Various forms of reflexology have existed in indigenous societies across all continents for thousands of years.  The earliest known reference to a form of reflexology is an illustration on the walls of the physician’s tomb at Saqqara in Egypt.  In China it was a precursor to the development of the acupuncture system.  It was introduced to the West as Zone Therapy in 1913 in the USA by Dr William H Fitzgerald and Dr Edwin Bowers.  But it was the work of Eunice Ingham, a nurse and physiotherapist, in the 1930s that gave reflexology its name and provided the foundations of most current menthods.

There has been very little scientific research done to help us understand how reflexology works, but it is generally believed that as the feet contain hundreds of thousands of nerve endings, the stimulation of these nerve endings sends messages to the brain to regulate the corresponding area of the body.  This idea is further supported by the fact that reflexology produces instant results for the nervous system, as it is an extremely relaxing therapy.  It has also been shown to have positive effects on more chronic nervous conditions.

It is very effective also for the endocrine system, bringing significant improvements to problems caused by hormonal imbalances.  It has also been shown to be effective for the digestive and circulatory systems, and helps regulate imbalances in all of the other body systems.  It has a balancing effect on all of the organs of the body and has even produced results for some chronic conditions considered incurable by allopathic medicine.  It is not an instant miracle cure however.  As with most holistic treatments one or two sessions of reflexology can be very effective for acute conditions, but chronic long-term conditions will usually require a longer term course of treatments in order to see results.

On a more holistic level it calms the mind and brings clarity to the emotions, and as it puts the recipient into a meditative state it can facilitate spiritual awareness and has been known on occasion to help bring on a spiritual experience.

The most common element that nearly all of these methods share is a focus on conscious breathing, usually as a tool to help you relax before going into the method’s actual practice.  Despite this ubiquity, breathing itself is often underrated.  Having used many self-help methods over many years, I am convinced that ultimately the most valuable self-help tool is breathing itself. One of the reasons that I was drawn to the teachings of the Crimson Circle is the fact that conscious breathing is the main method that they recommend above all others.  

As humanity begins to move into new energy, many methods that may have worked well in the past are no longer as effective as they once were.  In some ways much of the new age movement can get stuck in a similar mindset to the religions that it claims to supersede, as they emphasise and hang onto their methods as gospel, when a lot of these methods were only meant to be stepping stones on the evolutionary path.

Breathing is one of the few methods that continues to be important in the spiritual realms.  This may seem surprising, as even those of us who have a conscious spiritual awareness probably tend to think of breathing as being a mainly physical exercise,  and that once we let go of this mortal coil it is no longer needed.  Apparently this is not so, as a form of breathing continues with our consciousness after death.  This should give us a clue that when we breathe there is a lot more happening than just the intake of oxygen and nitrogen and the expulsion of carbon dioxide.  Yoga and other Eastern philosophies teach that what we breathe in is the essential spiritual life force that is the connecting and empowering energy for the whole universe.  In India it is known as prana, and in China as chi or ki.   The philosophy of Breatharianism is based on this idea, such that conscious breathing of prana energy can be utilised to sustain the physical body without the need to ingest food.

Breathing consciously is the most powerful way to move stuck energy.  This can work in all four of the aspects of our beings:  physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.  Physically it releases stress and tension and helps to increase body awareness.  Due to the influence particularly of science and also Western society in general, we tend to believe that it all happens in our minds, such that we become captive to our minds and lose contact with the body.  While breathing consciously it is difficult to keep a mental focus.  This is very useful because to take away the focus on the mind for just a few minutes on a regular basis both releases mental tension and begins to break the hold that the mind can have on us to the detriment of the other three equally important aspects.  Breathing is also one of the best tools for releasing negative and blocked emotions, and it facilitates spiritual awareness.  By inhaling consciously we draw the essential life force into our whole being more effectively.  By exhaling consciously we express this divine energy out into the world.

As breathing is something that we’ve all done all our lives, you would think that we would at least know how to breathe properly.  But I have found through my massage practice – particularly shiatsu massage – that many people don’t breathe properly, including some who have practiced yoga or tai chi or similar methods that normally place a heavy emphasis on the breath.

