused mostly by the stuff that I am currently practicing... I've been walking around in different shoes almost every two weeks or so...

What do I mean by this? Well, imagine this... sometime in the beginning of August, I start off feeling like a young person again... a dumb teenager... I start smelling the scent of romance in the air and I almost get to the point where I believe in true love and crazy stuff along that vein. This lasts for about 1 - 2 weeks and then I start feeling a sense of real agression coming along... I get super competitive, even when having a game with my friends and want to beat up just about everyone I see.

I also get weird past-life related flashbacks ... first about being in love... and then about being a soldier, going to war, killing people and stuff...

After quite a few weeks of that, I start thinking about how to get away with doing bad stuff and even start getting emotional about the religious setting. Yeah, I spent quite a few weeks walking around with scenes of my past life as a priest in my head. Heck, I even gave a full historical-doctrinal lecture to my friend's boyfriend who asked me about some religious stuff...:P I think I might have er.... turned him off a bit with my tone, because at one point I think I sounded a wee bit like a fanatic.... (okay well, I was pretty loud and gesturing with my hands .... sigh)

He doesn't approach me to talk after that...:( I could just be overly-sensitive .... so I think I'll sit him down for a chat to see if he is actually avoiding me.

I can't believe that after so many years, I still remember all the stuff that I was brought up with. :( Okay, I guess it isn't a bad thing because at least it gives me some kind of background knowledge.

Now I'm just not feeling that emotional charge I have over the religious setting... the only thing I can think about is a memory where I am looking down at a plate of half-eaten dinner thinking, "Man, nuns can't cook" and "Boy, do I HATE beans"

I'm actually not too sure what I am feeling at present. It's a blank to me... I feel a lot calmer and just a bit depressed. Okay, it COULD be that I'm going back to "work" in like 2 days, but this feeling is a bit strange.

It's been a pretty strange ride this season.... love-crazed teenager one day, bloodthirsty warrior the next, furtive criminal and fanatic priest....

So, who will I be tomorrow? Hopefully I don't say anything too insane to the folks at work. :(

The Long Shadow

"The brighter the light, the darker the shadow."

This particular saying probably isn't anything new, but I first came across it when I first started my own spiritual path. The people I hung around with at that time seemed to repeat it a lot. I don't know why that was, but it did make me think about some things.

Now, I don't think that a guy who is a particularly noble specimen of a human being necessarily must have an equally horrendous dark side to match. However, I do think the brightness of his good side would make the dark look darker by comparison.

I do think there is a current bias in my local New Age community towards "love and light". People here seem to want to fill themselves with as much divine white light ( or something similar ) as possible so as to "push away the dark" or keep the "dark" influences outside. I also notice that most practitioners in the local holistic field focus on subjects like love, light, angels, spirit guides, ascended masters and other loving beings who are "helping to guide humans". Even the channelled beings only talk in terms of lovingness... or at least pay lip service to it. Whatever happened to the dark side of mankind? Where is the acceptance and understanding of it? Did our long shadow suddenly cease to exist because we are all filled up with so much light and friendly spirit guides?

I sometimes wonder if there are those who intentionally "push out" or "cast away" the darkness inside of them out of fear or disgust.

At one time, I too felt the need to push out what was in my dark side. However, when I did that, I became a lesser being. I did feel that floating sensation of loving and lightness, but I also felt hollow and, for lack of a better word, empty. After all, the shadow side of me is still me, without it, I would only be half of what I truly am. And really, with only half of myself, is that really the real me?

A friend once remarked that people tend to push away their darker sides because for some of them at least, knowing what they are capable of would sort of unhinge them. And if you believe in past lives, knowing that they were ... oh... someone like Adolf Hitler... might send some people to the loony bin. ( You know its funny, no reader ever says that their client might be someone like Adolf... )

I thought about it a bit and replied my friend. I said that, if I had murdered millions of people or destroyed worlds, I think I would want to know that. Why? So I would know what I am capable of. And understand why I did what I did so I can have that choice not to do something so stupid again. OR... I can choose to do it again... but I would do so KNOWING I did it.

