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I have now copied the text of this rant to my Essays page. I shall continue to work on it from there. The following is no longer a rant. I have removed the expletives. I shall now attempt to remove the belligerant tone. Once I have done that, a more reasoned argument may be possible.
This rant was started, because, in a recent program on Yesterday, the TV station formerly known as UK TV History, I heard George Harrison talking about the various conspiracy theories surrounding John Lennon's death and he said that John Lennon was not important enough to have been the victim of an organised, political assassination. "Not important enough?" I beg to differ!
I shall continue to keep the initial rant, in its current state of development, as a reference point. You can view it directly below this paragraph. If you want to see the latest version, this will be located under the heading The Assassination of John Lennon on my essays page.
Introduction
When I first sent out the following essay for review, someone asked me: "I have read your short essay on the death of John Lennon but am unable to understand what you hope to gain by it? ...
... It is now so many years since it happened that there is a dreadful temptation to say "Too late"."
In answer to that question I would say this: To begin with, I wish to draw attention to the fact that, in my opinion, John Lennon's song, Imagine, is one of the most beautiful songs, one of the most wonderful pieces of poetry and philosophy I have ever come across. I would like to ask people to reassess it, because, when I hear people they say that no-one would have been so afraid of John Lennon that they would want to kill him, it seems to me to be a huge under-estimatation of his abilities.
Also, when I wrote this essay, I found certain words of Harold Pinter's, taken from his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, which was made in 2007, to be extremely relevant to the arguments I was presenting. Consequently, I have included some of them. The problems Harold Pinter was talking about are not just things that happened "so many years ago". Many of those things did happen many years ago. That is true. But, they are happening still. That is is the important point. That is the point to note!
It is true that, since the time of Harold Pinter's Speech, America has got a new President. Many people hope that we are on the threshold of a new, a better, age. Perhaps we are. However, American foreign policy has often been an extremely sinister affair. It has been that way since the end of the second world war, perhaps even before. Consider, for example: Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, Chile, the list goes on and on. So, to anyone who feels that the arguments presented here are no longer relevant, I would counter: I think not!
As everybody knows, John Lennon was shot to death by Mark Chapman in December 1981, outside his home, The Dakota Building, in New York City.
A gentleman by the name of Fenton Bresler wrote a book entitled: Who Killed John Lennon?. In this book he suggested Mark Chapman was not acting alone. He suggested that certain right wing sections of the American political establishment put Mr. Chapman up to it. Mr Bresler suggested these people brain washed Mark Chapman, that they programmed him to remove this visonary artist, this inconvenient celebrity, from the scene. Just like Thomas Becket (Henry II's turbulent priest) John Lennon was inconvenient to certain sections of the Right Wing Establishment on both sides of the pond. However, whereas the British Establishment would be content, unless, of course, they were dealing with a Princess Dianna or a Dr. David Kelly, to hound and intimidate those people who are inconvenient to them, as they did, for example, with The Rolling Stones, who, at the start of their careers, were once imprisoned for very minor drugs offences, the Americans were never shy of assassination. John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, et cetera. They paid the ultimate price when they upset the wrong people.
Many people say this could not possibly be the case with John Lennon. They say that the American Establishment would not have been afraid of him, that he was not important enough. I have even heard George Harrison say this. George Harrison should have known better, I think. John Lennon was a visionary with a left wing, progressive agenda. He was also someone with a universal, populist appeal. John Lennon was someone who could reach the masses. John Lennon was a huge part of the counter culture that changed the whole face of political and social life in the 1960s, from anti Vietnam war protests to the Rolling Stones concert in Hyde Park , from Timothy Leary to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Zeitgeist of the 1960s was extremely unnusual and quite unique. John Lennon, The Walrus, the man behind Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, was a huge part of this zeitgeist. John Lennon was a very formattive influence. Also by about 1973, and possibly because of the influence of Yoko Ono in his life, John Lennon was starting to turn himself into a phlosopher and a thinker, as well as a Rock musician.
It is well known that both Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover disliked and feared John Lennon. However, so the received wisdom goes, nobody was concerned about him by 1981. Apparently, by 1981, these paranoid reactionaries were suddenly "cool about him". Yeah, right! Purrleees!