As our lungs are located in the chest area, it is natural to think that breathing by expanding the chest is efficient.  But this is not so.  The lungs are pear-shaped, and chest breathing only draws air into the top one-third of the lungs.  To actually fill the lungs with air requires you to breathe using the diaphragm and the belly.  The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle that sits below the lungs, and is one of the most important and underrated muscles in the body.  It is the only muscle that works both vountarily and involutarily, keeping us breathing while asleep.  This dual ability means that the diaphragm is a link between the unconscious and the conscious mind.  The lungs themselves have no muscles, so require the diaphragm to contract downwards, creating space in the lungs which draws in air.  If you rely on expanding your chest to breathe deeply, the diaphragm does not contract downwards much, so less air is drawn into the lungs.  It is also more work to expand the chest than it is to contract the diaphragm, so the lesser amount of oxygen that is drawn in when chest breathing is also utilised less effectively.

A useful exercise is to sit or lie comfortably, with one hand on the chest and the other hand on the belly.  Loosen the clothes around your waist.  Breathe deeply, and take notice of which hand moves more as you breathe in and out.  If the hand on your chest is moving more, then you are not breathing deeply or filling the lungs with air.  Practice pushing your belly out as you breathe in, until the hand on your belly moves more than the hand on your chest.  It might feel strange at first, but you will be filling your lungs with air and providing your body with as much as 200% more usable oxygen.

This belly breathing might need to be practiced on a regular basis for quite a time before it becomes second nature, as the bad habits of a lifetime do not usually break easily.  Western fashion and social norms are not helpful, as we are all encouraged to hold our belly in and stick our chest out.  Many types of clothing do not make belly breathing comfortable.  Since I have practiced conscious breathing I tend to favour clothes that are looser and have elastic waists.

But these minor inconveniences are far outweighed by the benefits of conscious breathing :  

Over time you will find that you will be more relaxed and calm in the face of stress.  

Breathing consciously and regularly will give you some emotional detachment from other peoples’ dramas, enabling you to act from a place of true compassion rather than being dragged into an expected emotional reaction.

You will begin to feel a stronger connection to your body and will become more aware of its needs.

In moments when your mind is overwhelming you with repetitive and negative thoughts and their accompanying fear-based emotions, being able to stop and breathe deeply will help to release such thoughts and emotions, so you will become more aware of your deeper feelings.  The diaphragm is the physical bridge through which your gut and your heart communicate.  It enables your intuition and true feelings to connect with one another. 

Conscious breathing connects us to the present moment.  When you maintain a focus on your breath it is difficult to dwell in the past or worry about the future for any length of time.

Deep breathing facilitates spiritual growth, particularly if combined with meditation.  This will become more important for all of us, as one of the results of the current acceleration in the evolution of human consciousness is that the veil between the physical and spiritual dimensions is getting thinner. More and more people are beginning to have experiences of the spiritual realms.  To be able to breathe consciously and deeply at will is the best tool for integrating such experiences.

The best place to start when attempting to understand what new energy is, is to first define what it is not.  So we need a very basic understanding of what old energy is.  It is over 100 years now since Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity.  This theory put forward what was a revolutionary idea at the time, that matter and energy were basically made of the same stuff.  His formula for this equivalence is the famous E = mc², which means that energy is equal to mass (of matter) times the speed of light squared.  What we call matter is mostly space, empty except for the energy that gives it the form of matter.  If all the space in and between the atoms of your body were removed so that the nucleus, protons and electrons were packed up against each other, you would be a barely visible but heavy speck, weighing what you weigh. In terms of its volume, matter occupies such a small amount of space that a statistician would call it negligible.  If you walk into a wall, it is not the matter in it that stops you walking through it, it is the energy field.  Many scientists believe that our universe is essentially a giant hologram.

What we perceive as matter is simply energy at various levels of vibration. All energy vibrates, or more correctly oscillates, between two poles.  When this vibration happens at a constant rate it has a frequency, measured in hertz. 1 hertz (Hz) equals 1 cycle of vibration per second.  Sound energy for example is the energy of vibrating particles at relatively low frequencies from 20 to 200,000 Hz.  Human hearing stops before 20,000 Hz.  Dogs can hear up to 50,000Hz, whilst dolphins can hear up to 200,000 Hz.  Light energy is electromagnetic energy, which includes radio waves vibrating from 10³ Hz, to microwaves from 10 to power 7 Hz, light waves from 10 to power 12 Hz, x-rays from 10 to power 16 Hz up to gamma rays from 10 to power 19 to 10 to power 23 Hz.