I feel there is a certain power in being able to choose. Even if the choice is one of destruction and evil. One can then embrace the responsibility and the understanding that goes along with it. One would no longer be some kind of puppet of Fate or the guy who goes "I don't understand why I did it" or "I can't control myself"...

Is a lunatic who commits murders because some strange compulsion drives him to kill really a man with the power of choice in his hand?

For a very very long time, I was afraid of accepting who I am, because I believed that the totality of who I am would amount to some kind of monster. I was afraid of many many things, most of all, that the people I loved would not love me any more. However, if all of my friends only saw the "light" side of me and only liked that, can it be said that they truly like and accept me for who I am?

Having thought it through one very stormy night with the sea lashing strongly outside.... (yeah, my personal journey really DID bring me to that kind of place...on Christmas Day, of all days... sheesh) I made the decision to embrace and accept ALL of what I am, regardless of what I might turn into. Being a whole being is certainly better than being a hollow shell that just says whatever makes everyone else happy. :P

So did I turn into a monster?

Heh... the fact of the matter is this. I am now starting to realise what I am capable of. That has provided me with a source of strength and it has made me less ashamed of my own shadow. Before, I used to put on a loving and nurturing mask, trying to put out to the world that I was this person who "cared" a lot about others and who was "nice". Someone that people would "like" and flock to. The funny thing is, the more I try to do that, the more people I work with shy away from me.

I work in an environment where I have to manage large groups of people. For the longest time, the people I managed really pulled an odd face whenever I tried to behave in a "loving" or "nurturing" manner. Well, the moment I started being being true to myself... Imagine a person who acts like a field marshall, doesn't care two hoots about anyone, doesn't bother to remember anyone's face or name (unless they did something wrong) and who goes around interrogating people, playing good cop-bad cop when something goes wrong with the teams... things just smoothed out. For some very strange reason, people were able to accept... and even expect me to behave in such a manner. It was like the most natural thing in the world.

I have even had people starting to confide in me... THAT has never happened before...^^

In some wierd mystical turn of events, becoming the guy who lived all those unglamourous lifetimes solved some longstanding personal problems. It has also given me a certain kind of hope... that even if times become uncertain, I would still survive. I would have the strength to fight on and make my life... whatever kind of life I want it to be.

"You were burnt at the stake.".... "No, actually I was the one who did the burning..."

"So what's the big deal with who you were before?"

A close friend of mine in the local New Age scene once asked me a variation of this question. She is of the view that one of the few reasons for digging up past lives is to learn lessons from it so that we can overcome the unwanted patterns we have entrenched ourselves in and find solutions for the mistakes we keep making. Other than that, there is no real reason for digging up the memories of so many lifetimes.

I do see the point of the futility in digging up information about so many lifetimes if one doesn't learn anything useful from them. Very often I see people going to "psychics" who do past life regressions or readings and get interesting information about their "past lives". At one point in my journey, I also went for a past life reading, actually, the only one I have ever had "professionally done" so to speak. It wasn't really very insightful... According to the reader, round about 100 to 200 years ago, I was a mini Mongolian chieftan with 2 wives living the normadic life.

Although during the reading, it SEEMED as though that lifetime was something I might have gone though, I felt after some introspection that it didn't sound like something I would actually do. I mean, yeesh... as a person, I do not actually fancy living in a tent, drinking horse milk, eating meat and dairy products like 80% of the time. I am a pretty sedentary person. I say I like the outdoors, but I really mean that I like it OCCASIONALLY... I don't particularly love horses and I don't think I can handle 2 women under the same roof who are also married to me. :P The whole strong, independant, MCP barbarian-nomad thing is great when I am watching a Conan flick, but THAT is not something I'd enjoy being. :(

Since then, I have heard plenty of probable past lives I could have led from well meaning readers. Most of the description I got for my "past lives" were pretty vague and so general, they could have fitted anyone. I did learn one thing from all those readings, if it doesn't sound like me and I don't really have a strong feeling about it, it probably wasn't me at all.

