The Future History of Brexit

“You know, a second referendum might not have been such a bad idea, after all, old chap.”

Remember the First Law of Holes: “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”

#Brexit

The Internet ain't what it used to be

The first time I “went online” was in the 80s using a BBC microcomputer borrowed from work. I dialed a long distance number to connect via a very slow modem to GreenNet to access a bulletin board about environmental issues, for a magazine I was running. Being an expensive call, I set all content to spool to a text file as I was “browsing” the text (there were no images), and got offline again as soon as possible, reading the content later, and then incorporating it into the magazine.

Then around 1999 I discovered the free dial-up service FreeServe. Well, the service was free but it might take up to six attempts before I managed to fully connect, and I was charged for those attempts to connect. Whether this was due to issues with the new technology or a deliberate policy to swell their coffers, I do not know.

Wild West

I created my very first web site around that time, and found the usenet newsgroup alt.sufi, meeting people from around the globe who were actually interested in the Way, which opened up a whole new world. This was before the first big groups like Yahoo! groups came along and began to kill off usenet.

The internet was far more open then, and there was a lot more searching around and exploring. In those days, someone might come along to the web site and stay there for ages, slowly browsing through most of the pages on the site, or (being in a web ring of like-minded sites for a time) they might browse my site having just come from the previous site in the ring, and then wander on to the next site in the ring. Again, in those days, search engines would crawl and index the whole of the site and especially at AltaVista and Yahoo! you could find my site on the first page of many results, even though it was just a chicken shack operation.

Etienne de L'Amour: Meet the author, Part 2

Q: The front cover design of Escape From the Shadowlands is “different”, shall we say. What was your thinking behind that?

A: Let's wind back a little. Originally, I came across a black and white photo of the Museum of Antiquities in Antwerp, and I was quite taken by the male figure standing there in the archway and casting a long shadow on the cobbles. That's actually how I see Marie picturing the young stranger she meets in one of her lucid dreams.

I liked the image because of its olde worlde appearance, the link to the dream, and the shadow cast by the character. No matter how fast you run, you can't escape your shadow, as the saying goes. I used that image in the first edition of the Escape From the Shadowlands. However, I felt that perhaps some readers might recognize the museum in the “real world” (or what most people think of as the real world, our everyday world of steel, concrete and glass, that is), and that might partially break the spell, since the book is set in another, parallel and yet familiar world.

Wanting a replacement for the image, I went hunting on Wikimedia Commons which hosts photos with Creative Commons licences that can be freely used as long as you do things like attributing the work to the author. As soon as I came across the painting Schattenspiele (shadow games) by Lovis Corinth (1858–1925), I knew that was the one for me. Yes, it's a landscape image and so there's no way that it would stretch across the entire cover, but that was actually an advantage, because I wanted something that hinted at what you might call “Plato's Cave 2.0” with people mesmerized by the shadow play, living in their own little world of appearances, as it were, which is far removed from and a mere similitude of what the mystics would advisedly call the Real World. With the image as a box beneath the book title and above the author's name, it also hinted at what is, by and large, our confined thinking. And the text on the front cover of the book, again using fonts that are free for commercial use (Englebert, with the word “Shadowlands” in grey Berkshire Swash), was meant to be as legible as possible, especially in thumbnail images, but not so bold or ornate that it detracted from the image itself.

Etienne de L'Amour: Meet the author, Part 1

Q: What inspired you to write this first novel in the Shadowlands series?

A: I think the ideas have been stewing for several decades now. It all started perhaps in my childhood, growing up in a pretty poor, struggling and hard-working family in the North of England with a brother older than me by ten years and who was very successful even in those early years. Unable to compete, I had to find a quiet niche for myself. So many life experiences, really. Discovering the alternative possibilities of Shangri-La in Frank Capra's 1937 film, Lost Horizon which was adapted from James Hilton's novel of the same name; a book that I went on to study much, much later in a course on the writers' craft.