Crossing the strict boundaries of mainstream science is the idea put forward by many spiritual teachers that thought itself is energy, vibrating at frequencies much higher than we currently have the technology to measure. Vibrating thought energy has influenced how human consciousness has manifested in all aspects of life and society.  As electromagnetic energy vibrates between two polarities, so human thought vibrates between two polarities.  In consciousness terms this is known as duality, the tendency for human fields of thought to be defined by their relation to two opposite extremes.  For example:

Politics is described by its oscillation between the conservative right wing and the liberal left wing.

Religion is described by its oscillation between the elusive concepts of good, right and light on one side, and evil, wrong and darkness on the other.

Economics is described by its oscillation between rich and poor.

Gender is described by its oscillation between male and female.

History is described by its oscillation between a linear view and a circular view.

Science is described by its oscillation between what is provable and repeatable to what is unpredictable and therefore unprovable.

The origin of life is described by its oscillation between creation and evolution.

In all of these areas there has been a strong tendency for thought to be pushed to one of the two extremes.  So much energy is spent in the duelling (or should that be dualling?) between the two opposing camps, and development in these areas is slow and labourious.  As we become aware of the implications of the old energy concept of duality, we begin to realise how pervasive – and ultimately divisive – duality thinking is.  We need look no further than the mainstream media for examples of this.  Many news articles on a particular issue will quote an extreme viewpoint from one side of a debate, then in the interests of fairness, quote a voice from the other extreme.  Human nature being what it has been means that these extreme viewpoints are the ones most likely to catch attention and sell newspapers. Consequently the many more reasonable but less titillating viewpoints that lie between the two extremes are often ignored.  In reality it is usually these voices that make up the majority and will contribute most to the solution of an issue.   When presented with what passes for news, one is often left with a feeling of hopelessness, that there is a huge and unbridgable gulf separating both sides of an issue.  This is a tool often used by the global power elite who heavily influence the mainstream media to confuse and divide the population in order that they may continue the status quo.

But thankfully it’s not all bad news.  The acceleration in the evolution of human consciousness is producing a totally new type of energy that works in a radically different way than old energy.  Rather than being vibrational in nature, it is expansional.  It expands in all directions at once, like a balloon being blown up.  It does not rely on the existence of an opposing force and is therefore much more efficient.  Some scientists are apparently aware of its existence, but as it does not fit into their existing paradigms they are unable to measure or quantify it.

One of the characteristics of new energy that differs from old energy is that it does not act the same way in every situation, thus making it unpredictable and difficult to harness under existing scientific methods.  It will require a complete overhaul of scientifice principles.  New energy parallels some of the more mysterious areas of quantum physics, where particles will respond differently according to the conditions under which they are being observed. Experiments set up to produce a particular result will attain different results according to the expectations of those conducting the experiments.  This suggests that the quantum particles are responsive to consciousness, as new energy is purported to be.  

New energy is beginning to have effects in some of the afore-mentioned areas.  Politics is beginning to see a movement away from petty partisan squabblings to a more co-operative approach.  Traditional religious views are giving way to a deeper spirituality that sees beyond the simplistic ideas of separating life into what is judged as being good or evil.  The current financial crisis demonstrates the failure of old energy economics which will continue to falter until replaced by new systems based on fairness that will no longer allow huge gaps between rich and poor.  Gender roles are no longer so clearly defined by genitalia as people begin to embrace as their own the virtues and values of the opposite sex, and alternative sexual orientations and practices lose the stigma of deviancy.  Science is beginning to see the effects of new consciousness and will therefore discover new forms of cheap, abundant and sustainable energy that will replace our dependence on dwindling fossil fuels.

The changeover to new energy will not happen overnight, it will be a process that may take years.  But once its characteristics begin to be more widely acknowledged, the process will accelerate.  Old energy ideas will strongly resist the change for a time, but once these are seen for what they are, we will begin to live in a society that is fairer, more tolerant, efficient and spontaneous!

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Much of the information in this article was inspired by the teachings of the Crimson Circle

It is easy to understand the attraction of conspiracy theories that claim that the planet is controlled by a relatively small group of nameless faceless men, who between them hold enough strings to control their puppets – the political and business leaders – to maintain the inequitable status quo, that ‘to he who has, more shall be given, and to him that hasn’t, even the little he has shall be taken away from him’.   This mysterious group has been called by many different names: the Illuminati, the secret government, and the shadow government just to name a few.  It is claimed that its members are have links with - and possibly control - other organisations such as the Bilderberg group, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, Skull and Bones, the Neo-Conservatives, and the Freemasons.  Some of the more extreme conspiracy theorists claim that even the United Nations , the environmental movement and the New Age movement are controlled by this Global Power Elite.

