Unseen influences at Canary Wharf

I went to Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs recently for a seasonal get-together with a former workmate.  I arranged for us to meet outside the tall obelisk One Canada Square, also known as the Canary Wharf Tower.

Things started badly; I became very confused and disoriented after coming out of Canary Wharf station by the wrong exit. I waited outside the wrong building for a while. I had to send texts and find another meeting place, a big store that we could both see from where we were standing.

Now I know that many people have problems finding their way around the area, especially when visiting it for the first time. They rightly say that the signposting is inadequate and the multiplicity of levels and station exits makes navigation difficult.

The tall corporate buildings and their huge entrance halls with all the plate glass and marble look much the same at ground level, which doesn’t help either.

Although I have been to Canary Wharf several times, I always have trouble finding my way around - even with a map. It is as if something inside me is reset and I go back to square one each time I go there: previous visits have done nothing to familiarise me with the area. My inner compass often goes haywire; I set off in the wrong direction and sometimes get so lost that it takes a while to get back on track.

Cults and John Masefield’s Box of Delights

I have recently been re-reading John Masefield's children’s fantasy novel The Box of Delights.

I wanted to have another look at the references to Christmas Eve. I was also hoping to find some previously overlooked material about witches, but instead I noticed for the first time that a conversation between two of the characters resonates with what I now know about cults.

This dialogue was written in 1935. It is uncanny how relevant and significant it is when we look at the methods cults use to recruit their victims and what constitutes an effective resistance to these techniques. I missed all this in past readings of the book but can see it now.

Maria Jones and the evil witch

One of the characters in the book is a girl called Maria Jones. She is a friend of Kay Harker, the young hero.

She is just a small child; she is known to everyone as ‘little Maria’. She is blunt, tough and fearless, rather like Joan Aiken’s Dido Twite in The Cuckoo Tree. She loves guns and has gangsters on the brain.

Maria shows that she has more sense than many adults who are manipulated into joining cults or other unethical organisations when the witch Sylvia Daisy Pouncer and her villainous husband Abner Brown decide that Maria shows promise and would be a good acquisition for their gang.

They kidnap and imprison her. Sylvia Daisy tries to persuade her to join them. Maria is not fooled; she is defiant and not at all daunted and she stands up for herself very well.

John Masefield and the magic of Christmas Eve

The writer and poet John Masefield’s two children’s books The Midnight Folk (1927) and its sequel The Box of Delights (1935) have been previously mentioned on here because of the witch Sylvia Daisy Pouncer.

Sylvia Daisy plays a much larger part in The Midnight Folk than she does in The Box of Delights, but the latter book is of interest for other reasons. 

Masefield’s words create beautiful pictures in the imagination - the descriptions of winter and the Christmas season are particularly good - and invoke positive magical influences which are ideal for helping to counteract seasonal depression and the sinister forces that are active at this time of year. 

The story, which features magic, adventure, time travel, sinister wolves, brave children and the battle between good and evil, begins a few days before Christmas with the young hero Kay Harker returning from boarding school for the holidays; it ends on Christmas Eve with a joyful and triumphant midnight service in the Cathedral. 

It is interesting that Sylvia Daisy Pouncer and her evil associates try to prevent this service from being held. As was mentioned in this article, disrupting the midnight service on Christmas Eve is a big coup for practitioners of black magic.

A six-episode BBC TV series was made in 1984. Although for me books are always best and many associated films make me feel furious, disappointed and disgusted, I have found this series to be worth watching. I like the theme music very much.

The Box of Delights series is available on DVD, and some kind person has loaded the episodes onto YouTube.

I may come back to John Masefield’s children’s book again. In the meantime, I hope that this brief description and strong recommendation will inspire people who haven’t already discovered The Box of Delights to investigate this wonderful book and its TV adaption. 

Another beautiful Christmas card

Christmas carols and beautiful seasonal artwork help to counteract seasonal depression.

As I mentioned last Christmas, I scan the best cards I buy before sending them to people.

I also scan the pick of those I receive before recycling them.