Fast forward a few years to a misspent youth as a hippie freak, foolishly experimenting with illicit – albeit mind-broadening – substances, and reading dozens of books along the lines of practical astral travel, Lobsang Rampa's The Third Eye, and Helena Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled. I read a few books by folk who turned out to be fakes, but they nudged me in a certain direction, down a wonderful, winding road much less travelled. Reading With Magic and Magicians in Tibet by Alexandra David-Néel represented a notable turning point, and I was also fortunate to stumble across a thin pamphlet by the then-embryonic Buddhist Society in the UK. I remember reading several of their publications and writing to the Secretary of the society inquiring whether it was better to become a Bodhisattva (especially a Bodhisattva of the Household who worked in the everyday marketplace of life, one who has achieved nirvana and returned to help others) or an Arhat (whom I envisioned sitting on some distant Himalayan mountaintop in quiet and solitary meditation). Needless to say, the Secretary sent a reply, suggesting that I was perhaps putting the cart before the horse. Well, even I could see now that there was no “perhaps” about it, really. I was all over the place in those days.

Article 13 of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market

If you're a blogger, use social media, or run a search engine, expect stuff to hit the fan when the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market comes into force very soon.

This meme has been removed under Article 13 of the EU
Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market.

If you're skeptical, please check out:

 • The death of the meme could be upon us
 • The EU's Copyright Proposal is Extremely Bad News for Everyone, Even (Especially!) Wikipedia
 • Wikipedia's Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market.

Image: Paolo Tiramani and Donald Trump.
Author: Mggcb.
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Font: Englebert (Free for commercial use).

Escape from the Shadowlands (2018) by Etienne de L'Amour

With a little less fanfare than the Royal Wedding, I'm delighted to reveal that the mystical scifi adventure, Escape from the Shadowlands, the first book in the series which I wrote ten years ago under the pseudonym Etienne de L'Amour, has been revised, edited, reformatted and has now been republished for the Kindle.

The book is available for download at:
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0079Q8WZ8
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0079Q8WZ8

Although preceded by a historical prequel and a prequel, this book is best read first.

Any help with spreading the message would be an enormous help and greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 • Meet the Author, Part 1
 • Meet the Author, Part 2.

Hannibal Fogg and the Supreme Secret of Man by Tahir Shah

Hannibal Fogg and the Supreme Secret of Man centres around a mysterious device that Alexander the Great took with him on his campaigns over 2,000 years ago, and which reputedly gave him an advantage over his enemies, often in spite of overwhelming odds. When the intrepid explorer and visionary Hannibal Fogg found out about the device, he was determined to locate it and determine its secrets, which he realized could be of world-changing magnitude.

Unfortunately, however, Fogg disappeared in mysterious circumstances on an expedition to Manchuria, and to compound matters, the British establishment sought to discredit Fogg and — in what came to be known as the Great Foggian Purge — virtually all trace of his life and work were deliberately and systematically erased.

By what turns out to be far more than a stroke of good fortune, Hannibal Fogg's great-great-grandson, Will comes to inherit what little appears to be left of Fogg's estate — an old iron key — which, though he doesn't know it at the time, opens up a whole new world of possibilities for him, as he becomes determined to discover more about his mysterious ancestor and the intriguing ancient device that had come into Hannibal Fogg's possession, with a string of clues to guide him.

FTC disclosure: I received an advance copy of the text for proofreading purposes and I later received a copy of the book, free of charge, as a thank you for that proofreading. Having enjoyed reading the book, I decided to write a short, fair and honest review of the work.

“Why am I here?”

“Why am I here?” is a question we sometimes ask ourselves.

What if we take a step back from there to the question of “Why is there 'something'? Why not simply 'absolute nothingness'?”

I can only imagine that this is because there exists an inherent (and self-evidential) possibility or potential of “something” existing, and able to manifest under the right conditions. This reminds me of Schrödinger's cat.