If the reactionary sections of American society were frightened by John Lennon in the days when Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover had positions of power and authority, days when John Lennon was little more than a callow youth, seen here looking slightly lost and embarrased on the Morcambe and Wise show, would they not have been a great deal more scared of this, rather intelligent, articulate, confident, mature and well informed individual ? No, don't answer that question. It's rhetorical!
If you do not believe my thesis, as outlined here, please may I ask you to listen to these two samples of his work: Item 1 and Item 2? Please pay attention this time!
Incidentally, Harold Pinter, in his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, talks about the murder of six Jesuit Priests at the hands of a South American Dictatorship, financed by the USA. He asks the question: Why did they die? Then he answers his own question: Because they believed a better world was possible. Well, John Lennon believed a better world was possible. He said as much, beautifully, eloquently and succintly, in his song Imagine. Harold Pinter makes the point that America, or at least, certain forces in America, do not want people to know that a better world is possible. If people did know that, the interests of a certain privileged and wealthy few would be threatened. So do I think that there were a good few very privileged people in the USA who wanted John Lennon dead? You bet I do! How convenient then, that Mark Chapman should take him out. And now I am suddenly aware of two other, very convenient, "accidents" on this side of the pond. How convenient for Blair's government that Dr. David Kelly took his own life. How convenient for the British Establishment that Princess Dianna should have had that fatal accident in a tunnel in Paris.
Actually, unless the British Establishment are certifiably insane (a possibility I am more than willing to consider) the assassination of Princess Dianna would have been a very unlikely thing for them to have done. It would, in many ways, have been an incredibly stupid thing for them to have done. Perhaps, Dianna's death really was an accident. As for Dr. David Kelly, however, I cannot think how anything could have been more convenient for both Bush and Blair, and all of their cronies, who were still pushing the obvious lie, that Saddam Hussain had Weapons of Mass Destruction, which could be activated in a mere 45 seconds.
Harold Pinter, after discussing the murder of the six Jesuit Priests, mentioned above, goes on to say: "The crimes of the United States have been: systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide, while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis. I put to you, that the United States is without doubt, the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless, it may be. But it's also very clever. As a salesman it is out on it's own, and it's most saleable commodity is self-love. It's a winner. Listen to all American Presidents on Television say the words, "The American People", as in the sentence, "I say to The American People, it is time to pray, and to defend the rights of The American People, and I ask The American People to trust their President, in the action he is about to take on behalf of The American People." It's a scintillating strategem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words "American People" provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties, but it's very comfortable. This does not apply, of course, to the 40 million people living below the poverty line ..."
So, to return to my original thesis. Do I believe that the United States Security Services had a hand in the murder of John Lennon? You bet I do, sunshine! You will notice, in my language, in that last sentence, I have ever so slightly slipped back to my working class roots. Well, I don't care! Because, guess what? "A working class hero is something to be!"
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When I was a boy, back in the sixties, I can remember the "powers that be" were forever telling us that we were going to need to prepare for the "Age of Leisure". Machines were suddenly going to take over and do all of the work. We were all going to have to go on courses to learn how to handle this new found freedom.
Well, I'm sorry but I believed it. I was a good boy. Prepare I did. "Working 5 hours a week Sir? I can handle that Sir. I can sign up for that Sir. In fact I'm ready to start right now if you like? Let me be your pathfinder. Find me a place in the Vangard. Age of Leisure, here I come! I can go to the cinema. I can go to the theatre. I can learn to play musical instruments. Yeah! Just give me a pen. Show me where to sign. I'm in. Let me at it!" But then the "Powers that be" went and broke their promise. Instead of the working week getting shorter, it got longer! Instead of computers doing all of the work and taking the drudgery out of our lives, they suddenly became hungry for information. The more data they could turn into information, the more certain people wanted us to feed them that data. Suddenly computers had to be programmed, systems had to be designed and the pressure was on. We were working like mad to feed, maintain and enhance the very machines that, so we had been promised, were going to be doing the work for us. Not only that but there was suddenly a mad urgency to the whole thing. Targets had to be fullfilled, deadlines had to be met. Why? Why? Why, I ask you? ...