This is another of the bargain cards I bought many years ago:

Depression at Christmas

Some of what I said in the article about depression at the autumnal equinox can also be applied to the Christmas holiday season: the winter solstice too may subtly affect us. 

There are obvious additional and external factors when Christmas is involved, however there is sometimes more to it than being overwhelmed and demoralised by practical problems: evil forces may be abroad!

I realised a while back that even if there are no energy vampires, emotional blackmailers and other undesirables in our lives, we can still be influenced negatively by people in general. 

I have found that Christmas is a time when this is particularly noticeable. There is a lot of stress, tension, misery and general bad energy in the air, in the big cities at least, and some sensitive people pick it all up. 

We may be badly affected by the cumulative inner states of both the large numbers of people who are rushing around with too much to do and too little time to do it in and the many unhappy, isolated people for whom this is the worst time of year. 

A tale of two foxes

I described some amazing coincidences and synchronous events in my life a while back in this article.

One incident involved a magazine with a picture of a fox cub; now I can add an anecdote involving two adult foxes.

I have only ever seen live foxes on two occasions, and in both cases unseen influences appear to have been at work.

The first encounter happened many years ago, shortly after I saw a beautiful fox in a TV advertisement - for whisky if I remember correctly - and realised that I had never seen a fox in real life, apart from a dead one by the side of the road which was probably left there by a motorist who had hit and killed it.

I used to take my washing to a launderette on a busy main road and go for local walkabouts while the wash was in progress. I favoured a circular route for which the timing was perfect. It took in a public garden and some interesting buildings and back streets.

Lucy M. Boston, her birthday and her memoirs

The English novelist Lucy M. Boston, who is often known as L. M. Boston, was born on December 10th 1892. She was over 60 when her first book was published, and she lived to the age of 97.

She is of interest to me mainly because of her book An Enemy at Green Knowe.  The enemy in the title is the scholar, black magician and demon-possessed witch Dr. Melanie Powers, who has been mentioned in passing in a few articles. This is the only book in which Lucy M. Boston writes about the battle between good and evil.

There is little in Lucy M. Boston’s life to explain where Melanie Powers and her very familiar characteristics and behaviour came from; unlike Nicholas Stuart Gray’s and Diana Wynne Jones’s witches, she was not based on the author’s mother: Lucy M. Boston’s mother was unhappy and neglectful, but not cruel and evil.

However, the magical house Green Knowe, whose name appears in the titles of her series of children’s fantasy books, is taken directly from Manor House, which was built by the Normans around the year 1130 and was her home for almost 50 years.

Manor House is still in the Boston family and is now open to the public. Maybe I will go to see it some time.

More wise words from Upton Sinclair

Upton Sinclair was just a name to me until very recently.

I now know that he produced some very insightful and inspirational material.

He could be a goldmine, so his writings are on the list to be investigated. In the meantime, a little research has found these very relevant quotations:

“I discover that hardly a week passes that someone does not start a new cult, or revive an old one; if I had a hundred life-times I could not know all the creeds and ceremonies, the services and rituals, the litanies and liturgies, the hymns...”

From The Profits of Religion: An Essay in Economic Interpretation (1918), Introductory, "Bootstrap-lifting".

He was speaking about American-style religious organisations, but his words apply to many other types of cult. There is no end to them, and many do indeed perform brain-washing ceremonies.

“He was burning with a sense of outrage. He had been tricked and made a fool of; he had been used and flung aside. And now there was nothing he could do — he was utterly helpless. What affected him most was his sense of the overwhelming magnitude of the powers which had made him their puppet; of the utter futility of the efforts that he or any other man could make against them. They were like elemental, cosmic forces; they held all the world in their grip, and a common man was as much at their mercy as a bit of chaff in a tempest.”

From Metropolis (1908)

Upton Sinclair could be speaking for many people who realise that they have been cheated, lied to and made a fool of and that there is nothing that they can do about it. They are helpless pawns; they are up against something huge, invulnerable, inexorable and remorseless.

This is a perfect description of how devastated some people feel when they realise that they have been used and destroyed by a cult or an energy vampire and there will be no justice and no compensation.