After awhile, It did seem my friend was right, in that, if there were no lessons to learn, there was no need to dig into who I was or could have been... after all, that would be a sheer waste of time.

Yet, I can't help but WANT to find out more about who I was. I don't really fully understand why I want to know, just like I can't understand why people would spend tons of dollars to find out who they were. Perhaps, just like everyone else, I have a secret desire to hear some reader tell me that I was Julius Ceasar or something great... heh. (And I have a comment here I'd like to make about a certain bias I have seen in past lives, but I'll leave it till later...)

After awhile, I reckoned if it was not possible for me to get good information from readers about past lives, I'd go do my own past life regression. A result of that was that I went from one method of regression to another, astral travelling to the akashic records and many other things. Since I am a mostly self-taught practitioner, there was a point where I got a little confused as to which past life was actually mine. Apparently, ability to access the akashic records doesn't mean you can tell which records are yours :P

All this did sort of lead me to understand why so many readers tend to give descriptions of past lives that are either vague or don't make much sense. Intuition is great, but without analysis, it is as good as a load of bunk. After that, I had the good fortune to learn some pretty useful methods of divination, which I still use today as a guide in living and for analysis of information. (Hey, if the techniques don't work it real life, why should I use it to seek insight on spiritual matters)

Eventually I figured out a bit of who I was... and apparently, despite quite a few readers telling me that I am a very loving... but strong individual who er... "came back this time to assist in the evolution of man/saving the planet...etc... you name it"... I knew deep down inside that I'm NOT that person. Heck, "loving" is not a word my own close friends would use to describe me.

Actually, I was a criminal in at least two distinct lifetimes. It was mostly stuff like banditry, piracy, housebreaking... that sort of thing. Life was hard back in those times for common folk and I guess I wasn't content sitting around as someone's serf. It is no surprise that as a result of that I have met more than my fair share of petty crooks in this lifetime :P In fact I spent most of last year sitting around inside a government office finding enough evidence to put some jerk behind bars... and he isn't even the only guy I have done this to in the last like...5 years of my life. Yeah, another stupid ass is somewhere in Geneva now and I am wondering how to get him to come back and sit behind bars.

It's pretty funny now I think about it. None of the readers who told me about my past lives ever said anything about me being a criminal. At first they would say stuff like the Mongolian chieftan reading I first went to. Later, I met readers who said I was an "old soul" and I was here to "assist mankind"... rigggghhhhhttttt... one reader even said I was a witch burnt at the stake, probably because she saw I had an odd burn-like birthmark on my arm.

Seriously, although I may not always have been a very successful criminal, I don't think I'm stupid enough to get caught and burnt at the stake for something like "witchcraft"... in the first place, I don't think I knew many "witches" who lived in the "old ways" ... In the second, honestly, the practice of something like traditional "witchcraft" doesn't appeal to me at all... not even in this lifetime. (No I don't like dancing naked under the light of the moon or covered in skins... yeesh... and dancing... well, that's NOT something I do well, I also don't do well with drumming... and "getting in touch with your emotional side / natural man / animal nature... is NOT something that appeals to me :P)

Now something high-falutin' sounding like "alchemy" or "ceremonial magic" or "theurgy" might catch my attention. And no, I don't think that my taste has changed just because I am in another lifetime.

I am also a little surprised that no one said I was a judge or detective in my past life. I would have thought those would be natural career choices, since I seem to attract lots of criminal-types in my life experience. A friend once commented that it was a sign from the higher powers that I might do well in the profession of catching crooks... :P He had no idea how right he was... and by the way, he is not a psychic, but a very devout follower of one of the major religions.

Well, about 3 years ago, I was given an insight into a particular past life through a vision of sorts...

In this vision, I saw myself in a European setting, like a town or village. There were half-timbered houses like in Germany, so I initially thought I was in a medieval verson of Germany, having been there myself in this lifetime. However, there was something that was in the back of my mind, telling me that the scene was in France, perhaps in the South, where Marseilles is.