In other words, we have not emerged from the ground of some futile void, but from a fertile void, and the presence of an observer, and consciousness itself, may well be two of the requirements for manifestation. Another may be imagination.

As the famous, mystical hadith qudsi tells us: “I was a hidden treasure and wanted to be known.”

Credits

• Image title: Huile sur toile au couteau . création symbolique 2008
• Image source: Wikimedia Commons
• Image author: Atchama.
• Image licence: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Walkaway, a Novel by Cory Doctorow

I found Walkaway – "an epic tale of revolution, love, post-scarcity, and the end of death" – a really good read.

Well worth ★★★★★.

I'm not sure that I can go with the *detail* of the story, perhaps because I'm not sure if the technology will be available "whenever" to, say, fabricate better fabricators -- though I'm sure scavenging would be a viable option -- or whether we'd have to reinvent the loo roll, the toothbrush, and dry stone walling. There is a helluva lot of necessary infrastructure behind even moderately-complex electronics these days, and if that was compromised, we may find the whole house of cards come tumbling down.

Perhaps “no one will live who still remembers it” ~ Wouter Hanegraaff

If there is one blog post that I would recommend to fellow freethinkers, it is “Perspective 2016” by Wouter Hanegraaff. It really is one of my all-time favourites.

Hanegraaff is full professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and related currents at the University of Amsterdam, and was President of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE) from 2005 to 2013.

In this excellent and timely, and yet also timeless, essay – which will resonate with many who are acquainted with that other mystical tradition, the Sufi Way and the writings of Idries Shah – Hanegraaff writes:

“The world is changing. At this end of the year, with Christmas coming up and a New Year just around the corner, I feel a need to gain some perspective on what is happening all around us, and how it is affecting our very ways of thinking, our very ways of living, our very conceptions of what is possible, our very expectations of where we are going, and most importantly, our very ways of imagining where we should be going ...”

The Sufi Mystics: Ancient Wisdom for Dire Modern Times

Just over fifty years ago, in 1964, the writer, thinker and Sufi teacher Idries Shah’s major work, The Sufis, was published. Writer and later winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2007, Doris Lessing, writing in The Washington Post, described the work as “a seminal book of the century, even a watershed,” and the poet Ted Hughes wrote that “the Sufis must be the biggest society of sensible men on Earth.” Men and women, that would be. At the time of his death, in November 1996, Shah’s thirty-or-so books on travel, philosophy, psychology and spirituality had sold over 15 million copies in a dozen languages worldwide.

Although others had come before Shah, such as the Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan, at the time Shah wrote his first work popularising the subject, the Sufi Way was largely unknown outside of specialist academic and Sufi circles. The closest many had come to Sufism would possibly be to have read the tales in One Thousand and One Nights, which were actually of Sufic origin and designed to surreptitiously convey certain teachings and survive through their popularity.

Many of Shah’s books have teaching tales scattered throughout them, or are collections of such tales, which have multiple layers of meaning that can be revealed like the layers of an onion, rather than the simple morals that we have become accustomed to in the West, via the likes of Aesop. Some, such as the tales of the folksy philosopher and wise fool, Nasrudin, use humour as a vehicle.

According to the Sufis, a wholly scholastic or logical approach to study, or closed thinking, is restrictive and ill-advised, and this is preserved in one of Nasrudin’s jokes:

Nasrudin, ferrying a pedant across a piece of rough water, said something ungrammatical to him. “Have you never studied grammar?” asked the scholar.
“No.”
“Then half of your life has been wasted.”
A few minutes later Nasrudin turned to the passenger. “Have you ever learned how to swim?”
“No. Why?”
“Then all your life is wasted—we are sinking!”

What the Sufis advocate instead, as correctives, are the development and use of perception and intuition, and learning a practical skill which they technically term “swimming”. One of the aims is to awaken what Shah terms our vestigial organs of higher perception, which will help us in our quest toward Truth.