November 25th this year was the 50th anniversary of Upton Sinclair’s death.

A multi-level approach to finding explanations

When I am trying to understand certain phenomena and occurrences, my method is to start by considering the most obvious explanations. There is no need to assume occult influences or go into full conspiracy theory mode unless and until it is absolutely necessary!

If all the top-level possibilities I can think of are not relevant, if they are inadequate and insufficient to explain everything, if they are the symptoms as opposed to the cause, then I will move down a level to more subtle possibilities.

If these too do not provide a full and satisfactory explanation, I will go lower still.

For example, if someone acts unprofessionally and out of character and causes a lot of damage to the company they work for, I would first check for such personal factors as illness, money worries, family problems or a drink problem. I would then look at the employer and the job and to see whether they were tired from working very long hours, were living in fear of redundancy or had been promoted beyond their capabilities.

Some wise words from Winston Churchill on his birthday

A previous article covers a few writers who were born at the end of November.

Sir Winston Churchill is one of the most prominent people ever to have been born at this time of year: he arrived in this world at Blenheim Palace on November 30th 1874.

To mark the occasion, I have selected a few quotations from the huge number available. I have chosen non-political and non-historical statements that have some relevance to this blog, and added some comments of my own to his words of wisdom. 

“You have enemies? Good. It means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

Yes indeed, although it should be re-phrased to say that people who stand up for something will have enemies. For example, I know from experience that people who show respect for the truth, question and criticise the behaviour of cult leaders, speak out against injustice and demonstrate that they can think for themselves and operate as individuals often become public enemy number 1.

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened .“

This undeniable fact and some of the factors involved have been covered in several articles. Many people just don’t want or can’t afford to recognise and face up to the truth.

Criticism and the future Lord Voldemort

I have learned to recognise signs and symptoms of behaviour and scenarios commonly found in and associated with cults, cult leaders and cult members.

Now that I know what to look for, I can see examples everywhere. 

There is even some relevant material in the Harry Potter books: Lord Voldemort speaks and behaves like a cult leader.

The young Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort to be, shows signs of what is to come. His response to criticism is very typical of the way people involved with cults react; I have encountered this reaction many times myself. 

A few more words about words and their value

The recent articles inspired by Upton Sinclair’s words about the difficulty of getting someone to understand something when his salary is at stake cover some of the many factors that cause someone to be unable or unwilling to listen.

Although the people who are trying to get through to someone may blame themselves for their failure, in these cases it is not their fault that they are unable to get their ideas across.

However, if none of the suggested practical, psychological or metaphysical factors apply, they may need to think about what they are saying and how they are saying it. They may need to look at how much authority and influence they have when speaking: it may be a question of how much effectiveness and value their words have.

Some further thoughts about Upton Sinclair’s proposition

The American novelist Upton Sinclair had this to say about the difficulty in getting through to people:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

The previous article expanded on this statement and listed some external factors that might be involved in addition to someone’s salary.

It is not just about employees and possible losses in the outer world: Upton Sinclair’s proposition can be applied to the inner world of many people when psychological factors are involved.

There may also be some unseen influences at work in the form of good and evil forces.

Some psychological factors

Psychological defence mechanisms may be at work in many cases where people just don’t or won’t get or accept an inconvenient, unwelcome truth. For example, we may try very hard but unsuccessfully to get through to someone that they need to take responsibility for their actions.

Upton Sinclair and the difficulty in getting through to people

The starting point for this article is the well-known proposition from the American novelist Upton Sinclair:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

While true up to a point, this seems both incomplete and partly off the mark.

In some cases there is a lot more than a salary at stake, and it may be less a matter of a man’s not understanding something than of his understanding it only too well but refusing to accept it or admit that he knows it.

If someone did accept or admit that they know and understand an inconvenient truth, they might be expected or forced to do something about it. This might entail taking a stand; it might mean the loss of their existing role and plan of action; it might mean the loss of acceptance, credibility, any chance of promotion and even their professional reputation.

Ignorance really is bliss in many cases.

Sinister and significant elements and scenarios

Previous articles contain many examples of elements, features, games, syndromes and scenarios that I am particularly interested in. Cases and references come from my own or someone else’s personal experience and from fiction or biographical works.