The scene quickly shifted to the doorway of what I thought was some kind of convent run by nuns. The nuns were dressed in dark habits and out of the doorway ran this pretty young girl with a nice face, dark wavy hair and er... large breasts... yes, I did notice that. (I guess some preferences don't change...) Well, for some strange reason, the girl got into trouble and ended up in a dungeon or prison of sorts. She was in chains and I saw a table where 2 priests were interrogating her or something. There was only two of them, one was doing the talking and the other was either sitting at the table taking down what the lady said or he was praying or something... I wasn't sure what it was.

Well, from there the scene shifted into something a little more surreal, like a movie. It was pretty clear from the scene that one of the priests liked the woman and approached her alone. Later this same person spirited her away and had some kind of affair with her. At this point, the scenes became less and less realistic... I became aware of how both the priest and the woman felt about the whole situation and each other. The images became more symbolic. The woman seemed to like the priest, but she also felt that he was somehow responsible for her "fall" into being branded a witch or heretic. However, she felt on some level she was also innocent... and that she was merely led astray... There was even a scene where I followed behind her as she ran downwards in a spiral of stairs to where she saw the same man doing some kind of magic or devil worship. The underground lair was completely unreal at this point and the only reason I knew that she thought he was worshipping the devil was because hanging in the air was a giant sized "The Devil" card from the tarot's major arcana.

The man however, didn't seem to pay as much attention to the woman. I think he desired her, but he also felt that she was ignorant and quite a silly country girl who could not survive without his protection. In fact, for an alleged "devil worshipper" he didn't seem to regard the devil with too much reverence. He was more interested in the fantastic... stuff about magic and alchemy... and other marvels...

To cut a very long dream short, I woke up after that thinking I might be the woman in the dream... After all, I did have a few psychics telling me I was burnt at the stake. However, in my dream, the woman did not die from being burnt, she did get mixed up with some pretty stupid people, but she was not burnt.

After walking around thinking I might have been burnt as a witch for a few months, I realised I didn't share any of the animosity some members of the wiccan community seem to have against the church. I decided to do a bit of analysis and divination. As it turned out in the end, I realised I was not the woman, I was the priest. Yeah, I should have known it when I saw the woman and looked down at her boobs... some things really don't change.

This particular incident really taught me a few things about not making assumptions. I mean, if I were to think about it logically, I have more in common with the clergy than with the woman or with the women who were condemned to the stake as witches. I have since then had visions of latin phrases and more European monks...:P

So, was this vision a real past life, or was it something that I just dreamed up after seeing too many medieval themed shows? As it turns out, this particular vision is of a lifetime that is real. Sometime this year, I decided to put the historical pieces together. Using what I remember of the attire worn by the people in the dream and details of the case, I did some research and narrowed it down to a particular incident in France which apparently fit the vision almost to a "T".

I think if I ever needed proof that past lives are a reality, this particular one really has done it for me. It has also shown me that really, who we are today isn't too different from who we were back then. I mean, I still have the same patterns in that life as I do in this. I can empathise with how the priest felt because at one point in my life, I did run around with the crowd that felt it was right to stone people who practice any form of magic or the occult.

So NO, I was NEVER burnt at the stake... I was probably the guy who burnt some people... I am likely not here for the good of all mankind... probably just to save myself from my own stupid mistakes...

...

You know something, you'd think that knowing I was some stupid bastard who sent people to their deaths, I'd feel some kind of remorse or something... the fact is, I don't feel any remorse at all! Not even a bit. Now, I do feel a great deal of sadness that I have lost the lady in my vision... AGAIN in this lifetime... (yeah I DID know her in this lifetime... and yes, she did look quite the same...) but that's it.

I think I feel a strong sense of "Yes, this is right... I am on the right track... I now know who I am and what I am capable of..." I... I don't know, I think I'm deriving some kind of ... strength? from that... Perhaps, it is something that shores up my lack of faith. It's funny you know, I used to have great faith in my life, but since I "woke up" so to speak to the reality I am living now, I have very little faith in anything people accord divinity to and also in the people around me.