The Sufis talk of finding a hidden treasure of inestimable worth, but since it is buried under a mountain of misbelief and conditioning, a lot of digging has to be undertaken first, a preliminary phase which Shah refers to as learning how to learn. To use an organic metaphor: first of all, the ground has to be cleared of dead wood, undergrowth and weeds before the seeds can be planted; then the seeds are watered and grow out of the ground, and into the air, to be warmed by the sun; and finally they come to fruition and may be harvested. The Sufi materials help clear the ground and scatter those seeds, in the mind and heart of the seeker, and the teacher provides the “water”.

Or, to put it another way (as the Sufis so often do), imagine a princess locked in a dungeon and placed under guard. That is our common plight. It is possible to use the Sufi stories to smuggle hidden messages to the princess, who represents our heart or a higher part of us, via those unsuspecting and greedy guards – guards who are equally a part of our own makeup. By establishing a common language and a secret dialogue, messages can in turn be smuggled out about the princess’ plight. To cut a long and involved story short, by such means, the princess can be freed from the dungeon and regain her rightful place.

Which are the best books to read first?

Which of Etienne de L'Amour and H.M Forester's novels are best read first?

MAY 2017 UPDATE: You can download copies of ALL the books from here on our web site. Although marked as "review copies", there are no strings attached, so just enjoy!

Q: “Why are you giving away your mystical adventure and sci-fi ebooks?”
A: Here's why.

• Etienne de L'Amour

The best book to begin reading is Escape From the Shadowlands or the next book, In Search of Destiny. Although they are preceded by two prequels, they stand on their own and are pretty much self-contained.

(a) Escape From the Shadowlands by Etienne de L'Amour is a soft scifi / mystical adventure ebook available for the Kindle at just $2.99 (or the nearest permitted equivalent outside the US).

☆☆☆☆☆ "Astounding, dizzying journey! Entertaining, enlightening."

If you like Doris Lessing's Shikasta; James Hilton's Lost Horizon; the writer, thinker and Sufi teacher Idries Shah, or the legendary Sarmoun Brotherhood, then give this book a try.

• Goodreads • Blog post

(b) In Search of Destiny is set in the disparate realms of the Outlands; Sher Point, the metropolis of the so-called Freelands, and the mystical kingdom of Narayana in the East.

It tells the story of Conrad Harper, who sets out one day to search for his destiny and heart's true desire; of the help offered him by a mysterious organization known simply as the Network; his journeys with the Master of the Tradition, Tenzing Jangbu Rinchen, and of his finding romance and ancient knowledge.

And it shows how ordinary and everyday experiences, which we tend to take for granted and often do not value, can be brought into service and woven together into a rich tapestry with an altogether higher purpose.

☆☆☆☆☆ "The story rocks along as any good adventure story should, but with an added bonus of the sprinkling throughout of bits of wisdom, guidance offered to readers ... I highly recommend you read this most interesting and enjoyable book!" (Amazon US)

☆☆☆☆☆ "If you have ever wanted more in life than programmed work, entertainment, economy-worship, and political sideshows, you'll love this book ... I got my copy free as a review copy, but I would have paid for it easily knowing what I know now!" (Amazon US)

Although In Search of Destiny is book 4 in the Shadowlands series, feel free to read this first.

• Goodreads • Blog post

• H.M. Forester

Game of Aeons: A short novel by H.M. Forester stands on their own and is self-contained, so that's as good a book as any to read first.

Game of Aeons is a soft scifi / virtual reality, available as an ebook for the Kindle at just $2.99 (or the nearest permitted equivalent outside the US).

When do games become reality? Or is "reality" a game?

☆☆☆☆☆ "Very readable. Humour, wisdom about the human condition and the meaning of reality." (Amazon US)
☆☆☆☆☆ "Thought provoking; enjoyable; fascinating idea that a game could be a means of self development" (Amazon UK)
☆☆☆☆ "A good read, indeed. Topical themes, perennial questions." (Goodreads)

• Goodreads • Blog post

Enjoy!

• By Etienne de L'Amour ~ Google+