I see them as red flags, warning signs that unseen influences may be at work.

I thought it might be useful to compile a list of some of the most sinister and significant of these elements:  

-People benefitting from convenient and/or suspicious deaths;

-People getting things at other people’s expense;

-People inflicting terrible injuries of various kinds and carrying on as if nothing has happened, adding insult to injury by expecting their victims to play the ‘business as usual’ game too;

-People behaving unprofessionally and out of character;

Joyce Collin-Smith: leaving the cult of the Maharishi Yogi

The final stage of Joyce Collin-Smith’s relationship with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his Transcendental Meditation movement as described in her autobiographical work Call No Man Master is of particular interest to me.

There was a time when she felt far from being ready to abandon the Maharishi. She eventually reached the stage where she felt a deep disquiet whenever she came close to him and met his eyes, and finally there were some last straw incidents that pushed her into completely giving up her involvement with him and his movement.

There are some familiar elements and a few coincidences in what she tells us, and some of the material is useful for adding to the store of information about how and why people leave cults and what happens to them afterwards.

The course in Italy

Everything came to a head when the Maharishi hand picked some people to go on a course of advanced teachings that was to be held in Italy, in the Dolomites. By then, he was charging selected followers hefty amounts for the privilege of learning special techniques.

Joyce Collin-Smith was one of the followers he ordered to go on the course. She felt hijacked, forced into attending.

This was the last course she ever went on. There was a last straw moment or two; the Maharishi went too far and she just couldn’t take any more.

For starters, she realised that he was teaching and presiding over magical practices; not only that, the rituals were very unsafe and undesirable for westerners.

Joyce Collin-Smith: inside the cult of the Maharishi Yogi

Joyce Collin-Smith said that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was both godlike and demonic.

To me, her autobiographical work Call No Man Master has a similar duality: it is both very interesting and very boring. Some of the content fascinates me and resonates very strongly while some of it means very little so I skip over it.

Some of the material has generated commentaries and inspired the making of some original connections while some of it is just more of the same or irrelevant so I have no inclination to say anything about it.

Cults, cult leaders, cult members and cult leavers have been covered in several articles, mainly in general terms. I found Joyce Collin-Smith’s account of her involvement with the cult of the Maharishi Yogi particularly interesting. It is a goldmine; it is independent confirmation of much of what has already been described.

This article covers my ideas about her stated reasons for joining Maharishi and for staying with him for several years despite some reservations and much disillusionment.  Another article will describe how she eventually brought herself to leave him and his organisation for good.

The Maharishi Yogi’s backfiring meditation methods

While I can’t get interested in the many descriptions of spiritual practices associated with India and Tibet in Joyce Collin-Smith’s Call No Man Master, I am very interested in her account of the negative and unwelcome side effects that the Maharishi Yogi’s Hindu meditation practices had on his followers and devotees.

These effects greatly reduced the efficiency of his disciples and prevented them from carrying out his instructions effectively.

How could this have happened to someone so knowledgeable about spiritual exercises?

I am also interested in what she tells us about the big difference between the sort of people the Maharishi wanted to attract and many of the people he actually attracted - at least in the early days of his movement.

What was going on here?

It all seems to have backfired on him; he got the exact opposite of what he wanted.

The effects on the meditation practitioners 

There are many references to the unwanted behavioural characteristics of the people around the Maharishi Yogi. These were not innate; it seems it was the meditation that changed these people for the worse.

More minor misfortunes and an unexpected ending

Accounts of bad days, bad decisions and strings of minor misfortunes appear in several previous articles.

There is a little more of the same to report, including a very recent nightmare journey that had an unexpected but very welcome ending.

More electrical malfunctions

Tills have recently behaved strangely when it was my turn to pay. Although they worked for the customer immediately in front of me, one went crazy and had to be reset and the other refused to function at all so the girl on it had to move to another station.

It is interesting that Joyce Collin-Smith says that her friend, the one who could make events turn out to good advantage for herself and her circle, caused problems with electrical apparatus.