But I guess, that's probably something to talk about for another time. :(

"So I Guess You Must Hate Hermes... Right?"

"So I guess you must hate Hermes... right?... Why?"

Amazingly, I was asked this question by a friend who runs a place that attracts and hosts New Age events. When the comment came out, well, my mouth rounded into an "O" and I said, "On the contrary I DON'T hate Hermes..."

This very strange conversation came about because apparently, my big mouth has given me a reputation as a skeptic and a hater of channellers.

It's not true, I don't hate real channellers. I don't even hate the fake ones, or the ones that THINK they are channelling something from the spirit world. In fact, I am always on the lookout for psychics, witches, shamans and magicians who really have the powers they are supposed to have. And yes, I DO compliment and encourage the ones whom I feel have real talent. It is simply that I find myself unable to swallow or agree with something that I feel is a blatent lie or a huge self-deception.

I think that I am a pretty judgemental person... but that judgemental nature has also allowed me to see past a great deal of deception. In the past, I would not hesitate to challenge a blatent charlatan. I think I have toned down a lot these days. BUT, I still have a big mouth, what can I say, the ol' leopard can't really change those spots.

I don't really have a problem with the traditional spirit mediums that are a part of culture in Singapore, sure, not all of them get possessed by the gods all the time, and certainly, when the gods do fail to "show" there is some trickery on their part. (When I was much younger, I had the opportunity to hear the testamony of a "tang ki" who admitted that on occasion when the appropriate god failed to make an appearance, he was forced to resort to acting. ) However, the mediums in question do actually get possessed by the spirits often enough so that their credibility is intact. Also, they perform traditional feats of strength or endurance (slashing oneself does come to mind, as well as sitting on a chair of nails, all done without injury to the "tang ki" in question) to show a kind of rough proof that they have really been "ridden upon" by the gods.

I do question however the modern phenomena of "channelling". I mean, WHAT IS IT? Does the channeller actually get possessed by the spirit in question? Is the channeller actually conscious when possession happens? Or is the channel merely a clairvoyant and/or clairaudient middleman in the world of spirits and does not get possessed at all? I think that some places in the West at least, there is a distinction made between channelling and trance-mediumship. The former usually doesn't entail possession but the latter certainly does.

The problem with Singapore is that there isn't that kind of distinction and as a result, there is a great deal of variety in how "channelling" is conducted. The range of what a channeller does locally runs the gamut from what appears to be a very mild case of a "full possession" (I use very because I have never witnessed any of the non-traditional channellers do even a small percentage of the feats that the traditional "tang ki" does) to someone who is obviously completely conscious, and speaks and sounds exactly like himself/herself in terms of speech and tone even when he or she is "channelling" some highly evolved being.

This has led me to question the modern New Age channeller.

1. Without the traditional shows of "proof" of the gods' presence, how DO we know that the the channeller is really channelling some entity?

2. Noticeably, even the "tang ki"s admit that the spirits don't always show up when requested through prayer and ritual. How is it that most channellers can seemingly "command" the presence of the being in question whenever they are asked?

I mean, consider this seriously. Do you honestly think that the Archangel Michael has the time to come over and answer questions whenever he is called? For that matter, does he even deal with pretty human concerns. I'd think with the level of power he is at, he won't see or communicate with humans very often.

3. What is the standard proceedure behind "channelling"?

Considering what is required of the channeller... one would think that some kind of psychic ability is involved. Even if the channeller isn't functioning as a trance medium, based on what people expect from channelling, a channeller ought to have some kind of clairvoyance and/or clairaudience so that they can most importantly HEAR what the being in question is trying to convey to them.

With regards to Question 3, I once asked a channeller (and yes, by coincidence it was someone chanelling Lord Hermes) what is it that he sees or hears when Hermes communicates with him. Well, the answer was a real shocker.