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I was once in a long term sexual relationship with a woman I did not love. Let's call her Eileen. I got into that relationship because I was on the rebound from another relationship in which my partner had rejected me. I was so busy thinking, "I'm really going to make it work this time" I did not stop to think if this relationship was really what I wanted. It was not until we went on holiday together, about four months after I started seeing her, that I started to realise all was not well and that I should extricate myself from this lady's clutches. I never did so.
I tried to end this relationship with Eileen on several occassions. Eileen herself made it difficult enough to do this. She clung on like a leach. However, a certain friend of mine, let's call her Julie, made it impossible, in my then vacilating state of mind. She kept saying, "But she loves you!" A statement, which in itself was complete nonsense. Eileen was much to passive, aggressive, much too destructive and much too needy to have any idea what love is. However, since Julie was a Roman Catholics, and since Roman Catholics are supposed to know, without any shadow of a doubt, that sex without love is a sin, Julie's constantly advising me to stay in the relationship, when I so desperately needed to get out of it, seemed to be crimanally stupid.
I believe I know part of what the problem was. Julie was one of those people who, being too much of a coward to risk the pain and dissappointment of getting into a relationship themselves, sought vicarious gratification of their relationship needs by interfering in the relationships of others. Since she was taking none of the risks herself, she could afford, from the point of view of her own safety and security, to take a completely unrealistic, sentimental and romanticised approach to the relationships she sought to interfere in. She could enjoy a quite wonderful "Mills and Boon" type of vicarious life. If the situation happened to "Blow up" in the face of the person she was advicing it mattered not. She would simply duck all responsibility with some half arsed excuse, some insincere expression of regret, something along the lines of, "Well it was your decision. " or "She fooled us all ..." or whatever. I do not believe I ever heard the words, "Yes. I'm sorry. I gave you some very bad, stupid and ill informed advice. I should have kept my mouth shut and minded my own business." I never heard such words, or anything resembling such words, ever leave her lips.
This woman was obviously too stupid to be able to give good advice, but too arrogant to know when she should keep her mouth shut and mind her own business. I am reminded of the joke about the Company Director who gives a pep talk to a recent intake of staff. He talks about the sort of people he wants and values in his company, and the sort of people he does not want. He addresses his staff as follows:
We have got plenty of room for intelligent, industrious people in this company.
We have also got room for intelligent, but lazy people in this company.
We have even got room for stupid, lazy people in this company.
But we have got absolutely no room for stupid, industrious people in this company.
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Quite a lot has been made of late, of Tony Blair's Legacy and Acheivement. If I understand the matter correctly Tony Blair's legacy and achievement is supposed to be that he made the labour party electable and kept it in power for nearly ten years. Apparently the labour movement are all supposed to bow down, pat him on the back and say well done Tony. Thank you for bringing this party to the fore again.
Well excuse me for a moment: What labour party? If we have had a labour party for the last nine years then I am a Chimpanzee! What Tony Blair actually seems to have done, is to kidnap the members of the labour party, in order to form a new (shall we say second front) Tory party, which I would like to suggest is a long way to the right of Harold Macmillan's Tory Party. It was a long time ago now, in the glorious 1950s and 60s, but Harold Macmillan's Tory party built council houses, rather a lot of council houses. What has Tony Blair's government ever done to benefit the working man? Is it the minimum wage? I could be wrong here. I cannot remember the exact figures, but I seem to remember that when Tony Blair's government first came to power the minimum wage was about £5 per hour. What is it now? About £5 per hour. It may now be a few pennies more, but does this very small difference even account for inflation?
One of the things that the labour party has always been keen on is the National Health Service. It could be said to be one of Labour's greatest achievements. Has New Labour benefitted the Health Service? They have poured a lot of money into it I grant you. However, is it any better than it was? Are the queues any shorter?