Many theories about this Global Power Elite circulate on the internet.  Some of the more well known conspiracy theorists include David Icke, Alex Jones, William Cooper and Henry Makow.  Illuminati News lists the 13 families they believe to control the world.  Many of these sites make uncomfortable reading, not least because of their often cluttered layouts, creative grammar and tendency to shout at the reader by their overuse of capital letters.   But also because many of their arguments have an air of plausibility.  Even if only half of what they say is true, they paint a disturbing picture.  Such that they often give the reader an effect similar to one of the Global Power Elite’s purported methods, that of instilling fear.

Less well known are the views that come from the other side of the veil. Many channellers and spiritual teachers allude to the existence of the GPE, though few go into detail.  Those that do, however, have similar ideas to the conspiracy theorists.  They say that the GPE has held an extrememly powerful position for Earth’s recorded histroy.  In order to perpetuate the belief that this is simply the natural order of things, they have exerted enough control to wipe out much of the evidence of past egalitarian societies.  What evidence that has not been destroyed has simply been locked away, often for centuries.  Their work has been effective enough that mainstream historians who have no connection with or knowledge of the GPE vigorously defend the version of history that we are taught, and ridicule evidence that might suggest otherwise.

The GPE has a core group of a small number of families who have carefully orchestrated marriages between their members in order to keep their bloodline in power and control. The European royal families would often push their princes and princesses to marry into the royal families of other nations, and despite the reduction in power of monarchies today, this practice continues. Many of the US presidents, for example, have been claimed to have been related to each other, as well as to the British royal family.

Many spiritual sources claim that the GPE have links to extra-terrestrial entities, possibly reptilian in nature.  Although they don’t go as far as David Icke – probably the world’s most extreme well-known conspiracy theorist – who claims that the American Presidents and British royalty are actually reptilian ETs disguised as human beings, and that in some of their secret ceremonies they have revealed their true nature.  It is these more extreme views that generate the most attention for Mr Icke, often overshadowing his more plausible theories.

The GPE – whoever they may be – have never completely controlled the world.  Humans have always had free will, even if we have chosen not to exercise it.  But the GPE have always exerted enough influence over society’s major systems and institutions – governments, education, science, religion, military, police, judicial, electoral, banking, business and the media – to keep themselves rich and powerful and their machinations exempt from investigation and prosectution. Their greatest tool these days is the mainstream media, itself a field where a small number of people wield the greatest influence.  Mainstream media hides behind a facade of independence, consistently magnifying and and dramatising local and world events in order to promote confusion, uncertainty and fear.  Investigative journalists who dare to ask the hard questions are few and far between, usually quashed by their editors.

But as the evolution of human consciousness has lately accelerated, the power of the GBE has begun to wane.  They are not immune from the consciousness raising, and significant numbers of them are moving away from their traditional practices.  In recent years they have undergone a schism, and much of their energy and attention has been diverted by their two warring factions.  Although still dwarfed by the mainstream media on the internet, alternative media has been given a voice, and the word is getting out.

Despite the GPE’s very public influence over the 2000 and 2004 US Election results, this influence was not able to be sustained against the powerful grass-roots campaign of Barack Obama.  He still had to play along with them to a certain extent in order to garner enough of their support to get to the position that he is in.  Some of his choices of his support team have shown to be members of the afore-mentioned organisations, though it is not publically known where they stand in relation to these organisations.  Many politicians from both sides are either members of the GPE or under their influence, and so Obama – despite his strong mandate – will need time to reveal his true agenda.  Of course there are also situations that are so highly classified that he did not know of their existence or extensiveness prior to being sworn in as president, so he will be taking steps to learn about all the cancers in the country’s institutions, before he can begin to change them.  According to many spiritual sources Barack Obama is a highly developed being still yet to come into his full awareness.  As he does so he will be less and less influenced by the GPE.