Apparently, the channel has never physically seen or heard from "Lord Hermes". So then I asked, JUST HOW does he know Hermes is communicating with him? How does the "Lord Hermes" he is channelling actually answer questions posed to him? It took a bit of questioning, but I found out that the channel actually sees flashes of images in his mind when focusing on my questions.

AH HA! I was onto something. I went around to a few more channels and asked them about their communication with their patron being. Apparently, quite a lot of them have never actually seen or heard with their physical vision and hearing, the being they are channelling. So how were they getting their messages? Well, through what is known as the "Mind's Eye Vision".

Here I have to digress a little and talk a bit about what I feel the definition of "psychic ability" is. I am of the opinion that INTUITION is something that everyone has. Some people have a lot of it, some don't. And some people aren't even aware it exists. However, with some training, most people can make use of their intuition at a level that helps them in their daily life. Most often intuition comes as a sort of gut feeling or a sense of something, with some training in visualisation and meditation, I do think a normal human being will at some point be able to see images through the "Mind's Eye Vision". That is, images flash around in their mind when their intuition is put to work.

However, I feel that INTUITION is very different from ACTUAL PSYCHIC ABILITY. And I notice that not everyone has psychic abilities. Just like not everyone is a gifted pianist or ballerina. So what are these psychic abilities? From what I notice in my daily experience, the most readily identified psychic abilities are: Clairvoyance, Clairsentience, Clairaudience, Psychometry and Mediumship. I also notice that these gifts tend to run in families or blood relation. For instance, most "tang ki"s also have family members who are doing the same thing or something similar.

The "Mind's Eye Vision" is NOT a psychic ability. As the person only sees ... whatever he or she sees... in the mind. For those of you who might be feeling disappointed by what you are reading, don't underestimate the power of the "Mind's Eye Vision" and normal human intuition. Think about this... do you know that a study was conducted by some airlines that showed that before a plane crashes there is a significantly higher number of passenger cancellations and transfers from that same plane compared to normal flights? How do these people know when NOT to take the flight?

Back to channellers...

Soooooo, if most channellers I am likely to meet in Singapore are only receiving the messages through the "Mind's Eye Vision"... How does anyone know where those messages come from eh?

Unfortunately, after meeting that channeller, I met other channellers who also channelled "Lord Hermes"... sheesh... for one guy, he sure does get around. What if 2 people channel him at the same time at different locations? Who does he go to? I guess I made some unflattering comments to my friend about the whole idea of channelling Hermes and somehow I got the image of being a Hermes-hater.

Anyways, I really really doubt that the historical Hermes Trismegistus that I know is actually being channelled by anyone, and I certainly don't think he is any kind of ascended master, no matter what kind of sage people today say he was in the distant past. That's right... our perceptions of him today are based on modern interpretations. The actual ancient Egyptian view of Hermes Trismegistus is that he is a god... Hermes is really a latter Greek syncretism of the ancient Egyptian god Thoth and Mercury/Hermes. And NO, there is no historical evidence that Thoth was ever an ancient Atlantian sage or priest. Now, Plato is the recognised historical source of the Atlantis legend and he never mentioned Thoth or Hermes Trismegistus in his writing. The philosopher DOES hint at ancient records that were kept in secret in Egypt for 9000 years, but that factoid does not make a link to Thoth in any way. And NO, I did not see the word Hermes or Thoth anywhere in those damnable books when I had to read them in the university.

However, it is interesting to note that historically and in certain traditional belief systems there seems to be a link between Thoth/Hermes Trismegistus and the very human Enoch (in the Bible and Torah) or Idris (in the Islamic texts). Something which I am currently exploring. Therefore I am inclined to believe that the original Thoth might really be human. In the same way I think that Osirius, Isis and Set were based on actual historical people. And I might add in the case of Osirius and Isis, some scholars make a really good case for their being based off actual historical people and events.