Let me tell you a little story about the National Health Service. Once upon a time, being the victim of a rather ignorant Roman Catholic upbringing, I was under the impression that having sex with any woman who was not one's long term partner could lead to veneral desease. In my younger days therefore, I was, not exactly a frequent attender of Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) clinics, but I was certainly aquainted with them. If you walked into one of these institutions, in those days, you would get to see a doctor straight away. The clinic was open all day long and the experience of visiting such a clinic was a private and confidential one. The Health Service was keen to make Syphilis and Gonorrhoea and other such diseases a thing of the past.
Nowadays, opening times have been reduced. Indeed I am not sure that such clinics which still exist are even open every normal working day. As for appointments, I suspect one would not be able to get an appointment at an STI clinic with less than a week or two's notice! As for discretion and privacy element of the experience, I have myself witnessed a long queue of young people, stood outside an STI clinic, waiting interminably for an appointment, there for all the world to see. They might as well have been carrying banners! So while AIDS has come along and sexual health is all the more important, the level of provision has dropped dramatically!
Why is this I wonder? How is it possible to pour more and more money into the Health Service and yet see the service get poorer and poorer. Could it have anything to do with PFI initiatives I wonder? Is it perhaps the case that the money being poured into the Health Service is actually going into the coffers of the private companies that win all the big, fat, juicy contracts? Is that why it is that the National Health Service is actually laying off doctor's and nurses, the very people that certain of us poor ignorant souls always thought were the people that really mattered in the health service?
The trouble is phrases such as globalization, market forces, PFI initiatives and modernisation have become part of our vocabularly. In theory I have nothing against modernisation. In the sixties modernisation meant replacing child labour with compulsory schooling, replacing superstition with science and improving science and technology with the stated aim of improving the human lot for all of mankind. Nowadays, unfortunately, modernisation has come to be used as a euthemism for more and more privitisations, weaker labour rights, lower wages, things that in the sixties would have been considered not modernisation all at, but regression to a less equal, less caring society. One is suddenly reminded of the double speak of George Orwell's 1984.
But to go back to the words: globalization, market forces, PFI initiatives and modernisation (in its new perverted meaning). These things are now all treated as Gods, as self evident truths. But are they, is modernisation (in the new and perverted meaning of the word) really a good thing? Are Market Forces really a good thing?
Once upon a time in 2003 I was privileged to listen to a lecture by John Major, the one time Tory Prime Minister. I was also privileged to be the first person to ask him a question when the lecture was over. Normally no-one wants to ask the first question and (since I had a question all but boring a hole in my head) I took advantage of this fact and shot my hand up straight away. You see, in the course of his talk John Major had stated his faith in the Markets. He had also quoted a poem by Benjamin Franklin:
For the want of a nail, a shoe was lost
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost
For the want of the horse the rider was lost
For the want of the rider the message was lost
For the want of the message the battle was lost
For the want of the battle the war was lost
For the want of the war the country was lost
All for the want of a nail.
My question to John Major:
You have told us of your faith in the markets. You also recited a most interesting poem by Benjamin Franklin. I would suggest that one of the most common forms of the markets operating in our daily lives at the moment are PFI initiatives, whether in the railways, in hospitals, on the London Underground, wherever. This means that more and more of our infrastructure is in the hands of private companies. However, with the emphasis that private companies place on profits and cost cutting, are there not rather a lot of horses running around at the moment with nails missing from their shoes?
John Major took a long time to answer that question, but he addressed it honestly and straightforwardly.
I did not ask Tony Blair the question. I therefore cannot state that he would probably find a way of somehow avoiding it or of deliberately misunderstanding it. However, I suspect that he would. What is more: any charge that could be made againt John Major about our "Infrastructure Horses" having nails missing from their shoes could probably be levelled threefold against Tony Blair!
When Tony Blair's government came to power the privitisation of the railways was considered a scandal. More and more accidents were being reported. There were more and more fatalities. Also the maintenance of railway track was farmed out to private companies who paid their employees less and their director's more and more. For a labour government that should have been considered an appaling inheritance. What did New Labour do about it? They went on to privatise the London Underground as well. What is more they did so in the face of the Mayor of London's dissapproval. It seemed to me to be rather like saying to the Mayor: "Yes we will give you the tube to run. However, if its alright with you, or even if its not, we're going to muck it up first!" How does that benefit commuters? How does that benefit the working man? How is that a labour party achievement?