Some minor disappointments

It is quite a while since I have had what I think of as a good day. Most of the misfortunes are too petty to report, but a long string of tiny setbacks makes me feel that I am living under a cloud.

On several occasions I have made special a trip to a particular shop I remembered only to find that it had closed down.  I took some unwanted items to my favourite charity shop only to find that they were not accepting donations on that day.

These things have their funny side: I remembered seeing a stall in an indoor shopping centre where they repair watches, so took mine there to have a new battery put in. The watch repair man said he wouldn't do it because it would involve taking the back off and unscrewing things!

These are all very trivial problems; things could be and have been much worse. Not only that: a bad day had a good ending.

Cult members: giving more and more in return for less and less

Something I read  in Joyce Collin-Smith's Call No Man Master  about the Maharishi Yogi reminds me of something I read in Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies about the Elf Queen. 

We start with an amusing anecdote from a serious book; the second extract is a serious statement from a very amusing book.  

From Call No Man Master

Joyce Collin-Smith tells us that the Maharishi Yogi started out by initiating people in return for fruit and flowers, but he went on to demand larger and larger sums of money in return for his teachings. Even the basic courses were very costly, and the lessons in special techniques became steadily more and more expensive. Some people deprived both themselves and their families to pay his exorbitant fees.

These special techniques were supposed to teach people to become clairvoyant, to manipulate the forces of nature and to levitate!

The Maharishi Yogi and some fictional characters

This article will highlight a few special connections I noticed while reading Joyce Collin-Smith’s account of the time she spent with the Maharishi Yogi in the 1960s.

Some of the information she gives us about the Maharishi in Call No Man Master reminds me of what I have written about various fictional characters, including St. John Rivers from Jane Eyre.

Some of it may be small stuff, but the devil is in the details.

The red, white and black connection

These colours of interest have been mentioned in various articles about witches, including one about Emma Cobley from Linnets and Valerians, who was wearing these colours and knitting a red scarf when the children first saw her.

By coincidence, when Joyce Collin-Smith first saw the Maharishi, he was wearing white silk robes and carrying a sheaf of red gladioli. He had long black curling hair.

He had exchanged the gladioli for a red rose when she went to meet him personally.

Joyce Collin-Smith and the special powers of the Maharishi Yogi

There is still more to say about Joyce Collin-Smith and her dealings with the Maharishi Yogi.

This article will mainly cover the Maharishi’s special powers.

In her autobiographical book Call No Man Master, she suggests that he remotely caused two deaths. In one case the motive was to remove an obstacle from his path while in the other it was revenge.

As described in the previous article, she believes that Beatles’ agent Brian Epstein was removed because he stood in the way of the Maharishi’s plans and Beatle John Lennon was murdered as a punishment for speaking out openly against the Maharishi.

What did she see and experience during the time she spent with the guru that could have given her this idea? Why did she believe that he had the power to destroy people? Why did she believe that he would use his power so ruthlessly?

Some more extracts from her book provide answers to these key questions. The incidents described may seem trivial to some people, but for me they are very significant and provide independent confirmation of many of my ideas.

The Maharishi Yogi, the Beatles and Joyce Collin-Smith

In her book Call No Man Master, Joyce Collin-Smith suggests that the Maharishi Yogi used his occult powers to cause the deaths of two men. One was the Beatle John Lennon and the other was the Beatles’ agent Brian Epstein.

She believed that the Maharishi had the ability to influence events remotely. This belief was based on her own experiences of seeing him and other people in action. I have both read about and experienced many metaphysical phenomena, some of which have been mentioned on here as have some suspicious and/or convenient deaths, so I too believe that a few people have special powers, powers that are often used to harm others. 

Joyce Collin-Smith’s account of these deaths will be followed by some supporting material from various sources.

Joyce Collin-Smith and the Maharishi Yogi

Author, journalist and seeker after esoteric knowledge Joyce Collin-Smith spent six years as secretary and general assistant to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Indian guru who developed and promoted the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique.