That is not to say that Obama is a messiah who will save us from the GPE. The downfall of their system is inevitable due to its inherent structures that are built on greed and oppression. They simply cannot be sustained in the new consciousness energy. Although the GPE had a large influence over the creation of the housing bubble and the crash that followed it,  they were very much unprepared for the scale of the financial meltdown.  Many of them have no idea how the orchestrated crash has got so out of hand so quickly, and many of them will not survive it.  Though many around the world will suffer as a consequence, the collapse of the GPE will leave a void.  As their house of cards falls – this will continue for some time – their illegal and unethical methods that drive money and power upwards will be exposed.  The global economy will continue to plunge downward until its root causes are eradicated or reformed.  New systems, structures and institutions will then be born from truer and fairer democratic processes, along similar lines to the principles of equality and openness embodied in the internet.

The important thing here is not to give in to the fear that the GPE are propogating, especially through the media.  It’s a well-established method that they use – to orchestrate a situation that frightens a population who seem powerless to stop it, so we call on them to fix it.  In doing so we have given away our power and allowed them to tweak the system a little more in their favour.  The current situation is something that they cannot fix, indeed most of them have no idea what is going on.  They will be just trying whatever they can to hang on to their money and power.  For those of us on a conscious spiritual path who are tuning in to the expanded consciousness, there is no reason for us to give in to fear, even if it seems overwhelming at times.  The shift to higher consciousness now has too much momentum to be stopped or even slowed down by a Global Power Elite, many of whom will not survive the transition to the new energy if they are not prepared to change and relinquish their addiction to power.

Some helpful hints on how to survive this period of transition:  Breathe deeply on a regular basis, especially if you are feeling overwhelmed.  Stand back as much as possible from the global picture as painted by mainstream media. Don’t get caught up in the drama of it all – that’s what the GPE wants. Get involved in positive movements in your local community, they will help to sustain us all through the economic difficulties. Take time out for yourself, connect with nature, listen to music that soothes and inspires you.  Get in touch with your true divine nature, develop your spiritual awareness, be gentle with yourself.  It may be the end of the world as we know it, but we can envision a better world based on fairness, integrity and love!

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Much of the information in this article was inspired by the teachings of the Crimson Circle, The Matthew Books, and the Pleiadians.

Further suggested reading for unconvinced conspiracy theorists: the excellent article Why Truthers Need to Vote for Obama, by Todd Putnam on OpedNews.com

So what exactly is a belief?  Amongst the many available dictionary definitions, the most encompassing yet brief definition I found was in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary.  It defines belief as:

Assent to a proposition or affirmation, or the acceptance of a fact, opinion, or assertion as real or true, without immediate personal knowledge; reliance upon word or testimony; partial or full assurance without positive knowledge or absolute certainty; persuasion; conviction; confidence; as, belief of a witness; the belief of our senses.

This is a very broad definition. The first phrase could mean just having a vague idea of something.  So even an agnostic – who professes no religious beliefs –  could say something like ‘I lean towards the idea that the human experience ends completely at death’ and it is still considered a belief.  If this is the case, then it certainly might be possible that the numbers of our belief systems run into the millions.  Consider how many everyday expressions – such as the following – are actually statements of belief: 

That’s just the way it is
You can’t always get what you want
God only knows
There’s 2 certainties in life – death and taxes
Life wasn’t meant to be easy
Cleanliness is next to Godliness

Each of us could come up with similar – and longer – lists.  We absorb so many of these kinds of beliefs in childhood, many of them we barely understand at the time, but together they form the filters through which we view and interpret the world around us.  They are the framework around which we build our habits, personality and identity. Our personal belief systems are our major influence on how we perceive our individual reality. And even more so, our collective belief systems shape the world that we live in, creating much of our concensus reality.  Only in times of crisis do many of us question just a few of these beliefs.

We are now in a period where many beliefs are being called into question. With the current economic, political and environmental upheavals, our beliefs about many of the instutions – such as governments, corporations and banks – that many of us have taken for granted, are being sorely tested at the moment.  It is a wake up call for all of us, even if we are relatively unaffected by the financial crisis.  

Behind a lot of these beliefs are some of our deeper core beliefs, which will also need to be re-examined in the growing wave of higher consciousness. Much is happening in the spiritual realms for which the secondhand and outdated belief systems of world religions have no satisfactory answers.  It is time for each of us to dig deep into ourselves to discover our true deep feelings about who we are and why we are here.  Because that is where our strongest belief systems come from.   Despite the efforts of organised religion to encourage belief in the ‘facts’ of their sacred texts, our major belief systems are born from our deepest feelings.  They have much more to do with what is in our hearts than what is in our minds.