I have skimped on my research a bit here, so I may be wrong, but did not labour also privatise the air traffic controllers, against a sea of negative advice? Was that a labour party achievement?
All of the major utility companies are now privatised: Gas, Electricity, Telephones et cetera. Once upon a time, if you had a problem with these companies' services you could ring them up and talk to someone. Nowadays, if you ring them up you get an automated answering system which leads you through a whole maze of different paths and requires user authentication at every stage. If, after you have pursued this maze for more than 20 minutes, you grimly hold on, you might, if you are very lucky, get to talk to a human being. The trouble is that the human being in question will be based in India and, unless your query falls within their limited remit, they will not have a clue what you are talking about. If they find themselves in this position they will give you another number to telephone. The other number will take you through an annoying list of possible problems and solutions, which, unfortunately, will probably not include the particular problem you telephoned about. Once the list is exhausted you will hear a very helpful message telling you "Please hang up." Well that's very useful, isn't it? What have you acheived at the end of that time? You have wasted 20 minutes or more of your precious time; you have had to pay for one or more telephone calls; you have raised your blood pressure and your stress levels to a near fatal degree and you are still nowhere nearer to solving your original problem than you were at the start! How is that a benefit to anyone?
There is another point I would like to make about the current labour government. Before they came to power I would hear them talking on David Dimbleby's Question Time and I would think, what an honest, straightforward bunch! What glory it will be if they ever come to power.
Shortly after New Labour did come to power, I remember hearing Jack Straw being interviewed about a certain book, which was the subject of some controversy at the time. I remember he said that it was an odious book. I remember the Sun newspaper had made similar comments about it. The thing was I had actually read the book and I had found it intelligent, well researched, well presented and possibly a great force for good. I could not help but think: "You slimy little toad, you don't give a rat's arse about the genuine issues involved here. You just want to make sure you don't upset the Sun readers! Well Bravo, so now who runs the country? The electorate? Parliament? The people? No obviously not. Rupert Murdoch is now God and King and Law!" Thank you New Labour. Thank you so Bloody Much!
I have also heard it said that New Labour have taken forward right wing policies that the Torys would not have dared to try and take forward. How does that benefit the Labour movement?
So Good bye Tony Blair as you prepare to go. Thank you so much for your legacy and achievement. You will notice I have not even mentioned the Iraq War or the fact that you are, and hence Great Britain is, now George Bush's poodle. There are two reasons I do not mention these items in any length. They are as follows:
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Twice in my life now I have been forced out of a company by mean spirited, underhand means, dirty tricks if you will. This occurred, either because company was in some restructuring phase, or because it was being prepared for sale. Apparently, reducing the number of people on the payroll can make the Profit and Loss report look more appealing; more appealing, that is, until the resulting lack of skill and experience starts to kick in, before the now overworked people left behind start to hate the jobs they once loved.
I think it is important to find names for such people. Names for the people who either own or run companies and who feel it is acceptable to treat people as "Human Resources", Human Resources to be used up and disposed of at will.
I shall use this rant as my scratch pad while I work out a suitable desciption. Here goes:
Spiritually impoverished, emotional cripples who chase after material wealth in the hope that it will give them the appearance of some worth. They need the appearance of worth, because, deep down inside they know they have none! They are simply ignorant, uncultured buffoons of little or no intelligence. They have a certain cleverness, a cleverness for making money and manipulating people and they mistake this for intelligence. Of true intelligence and true worth, they have none.
One wonders how such people manage to sleep at night but one presumes that they do. Perhaps, being little better than animals, their sleep is as little troubled by moral speculation as is the sleep of a slug?
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Please be aware that this section (on Enid Blyton verses Fairy Tales) is just an incomplete fragment at the current time. It is a work in progress, nothing more. Please bear with me dear reader. All will become plain. All in good time.