Before you go off saying ... "Like how can people become gods..." well think about Kwan Gong, Chinese god of warfare, he was a real historical person whom people deitified after his death. And in a more recent example a friend of mine travelling around visited a Chinese temple in Malaysia. Among the standard images of Chinese gods, he saw the statue of a man in a suit with a cane in hand. Amused by this, he asked a local who the deity was. Well, as it turned out, the man in the suit was a well-known and loved local philantropist who had passed on. But in the world of ancestor worship and traditional Chinese belief, he was turned into some kind of god.

And if you are boiling mad after reading this, please do note, I do not hate channellers and I do think that there are some out there who truly possess psychic gifts. I was fortunate enough in this lifetime to meet someone who does communicate with spirits and who convinced me that she was actually listening to answers given to her by unseen entities. However, she is currently the ONLY professional psychic I have met thus far who has convinced me of her gifts.

As for Hermes Trismegistus/Thoth... I can only say that I deeply respect what the man stands for. That is why I am determined to uncover the truth about him and his knowledge. I am not content to accept the "Lord Hermes" that is sometimes channelled as the actual historical person that has ascended. If Hermes Trismegistus / Thoth is indeed a master of science, physics, magic and mathematics, as Egyptian tradition claims, I would expect nothing less from him than the highest levels of academic excellence and enlightened wisdom. Sadly, I have never heard THAT LEVEL of knowledge and wisdom from the mouth of any mortal person alive today.

Never Forget Who You Are...

Had some free time today, went out and watched Singapore's first Cannes nomination "My Magic". I don't usually watch local movie productions, but I have always liked watching stage magicians, even though plenty of them make it their lives' work to debunk psychics and anything supernatural. I guess they do a lot of great work making sure people don't get conned by fake psychics or people who think they are psychic.

The other reason for my interest is that I feel a great deal of empathy for the main character in the movie. I have never been a chronic alcoholic, but I know what its like living at the bottom of the barrel, just surviving from day to day, nothing to look foraward to.

I think I was already dead inside, even before I lost my job to retrenchment the first time. Somewhere at the back of my mind, deep inside my own subconscious, I knew who I was but I never took action, I can't understand why I was so willing to pretend to be something I was not for such a long time. Was it the salary? The stability? Was it the respect? Certainly the salary was nothing to crow about and I didn't get enough of the other two as well. So what was it? I have no answer till this day.

The great tragedy of the modern age is that, with the continuous rush of things, the rat race and the anonimity of urban life, most people rush from birth to school to work to marriage and kids without stopping to think much about the direction of their lives. Soon everything is over, and if you don't believe in reincarnation, it will be time to account for the way you have lived your life. And the sad thing is that people can pass through life in today's world without so much as an insight on who they really are.

I think when we are children, we have an idea of who we are. Certainly, I did. If anyone asked me what I was, I would say I was a wizard. But then the world comes rushing in and you find yourself bombarded by opinions that make you feel as if what you are is too insignificant, too silly, too impossible to be true. Instead of fighting back, I decided to try and blend in with the rest and enter the Singaporean race for cash, credit cards and unchanging stability. In short, I wore a mask and became unhappy wearing it, but I guess I was too afraid to take it off. After awhile, wearing that mask too long, you really forget who you are. :P

In essence, I lost MY MAGIC... I lost touch of who I really am. In retrospect, being one of the jobless for as long as I had been really made me question what things were important to me. It also made me take radical steps in trying to find solutions in my life. I mean, seriously, after trying and trying for years to gain back some sanity, a steady income, respectability ... and a precious job... I said one day, "To heck with the normal methods! If I can't get my life straight doing normal people stuff, why not embrace the abnormal... or even the supernatural!"

Am I happier today just being who I really am? Sure. Have I found the sanity and respectability I craved? In an odd way... certainly. Am I still a bum who only works about 50% of the time? Yeah I sure am... and no, I am not an undischarged bankrupt and my neighbours have no idea what it is I do for a living. One lady thought I sold vitamins!

You know, I used to read Hellblazer and shudder at the thought that one day I might end up like John Constantine... It's a funny thing how Fate sort of makes life imitate art... minus the chain smoking, drinking and constant trafficking with demons.