Many of us may not be aware of what we believe.  One of the better tools to help us examine our beliefs is meditation.  By allowing ourselves to step out of ordinary life and concensus reality for even just a few minutes, and to take a step back within ourselves just to listen to and observe the myriad of beliefs that our mind begins to regurgitate, we begin to get an idea of the substance of our beliefs.  It is amazing how much of these beliefs we have simply absorbed and accepted from our parents, teachers, friends and other role models.  With increased awareness of our belief systems we can then begin to decide which beliefs serve us, and which belief systems require us to serve them.

Many believers believe that their beliefs should be unshakeable, they should be strong enough to withstand doubt.  But as a strong tree is one that sways in the wind, I prefer to believe that a strong belief is one that bends and changes with each new experience.  A rigid belief system will collapse in the strong winds of change that are currently buffeting us.  Especially when it comes to those beliefs for which we have no absolute certainty.  I rather prefer to think of my beliefs as ideas, because ideas can be more easily adapted.

A belief’s a dangerous thing … People die for it. People kill for it … I think it’s better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life is malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can’t generate. Life becomes stagnant.’

- Rufus, the black 13th apostle from the movie ‘Dogma‘ – screenplay by Kevin Smith

This planetary awareness has been growing exponentially for most of recorded human history, meaning that up until the 20th century it was growing so slowly that it was barely perceptible.   For much of early recorded history, the awareness level of most of the population was mainly at the tribal level and remained that way until well after the birth of nation states. Even with the early empires such as the Greeks and the Romans, the awareness level of most people barely extended beyond their immediate vicinity.

The growth of consciousness has been strongly linked to the growth in technology.  The invention of the printing press in 1440 was a small step, but the work involved in printing was still quite labourious and anyway so few people were literate.  The Industrial Revolution saw the invention of the first steam powered printing press in 1811, and with the coinciding increases in literacy and travel awareness began to slowly but perceptibly increase throughout the 19th century.

In the early years of the 20th century, World War I and the subsequent Great Depression were the first major global occurences.  It was World War II however that really precipitated the necessity for formal recognition of humanity’s mutual interdependence, when in 1945 the United Nations was founded in order to stop wars between countries and to provide a platform for dialogue.   The UN was the first and remains one of the few truly global organisations that represents virtually the whole of humanity.  Like any human organisation it has its flaws, limitations and corruptions, but has mostly been limited in its effectiveness  because it is not an independent organisation but an association of 192 member states who must reach consensus.  The general consciousness level of the member states barely extended beyond the national level for most of the last century.  But whilst its more powerful members states have strutted and postured on the front of the world stage the UN has been quietly working in the background, and with recent events such as the global financial crisis, climate change and the food crisis,  it will increasingly become the main forum in which to address global issues.

The 1960s was a time of revolutionary ideas and social and spiritual upheaval particularly in the Western world, when the doctrines and motives of ruling establishments were called into question on a large scale.  However despite the decade’s many advancements in areas such as women’s rights, civil rights, the Peace Movement, environmental awareness, technology, popular culture, spiritual awareness and social revolution, the subsequent backlash that led to the complacency of the 1970s and materialism of the 1980s has caused some to see the 1960s as a failure.  I believe however that this is only a short-term view that prevails as a result of the era’s inability to immediately address all of the the high expectations that the idealism of the period brought.  The sheer intensity of the period however was too much for too many to cope with, and a backlash was inevitable at the time, because not enough people – especially those in positions of power – had the level of awareness to integrate so many new ideas.  But not all of the old hippies became bankers – there were many others who continue to quietly pursue some of the ideals first brought to light in the 1960s.  Many of the ideas and movements that are considered part of the New Age movement first came to general awareness in the 1960s.

This week brings the 40th anniversary of an important milestone in the advent of global consciousness – the publishing of the first photo of the Earth from space, taken by the crew of Apollo 8 from an orbit around the moon on Christmas Eve 1968.   The now more commonplace image of the simple blue and green sphere against the vast emptiness of space helped many to grasp humanity’s essential oneness and the fact that this planet is all that we have.  It has become an icon for environmental awareness.  Click on the photo to go to The Independent’s commemoration article.  

The 1970s and 80s were a time when the focus of many was more on the physical and material.  But even though not much 60s idealism carried over into mainstream society over these two decades, the growth of consciousness was not stopped.  The focus on the physical body had the effect of raising awareness of health issues such that traditonal medicine’s focus on curing disease was no longer sufficient, and many opened up to ideas of alternative and holistic health and a focus instead on wellness. Increased knowledge of the debilitating effects of stress and its influence on the development of virtually all illness and disease led to many opening up to the positive effects of more spiritually oriented practices such as meditation, yoga and conscious breathing.  Awareness of the effects of different environments on human health also increased.