I woke up this morning and I was confronted with the same problem that has confronted me since I moved to Bedford in April 2006: The very fact that I am here in this bed, in this house, is because I did battle with the devil and the devil won. This is a very unpleasant thought to wake up to. Pray for me dear reader, pray for me. Pray to God that although the devil may have won that battle I might still win the war. Do it please, otherwise I am completely stuffed!
Are you familiar with the work of Bruno Bettelheim dear reader? He was a psychologist and a writer. He was also a Jew who survived the Nazi Death Camps. It appears that he died by his own hand. He commited suicide. Was this because of what he had seen in the death camps. I do not know. As it happens, tragic though this fact is, it is quite irrelevant to the story I want to tell. I feel extremely callous saying this. I want to borrow from Mr Bettelheim's wisdom. While telling you of his existence I regret I am not the least bit interested in the circumstances of his death. From the point of view of the argument I wish to make here the circumstances of Bruno Bettelheim's death are irrelevant. It is his life which is important to me as I write this; his life and his work; perhaps I should say his life's work? There is one portion of his life's work in particular I would like to refer you to. I am talking about a book he once wrote. The book in question is The Uses of Enchantment (see also Cupid and Psyche - As discussed by Bruno Bettelheim).
In The Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim posits a thesis, which states that Fairy Tales are more than just charming stories to send your children to sleep at night. He suggests that they are in fact a sort of "Multi Gym for the development of young minds". I hate to precis other people's work. It seems such an arrogant thing to do. One can get it wrong, one can missunderstand what the writer or artist was trying to achieve. One can missrepresent another person's point of view without meaning to. Therefore dear reader please do not take my word for what Bruno Bettelheim's book is all about. If you are interested in what I have to say here please may I ask you to go out and buy his book, take it home and read it. Only Bruno Bettelheim has the right to explain what Bruno Bettelheim is about. I wish to alert you to the fact of his existence merely or rather, since he is no longer with us, the existence of the body of work he created. I do not normally believe in blatent advertising. However, just in case you do not have a good bookshop in your area, I am (in this rare instance) going to give you a reference to Amazon.com. If you wish to purchase a copy of Bruno Bettelheim's book, and you cannot find a copy in your local bookshop, you might be able to pick up a copy here: Amazon.com: The Uses of Enchantment.
Before I continue discussing Bruno Bettelheim's book The Uses of Enchantment, I would like to digress for a moment. I would like to ask you to read Rudyard Kipling's famous poem "If".
While fairy tales councel, Enid Blyton's message would appear to be: When confronted with a difficult problem, let the authorities deal with it.
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I was talking to a vicar earlier today. Our conversation was very wide ranging. We talked of shoes and ships and sealing-wax of cabbages and kings. Somewhere along the line we got on to the subject of women. He said something. I cannot even begin to remember what it was now. It was about women. He may have said that they were strange and mysterious creatures. He may have said that they were a wonder of nature. He may have said that they were more intelligent than men. He may have said that their minds were a domain men could not fathom. I simply cannot remember what he said and I am extremely keen to avoid missrepresenting him. Whatever he said I was left with the impression that he felt women should be treated with wonder and respect. This image immediately conjured up a train of thought in my own mind. My recent experience has taught me that women can be extremely dangerous sometimes. Consequently when the issue of the wonder and respect due to women was introduced into my mind. It was the respect part of the equation that immediately fired my imagination and took me off on a chain of thought which led me to start a brief conversation with him.
I said to him, "You have got to be careful with women. A woman can kill you!" I meant it to. ...
I'm very sorry dear reader, but this item is a "Work in Progress". I should put a sign up, "Building Works", the management apologize for any inconvenience caused!
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I have decided it is time I started my own religion. Welcome to The Church of Experimental Theology. In the years since I rejected my Roman Catholic education I have called myself many things: Agnostic, Latter Day Pagan, Disciple of Isis, First Generation Protestant, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Recently, I have decided to call myself an Experimental Theologian.
Would you like to join my church? It is easy to do so, there are no ceremonies, no initiations and no specific places of worship. The reason that there are no specific places of worship is quite simply because every place is a place of worship. All you need to do is to recognize it as such.
