Now that the British General Election is out of the way, we can catch our collective breath and get back to what passes for normality. That means changes here at Syntagma Towers.

Saturday Ramble will return to being a thoughtful, even speculative, wander through the byways of interesting ideas — not, as it has been recently, relentlessly political.

To compensate, the sometimes edgy Sunday Diary column will re-emerge this week, sparing nobody with a hint of red thread in their suit.

And as the hols are beckoning, we’re going to be pushing the delights of the West Country beyond normal tolerance levels.

Oh, and immortality could feature on rare occasions.

Extracted from: The Eternal Quest for Immortality — Is it staring you in the face? by John Evans.

… The next unexpected incident occurred to me in November 1993 when back living in England. Once again I was involved in physical activity, this time some early morning limbering-up exercises. I was reflecting that my attempts at further mystical progress had not been very successful and wondering how I could turn that around. My book had languished after the first experience. The text now seemed totally inadequate compared with the real thing, as so many mystical/spiritual books are.

I needn’t have fretted. In an instant — and there is no other way of putting this — the world turned inside out. It was so sudden, and dramatic, I could scarcely take in what was happening.

I was now oddly separated from my usual chattering thoughts. They hadn’t gone away, merely left me. I was aware of my body, now curiously dislocated from “me”, continuing with its exercise regime, but “I” was not in control of it. It was more like a computer automatically running some pre-loaded software.

My attention switched away from the body to the surrounding room. It seemed as if I was swimming underwater. The objects and furniture had become insubstantial, almost transparent.

The space around them, though, had taken on a powerful reality. It was alive, vibrant and full of intelligence. Each time I looked at an object, I was made to understand that it too was part of this overall unity of being. Nothing was excluded.

Then, the sun shone through the window and with it several dazzling reflections, which seemed to take on the forms of two demons. “They are included too.” At once they lost their power and faded.

My body had now finished its programme of exercises and went to make a pot of tea in the kitchen, which was the normal procedure. As the tea was poured, I came back to everyday consciousness.

The unexpected feature of this state was that on resuming conventional bodily awareness, I was not in any way exultant, or even remotely excited. It was as if my normal thoughts had not been engaged at all. It was clearly not brain activity involved, but some other medium beyond it. The body, thoughts and emotions had been left behind — I could actually see and hear them. Yet, something still existed, and consciousness was continuous.

It was an enormously positive encounter and has completely altered my view of space, time, reality, and especially death.

The essential aspect of the encounter was that the usual “body-mind” means of knowing were literally left behind, yet continued operating separately. Despite that, consciousness remained, and a non-discursive awareness was present.

Clearly, it is a separate faculty from perception (of the senses) and conception (of the mind) very different from the crowded, tumbling experiences of the body-mind.

I believe this faculty sits in the background of human consciousness without our knowing it, like a deep form of awareness. It underpins the body modes in the same way that all five senses develop from one, that of touch.

Without this faculty of knowing neither perception nor conception could take place. They are specialized ways of being in this world, built up during our lifetimes from experiences and conditioning.

The good news of the experience is that it clearly mirrors the death process, and may even be the essence of the Great Death Contemplation of the ancient mystery schools, largely forgotten now, but still echoing through the rituals of modern Freemasonry.

The whole body-mind package is left behind—although unlike near-death-experiences, it carries on as if nothing else is happening—while the centre of gravity of conscious awareness lies beyond its activities. This state indicates precisely what it is that survives death, in my opinion, and is powerful, if anecdotal, evidence of life beyond the grave.

This book cites many incidents of similar experiences to very credible witnesses.

The Eternal Quest for Immortality — Is it staring you in the face? is available from all good bookshops, Amazon UK and Amazon USA.

ISBN: 978-0-9563656-0-6

We each take something different from a work of art, be it music, a picture, a novel or a poem. Great art resonates in many ways, depending on the psychological receptiveness of the person concerned.

Last week we heard that W.E. Henley’s very personal verse, Invictus gets our stranger-than-fiction Prime Minister through the night.

There have been many erudite comments on this choice, and on the poem itself, which is a self-glorification of the writer using attributes that a normal man would not ascribe to himself, but would be delighted if others did.

Henley had an excuse for his misery in that he suffered years of agonising illness and disability, including the amputation of part of a leg, and the potential loss of the other one. This was in Victorian times when amputation techniques scarcely varied from those of a butcher’s shop.

So what attracts Gordon Brown to Invictus? He mentions Nelson Mandela who also admired the work, probably because he spent decades in a South African prison. Here Brown is trying to associate himself with a greater leader than himself.

We also remember his rather immature attempts to curry favour with Barack Obama soon after his election, especially the cringing speech he gave in Scotland which included the line: “I wish I could have brought him home with me.” Wrapped up like a fish, perhaps?

Clearly, this is a man with problems in what is fashionably called “self-esteem”, and needs to bask in the glow of more luminous personalities.

Let’s look at what Brown wants us to take from the poem and link to his name:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Brown is romanticizing his weaknesses with the grand rhetoric of fortitude and personal destiny. He doesn’t seem to recognize that the final couplet, “I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul”, is both unknowable and wildly improbable.

This is a man with hardly a shred of self-knowledge, who defines himself by other people’s actions and other writers’ words, hoping that some of the shine will rub off on him. He’s like a schoolboy who clings to his heroes to find an identity for himself.

Margaret Thatcher wrapped herself in Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If, which is also stuffed with Victorian values. Yet her choice is more of a manual on how to “be a Man, my son!”, rather than a paean of praise to oneself. The first verse contains good advice for Gordon Brown:

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise …

The line: “Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,” should be emblazoned on Brown’s office wall.

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much.

The Prime Minister’s virtue is in need of an MOT. I would recommend a complete replacement instead of an overhaul.

And finally:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!

However, I imagine Henley depicts Gordon Brown’s future more appropriately than Kipling’s:

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade …

John Evans

Recent Related Commentary
Saturday Ramble: Pre-Budget frog spawn
Saturday Ramble: My word, you do look queer!
Saturday Ramble: Rotten information – Part 2
Saturday Ramble: Poor information is destroying the quality of our lives

We are taking a break until Sunday, January the 3rd.

Syntagma wishes all our readers a hugely enjoyable Christmas and a phenomenally successful New Year.

John Evans

Photo: Syntagma Photographic