The 1980s was the decade that brought us Reaganomics, Thatcherism, business globalisation and economic liberalisation.  Multi-national companies and global conglomerates were no longer so limited by their national borders and collectively became more powerful players on the world stage than the nation states from which they emerged.  Globalisation for many became a dirty word.  But despite the damage done by bringing Western materialism to the people of developing nations, an upside has been a certain kind of stability to the world as a whole.  Business has contributed to the prevention of potential wars by diluting the self-interest of nation states in the name of continued profits.  Of course we are only now beginning to appreciate the long term negative effects though of many of the flaws of allowing markets to have free reign.  And even the capitalist triumph of the fall of communism with the Berlin Wall at the end of the decade will perhaps be seen as being more symbolic of the breaking down of what separates us from each other, and freedom from restrictive ideologies from whatever side of the political fence.

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To be continued

- The Bigger Picture -

The question ‘Who Am I? is possibly humanity’s number one frequently asked question, a question that probably produces more possible answers than there are stars in the sky.  I have asked myself this question many times in my life so far, and explored many of the recommended methods that are supposed to help one find an answer. These methods have ranged from world travel to travelling the inner worlds, and this website is an attempt to document some of my experiences during this exploration.  But here I offer some of my ideas about who I am now.

I am a spiritual being having a human experience, as I believe are all of us.

I am a virtual reality computer game avatar in a vast holographic 3D virtual world, where the players – many of whom created the game in the first place – have handed the remote control to the avatars, so soon after the avatar’s entrance in the game that most avatars are not aware of the existence of the player.

Although I would lend credence to many of the ideas of the so-called New Age movement, I no longer consider myself purely as a lightworker, having had to learn to work with the darker aspects of my soul in recent years!  But I am not just a darkworker either, I consider that both of the light and dark polarities are different manifestations of what is basically the same energy, so I would rather call myself an energy worker.

Despite some of my lyrics in The Love Frequency, I am not sure that the term ascension – the idea that one spiritually evolves moving up through the dimensions until one can finally throw off this mortal coil and become purely spirit – is fully appropriate for the pathways I find myself on.  I certainly believe it has been important in our understanding of the whole process of spiritual evolution, but these days I find myself more aware of a process of descension, that of my soul or higher divine self in the gradual process of ‘descending’ into my physical body. Because of the soul’s inherent multi-dimensionality, I am becoming more aware of the different dimensions but not in the sense of ascending through the various levels so much as being aware – from my physical centre – of dimensions intermingling with each other.

I wonder that in some ways the focus of many on ascension is a stepping stone – or perhaps a hangover –  from the Christian idea of the rapture. It still has the idea of physical reality being something somehow considered as low consciousness and something that needs to be moved beyond.  It is often suggested in many of the channels of the Crimson Circle rather that physical existence is in some ways the highest ladder on the rung that existence or All-That-Is has seen so far, and that there are angels and spirits simply clamouring to come here.  In order to evolve, one must enter and master the Earth realms, over may lifetimes.  The soul guides the ‘lower’ human ego to gradually evolve its awareness to the point that the soul feels welcomed by the human to merge with it, momentarily at first but gradually increasing to the point where it becomes the norm.

I will continue to add to this as more ideas come to mind…

I have a strong memory at around the age of five or six of asking my father why he spent so much time reading and studying, and not out playing football as I liked to do.  Up until that moment I had thought that grown-ups knew everything, so it puzzled me that he would spend so much time with his head stuck in books.   His answer was that he was searching for the truth.  At the time I was very impressed, and thought that that must have meant that he was someone really important, as if he had been charged with the responsibility as a seeker of ‘The Ultimate Truth’ by the rest of humanity.  I was surprised though that he didn’t already know it, as he seemed to be able to give an answer to almost every question that I had asked him up until that point.  But it must have struck a chord with me, because since then I have had a drive to know the higher truths, especially the big picture questions of what exists beyond this physical world and what happens to us when we die. Over time I was also impressed by his persistence, because I soon realised that most believers learn enough to have a simple understanding of what they believe, without further questioning.