In order to become an Experimental Theologian, it is necessary merely to accept The Two Fundamental Axioms of the Church of Experimental Theology. These two axioms are as follows:
One you have accepted the fundamental axioms of The Church of Experimental Theology you are ready to begin the practice of Experimental Theology. Throw yourself out into the world and see what happens. That's it, you're doing it! You are now an Experimental Theologian! However, I should issue a small warning at this point. Experimental Theology is dangerous! If you practice experimental chemistry or experimental physics, without the benefit of training or tradition you could have a very serious accident. You could blow yourself up. You could electrocute yourself. The same thing can happen with Experimental Theology. Unless you understand the tradition you could get yourself into serious trouble. To be safe you must thoroughly understand the tradition before you enter into any experiments in Experimental Theology. However, here is the rub. With regard to The Church of Experimental Theology, there is a small problem about the tradition. There isn't one! Being a new church and a brand new religion, there is no history. Without a history there can be no tradition. It is therefore recommended that all new aspirants to The Church of Experimental Theology should acquaint themselves with the traditions of one or more established religions. It does not matter what this religion is, be it the Christian religion, the Jewish religion, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, or whatever. As long as the religion or religions work for you, that is all you need to worry about. For myself, I am currently finding out what the Quakers have to offer.
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This is my theological speculation number five hundred and twenty nine: Through sin, one can unwittingly become a tool in the devil's hands?
Before I discuss the speculation, I will say answer the obvious question: "Why 529? Have you really got another 528 theological speculations, that you haven't told us about Richard?" The answer is: "No, of course not!" I chose the number 529 in order to indicate that, were I seriously in the business of theology, I would probably think that there were at least another 528 matters for theological speculation, which were more important than this one. Of course I could be wrong. Perhaps, I am right to ask this question. Perhaps, giving in to sin really can make one a part of "The devil's army" to a greater or lesser degree. Perhaps, if I were in the business of religion I might consider this one of the greatest questions of all time? Who knows you might as well ask Joseph Heller, what were the other 21 catches?
I spend some time agonising over whether what I have to say here is of any value or not. However, that would simply be a waste of time. Instead, I attempt to do something which Oscar Wilde decribes in his letter to Bosie. He told Bosie that he had never acquired "The Oxford Temperament", never learned to "Play gracefully with ideas". I wish to play with this idea right here and now. It is up to you, dear reader, to decide whether or not I have managed to do so gracefully.
As I attempt to come to grips with my theological speculation number 529 I find that I am confronted with Theological Speculation Number 530.
Now, where should I start? I will start at the very beginning. A very good place to start1: This morning, I had a sudden urge to telephone my friend Barbara. It was 7:50 AM. This is a slightly early time to call anyone. However, confident in the knowledge that Barbara is a clean living human being with regular habits, I felt that it was safe to call her at 7:50 AM. I was wrong! The poor woman had been up all night and had only just gone to bed an hour ago. I was not to know that. Nevertheless, it occurred to me that the idea of telephoning Barbara, which had literally just "Popped into my head" was, from Barbara's point of view, an entirely unhelpful one. Let me now go a little further in my speculation. Barbara is a good person. In particular she does what might be referred to as "good works", although she herself would not refer to them as such. It is, to my mind, quite xxx that "the forces of darkness" might feel it was in there interests to frustrate Barbara's efforts. It therefore seems to me entirely possible, if one accepts the hypothesis that one can be influenced by the spirit world2, whether the spirits of angels, the spirits of the departed or the evil spirits normally referred to as fallen angels, that certain evil spirits might wish to frustrate Barbara's efforts. If they did so wish then disturbing her sleep might be a very effective way to do it. Doing so, by pursuading me it would be a good idea to give her a telephone call might be a very effective way of doing this. Now my speculation really boils down to this. Let us take it as given, that evil spirits are able to tempt one to a specific course of action. Now I realise that this will sound like a very far fetched speculation. However, it is, nevertheless, a speculation which, not so long ago (in historical terms, at least - and a mere nano second in geological terms) the entire western world would have considered as an irrefutable fact! So I say again: "If one accepts the premise that evil spirits are able to tempt one to a specific course of action." does one make oneself susceptable to such temptation by having given into sin, or are we all equally susceptable to such temptations. The alert reader will note that I have taken the time to descriminate between sin and giving in to temptation. Am I saying that the two things are different. In answering that question I am going to suggest that they are. Doubtless, if we were all Saints, giving in to any temptation from one of Satan's army might be considered as a sin. However, for those of us who are less discriminating, here is the dilema:
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If one attempts to analyse the devil's game, with a view to frustrating it, he, she or it will attempt to find ways to distract you.