She served as his driver, cooked his food, washed his silk clothes, tucked him into his bedclothes, made his phone calls, booked hotel rooms, prepared leaflets and posters, took dictation for his books and performed many other exhausting tasks and duties, all in the name of assisting him to realise his inordinate and unrealistic ambitions.

She came to know him very well, and saw at close quarters how he operated and what effect this had on his followers.

Much of her book Call No Man Master is about the time she spent in the Maharishi’s company. Her account of her involvement is disillusioning and sometimes chilling. Casualties and broken people abound. Some damage was spiritual and emotional, but people’s ability to earn a living was also greatly impaired.

Anyone who is interested in cults and cult leaders will find it educational; anyone who is interested in unseen influences will find it fascinating. It contains many elements that have been featured in other articles.

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XI: Tibetan tunnellers

I was reminded of the fictional Tibetan tunnellers while looking at allegations against various Buddhist Masters, some of whom come from Tibet.

My first thought was to mention them as a digression in an article about cult leaders, but I decided that they should have a post of their own as they are just a by-product of the cult investigation and belong under the label of conspiracy humour.

Tibetan tunnellers appear in Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

These two geniuses have brought together two very different topics - a conspiracy theory and a radio programme - and merged them into something that is greater than the sum of the parts.

The conspiracy theory

There are people who believe that when Atlantis was destroyed, some of the survivors went to Egypt as teachers and were responsible for the building of the pyramids.

Others say that some survivors of the great flood went to Tibet, where they became secret masters. There are all kinds of bizarre and sensational conspiracy theories about this. For example, world events are secretly controlled by Tibetan monks who are black magicians and live in underground cities. One day they will emerge from their secret worldwide network of underground tunnels, take over everything and enslave us all.

Cult leaders and Call No Man Master

Author and journalist Joyce Collin-Smith’s autobiographical book Call No Man Master is a good source of information about some specific cult leaders.

It may be seen as rather superficial and subjective, but it is still useful for both educating people and confirming what they already suspect or know.

Although her main interests and involvements were in the areas of consciousness raising practices, spiritual development movements, esoteric sects and Eastern religions, much of what she has to say can be applied to cults and cult leaders of any kind.

I am particularly interested in Joyce Collin-Smith’s account of her dealings with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Transcendental Meditation man who was spiritual guru to the Beatles. I can see some very familiar syndromes and connections in this case.

Before we get to the Maharishi, here are some commentaries and ideas inspired by other material of interest in this book:

Call No Man Master

Joyce Collin-Smith chose this title after having spent much of her very long life investigating groups and cults and in the company of various messiahs, spiritual teachers and gurus.

She became disillusioned with most of them, and with good reason. 

Many were found to be hypocritical, self-indulgent and a danger to their followers.

Elizabeth Goudge’s Linnets and Valerians: Part IV

This final article in the series contains some miscellaneous thoughts about Elizabeth Goudge’s Linnets and Valerians (aka The Runaways) and her witch Emma Cobley.

We begin with the J. K. Rowling connection and some accusations of paganism.

Elizabeth Goudge and J. K. Rowling

In 2001, J. K. Rowling gave an interview in which she said that Elizabeth Goudge’s The Little White Horse was one of her favourite childhood books and it was an inspiration for the Harry Potter series.

I am guessing that J. K. Rowling at some point investigated other books by Elizabeth Goudge. Her account of the witch Merope Gaunt, who came from a humble background and who probably bewitched the handsome and wealthy Tom Riddle Senior with a love potion, reminds me very much of the story of Emma Cobley and Hugo Valerian.

Christianity and paganism

J. K. Rowling’s recommendation of Elizabeth Goudge probably revived interest in an author who was no longer well known.

Some new readers may not have been too pleased with what they found.

Elizabeth Goudge’s books have been criticised for being sickly sweet and sentimental. I can see that they, or at least parts of some of them, may not be much to the taste of the modern reader.

Another drawback may be the religion: Elizabeth Goudge’s books are Christian in outlook, containing such themes as sacrifice, conversion, discipline, healing, and growth through suffering. This too might put some people off.

It is much the same with Madeleine L’Engle’s books: some people enjoy reading them despite the sweetness and religious references.