Despite having to go to Church and Sunday School every Sunday with my parents, they were not particularly pushy with their religious beliefs, and we were given space and time to form our own belief systems.  When I was around the age of 11 or 12 I asked Jesus Christ into my heart.  I had been doing a Bible correspondence course for children, and one particular lesson was written in such a way that it led the reader to a point where the invitation was made to seem the most logical thing to do.  And so without really understanding the full significance, I got down on my knees beside my bed and prayed, and asked God to forgive my sins and Jesus to come into my heart. This made me a Christian, according to the lesson.  At the time I think I felt a little nervous buzz, but apart from that not too different from before – a little cleaner perhaps, though that feeling probably only persisted until the next time I was told off for doing something wrong…

Some time a bit later, a few weeks perhaps, I was sitting one Saturday afternoon in the backyard of the family home in a small country town in New South Wales, Australia. As a child I would daydream a lot.  My father would often chide me for ‘living in cloud-cuckoo land’.  He had just erected an old wagon wheel (as pictured) in the garden, in order to grow plants up it.  I can remember staring at the wheel for quite a while, getting lost in a daydream, trying to work out what I really felt about this Christianity thing and what God was really like.  The wheel must have had a bit of a mandala effect on me, and I heard what seemed like a voice in my head.  However it was nothing like the voices that are usually there chattering away, expressing my thoughts and usually sounding like me or someone else with whom I might be having a mental conversation.  As I can’t remember specific words I would probably now describe it more as a deep resonating sound that seemed to come from all directions inside my head, as if I was wearing a set of headphones.  This sound seemed lift me into an altered state, to almost instantly transmit knowledge to me, rather than speak actual words. Somehow I knew that this was the ‘voice of God’ – or someone very close to Him at the very least!

As if in answer to my questioning, the voice ’said’ that life is like the wagon wheel, that I then seemed to be merging with. God is the hub of the wheel, the centre of all life.  Humanity is the rim of the wheel, and all the religions and philosophies are like the spokes of the wheel.   Each of us are born at a particular place on the rim, close to a particular religion or belief system, that points toward God at the centre.  As we look down the spoke towards the hub, the religion gives us a glimpse of the divine.  But each religion only gives a small facet of the whole picture.  In order to gain a truer picture of God one would have to travel around the wheel and see God from every angle, looking down each spoke.  

The voice finished and I returned from that trance-like state to a normal state of awareness.  At the time there was little doubt in my mind that this knowledge was somehow greater than anything I had learned up until that point.  But although I was aware of the existence of other religions, my experience at that early age had only been of Christianity.    And so I did not have a big enough frame of reference in which this knowledge was able to sit comfortably.  I tried for a time to assimilate it, but the weight of the Christian teachings that surrounded me made it impossible.  For the rest of my teenage years I committed myself to Christianity, and resolved to at least try and understand it well before exploring other spokes.  I remember slight feelings of guilt towards ‘the voice’ as over the next few years – when the memory occasionally came back to me – I would somehow distort the wheel to make Christianity the only essential spoke in the wheel, or some similar vain rationalisation.

From my late teens into my early twenties I felt more and more the constricting and often conflicting limitations of Christianity, and began to explore other belief systems.  I was particularly inspired after seeing the movie ‘Ghandi’, by his politically effective and compassionate non-violent approach that encompassed all religions, and started to read about the Hindu and Buddhist religions.  But ultimately I found that their texts just seemed like other versions of Christianity.  There were some seemingly deep truths, but it was mostly cultural histories and largely irrelevant and incomprehensible rules. I was usually left feeling that it might have made more sense if I had actually been there at the time.  So for a lot of my twenties I put the big questions on the backburner as anyway I was having too much fun to get serious. There was plenty of time for that later…

Once I left Christianity at the age of 22 however, the memory of that first experience came back more clearly and probably more often.  I no longer had a reason to distort it.  And fuller significance of the experience has only come in more recent years.  I see now for example how that as the spokes get closer to the hub, they get closer to each other, as higher truths of many belief systems share many similarities.  Also that even if one travelled all around the rim the picture would be still be incomplete, because it is impossible to see all of the hub from the two-dimensional perspective of the rim.  To see the centre of the hub where the axle sits, for example, one would have to leave the rim, perhaps by stepping out of the confines of physical existence… And ultimately these days I would say that if one were to use the word ‘God’ – something that I try to do as little as possible as it is loaded with many different meanings for each person – it would more accurately describe the whole wheel.