For the context, from which this speculation arises, please refer to Theological Speculation Number: 529.
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You see, I suffer from Bipolar Affective Disorder. I get these dreadful mood swings. I can be high one month and depressed as Hell the next. When I am depressed as Hell I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't make any effort to talk to anyone. I never phone anyone up. Consequently, when I am feeling better and I dial 1571 to find out who has called, I find that on-one has telephoned me. It doesn't try to soften the blow, old 1571. It doesn't try at all. They just come right out and say it: "You have no messages!"
Sod off 1571!
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Thanks for the info.. seems ironic though.. I remember reading something last year that England was going to overhaul their porn laws.. some extreme stuff could lead to heavy penalties etc..
The Netherlands have or are in the process of doing the same.. which is really ironic considering the stuff that comes out of there..
Not only that, but the holiday, which I keep thinking I might one day take in Amsterdam (which is somehow not quite appealing enough for me to get up off of my big, fat arse and actually book it- perhaps because I am aware of the wonderful pleasures available to anyone in this country, if they know where to look for them) is going to be extremely boring. I might be able to get out of my head on Hashish while I am there. However, that is strangely unappealing to me, not least because I have a headache and a dose of influenza right now, symptoms which seem remarkable akin to (the now repulsive to me) state I believe I might find myself in if I were to sit and inhale a nice opium laden joint. Indeed, I bet it wouldn't even be opium laden. I would be denied even that pleasure. What is the world coming to? What is wrong with Western man. We are either growing the stuff (opium) and forcing it down the throats of innocent Chinese peasants, even going to war, in order to maintain "our right" to do it, or we are being a bunch of puratanical, arsewipe cunts and saying, "I don't want to take opium and you can't have any either so Nah, nee, Nah, nee, nur, nur. Trying and oppose me and I will spray your opium crop with poisonouse liquids. I will napalm your fields! I will walk all over you because I have the power to do so."
Or as Harold Pinter put it, in his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speach when talking about the disgusting behaviour pf the American government (Then under George Bush, together with Donald Rumsfield, Dick Cheney, Paul Paul Wolfowitz and some other, doubtless equally evil, cunts) in Iraq. They feel they can do exactly as they like, because of their moral authority, their moral authority, which they advance thus: "I have moral authority. See this fist. That is my moral authority!"
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Footnotes:
I owe this line to the author of the lyrics to The Sound of Music, whoever that might have been? The words have become so much a part of The Zeitgiest I feel that it is almost unnecessary for me to state exactly where they came from. - Return to e-mail text
For those of you with a more rational bent to you way of thinking, whatever "rational" means in the context of a discussion such as this one, I fear I may be losing you at this point. Indeed, for those of you who have ever seen the movie "The Wicker Man", who will hopefully understand the reference, I can just see you, in my mind's eye, rather like the angry and frustrated Sargent Neil Howie, all but screaming "Oh what is this!". Be patient please. This is pure speculation. I have said I wish to play gracefully with ideas. I might have mislead you slightly. I wish to play gracefully with this one idea. After that I have more mundane matters to attend to. My message to you is a simple one. If you don't feel that you can play gracefully with the ideas being expressed here, please go and play elsewhere. I make no excuse for these speculations, however outrageous they might seem to you. This is my website after all. If after you have read what I have written you would like to invite me back to your place, sorry I mean "your website" please feel free to do so. You can invite me to read your own arguments right here, Please feel free to:Issue your own Invitation for me to view an alternative way of looking at these matters.