avalon crack of dawn, im there making a deal, picking up a package, it's for agent stone who has been on my case about this for ages and here i am following through, what a guy. what a man. what a mission.
the blue car pulls up, the electric window slides down and there she is, ex wife looking like she's been up all night on coke eyeballs hanging down, ravaged and grim. she passes me the package and i thank her, we exchange some weird pleasantries and she drives away.

a friend invites me to a party type thing at the pub at the end of my street, it's his girlfriends birthday and nico and i say we will attend but end up getting distracted watching dvds, so later i honour my commitment and slip into the pub and find the party. well firstly in case you don't know i hate pubs, it's very rare to get me in one, i'm absolutely opposed to the idea that a pub can actually offer me anything. secondly i have an aversion to people who inhabit pubs, especially these big personality deficit ones as they are usually drunk and talk about drivel as their egos and minds are inflated by spirits they don't even know infect them, there's sports everywhere, tonight i'm bombarded by a massive screen showing some sort of meathead game with a squished ball, rugby they call it, most of the crowd are watching this and cheering making conversation impossible and one after another a bunch of drunk girls introduce themselves to me, all leaking desperation pheromones in the hope of finding some sort of comfort for the void in their lives. man i see it so clearly, like a massive cancer eating away at them from the inside.
fortunately i have brought my book, however this is no deterrent as they start asking me all sorts of questions, obviously because i am the only man in there not interested in sports.
with my toenails painted book in hand and the ability to offer a stimulating menu of conversational subjects they think i am gay, which i have to deny by saying i am actually a porn actor. i'm not really sure why i said it, shock value, attention, to inject something into the zombie sports atmosphere of the evening.
a tall blond lady finds this remarkably attractive and i realise i am stuck with her for the night, she starts confessing her loneliness and her wealth. she's a walking disaster within a tragedy. to much cash and no imagination, to much investment in her real estate and possessions and nothing in her heart.
another girl who i say looks like an elf queen starts leaning into me, far to close and far to intimate for my liking, close up she looks more like some washed up porno actress than elf queen and for a moment i think i could at least play with her but she asks if i can buy her a drink, 'i don't drink and i don't like to buy drunk people alcohol.'
she thinks i am crazy, leans in further and adds, 'but i'll make it worth your while.'
'my whiles are already worth it.' i reply.
there's a terrible sadness here, i gaze around at the drunk women all being ignored by their men or being pushed around and left at tables in tears, all being grabbed and kissed and then dispensed with for another beer or a slap on the back from the male rituals, i see the drunk dramas played out amongst them, some petty argument exaggerated so it actually becomes something it's never was, i see endless cigarettes being smoked with an energy only alcohol could fuel and endless empty minds vacantly staring into the bottom of their glasses, i see the karmic lines across the air, the sorrow of privilege, these people have so much yet they waste it, abundance yet nothing. ignorance corrupts everything here, there is no life force present no vitality, no innovation, no ideas, no freedom, the mindless zombies are infected with alcoholic narcosis, i seen this almost everywhere alcohol is sold, what a dumb drug, what a stupid pastime, drinking and the sports industry. i find it hard not to be judgemental, the facts are drinking is the white mans poison, the means that the american indians and the great civilisations were subdued and destroyed, as we are all destroyed by the big global industrialists, the karmic implications of alcohol are exactly like the arms industry and the pharmaceuticals. if your political or not, you still have the choice to reject these petty distractions. this is the clever country, the smart one, where beer is celebrated and encouraged, where drinking is a national pastime. i forget that sometimes. i forget how embedded it is in the national psyche. how drinking promotes violence and random loveless procreation. it's the social lubricant for the inadequate. i've been guilty of it, but i seen the consequences and learnt fast. i look around and wonder if this is what having a good time is. i don't really know what that means. i can have a good time without all this bullshit, does that mean i'm a freakazoid?
yes it does.
so be it.
i wave my freak flag high.
i have to escape but the tall blonde won't let me go, the elf queen grabs my arm, the birthday girl says, 'aren't my friends beautiful?'
i look at her, poor woman, poor sad soul, trapped in a poor sad world of illusion.i empathise with her, i wish i could liberate you but you have no will to be liberated, you have no wish to be free and assume the responsibility of freedom, you like your maya, your drama, your safe in it because you think it defines you.
i don't want to save her, i don't want to save any one, i can't do it anyway, it's far to late for saving people, everyone knows it subconsciously, every one feels it, maybe that's why they drink. there's no escape from the personal apocalypse, like an internal spiritual suicide bomber we are armed and dangerous. the only solution is the heart chakra, stand up for it, defend it and don't let the void extinguish it.
i look at my friend, he seems sad, like me he knows. he knows.
i tell him i am going and he says, 'i don't blame you.'
i slip out.

lieutenant colonel sir francis edward younghusband was sent to tibet by the english in the old days, the tibetans were used to the chinese therefore the english were easier to deal with despite the fact it was an invasion, funded by opium as most english empire grabs were. however the english managed to kill over 5000 monks in tibet. younghusband sets up base and slowly the tibetan buddhist ideology starts to infect him, his thoughts and dreams change dramatically, and up there in the mountains he has some interesting revelations. he starts to believe in telepathy, starts to believe in cosmic rays transmitted by extraterrestrials with translucent flesh from the planet "altair" these rays are spiritual intelligence. younghusband comes to believe in free love, a hippie before hippies, went on to write books with titles such as:

The Gleam: Being an account of the life of Nija Svabhava, pseud. (1920); Mother World (in Travail for the Christ that is to be) (1924); and Life in the Stars: An Exposition of the View that on some Planets of some Stars exist Beings higher than Ourselves, and on one a World-Leader, the Supreme Embodiment of the Eternal Spirit which animates the Whole.

yeah younghusband must have smoked some great hash up there on the mountains or had some incredible revelation but the fact is the tibetan meme of buddhism is extremely powerful and resilient. for the buddha understood this, which is why resistance is pointless, the battle is inside every one, it is the only war worth fighting and sooner or later along the life line you have to face it and be prepared to win.

when she turns up after midnight with some love drugs and a bag full of accessories i give up trying to read, my book has a magnetic attraction, bancock detectives and their dead prostitute girlfriends are discarded and my attention focuses in on my companion who demands nothing less.
anyway i feel like i'm going through the motions, she obviously is enthusiastic and enthralled and every time i think i'm finished i'm drawn into more, my breathing is irregular, my chest hurts and to be honest i'm feeling like i made the wrong choice, i should have made some xcuse and returned to my book alone, but here i am being indulged.
just when i feel spiritually depleted (that's a daoists joke) she starts to do something i never experienced. i'm not gonna go into the details, suffice to say it's good and i do a 180 turnaround. i start regulating my breathing, getting control of the situation, my focus spreads from below the waist to the the rest of my body. it's feels good but i'm working hard, my tantric breathing requires some kind of disipline and to be honest my commitment is wavering, but she's looking at me with those big eyes and her face looks all wrapped up in pleasure.
i'm uncertain how much time passes, but i wake up alone, she's slipped out. i find a note in lipstick drawn on my mirror, she's a foxy one. i brush my teeth and jump in the shower then i run through the house looking for my towel.
later i light up a smoke and open up my book again. back to the dead protitutes.

the day has passed me by, i forgot to see the two films i wanted to due to walter mosley's book 'killing johnny fry' which is magnificent, it's a cross between hardcore porn and raymond chandler, a perfect book for me. what an amazing story, one i relate to and totally understand. brilliantly transgressive and well constructed.i finished it in one day. go out and read his book unless your easily offended by explicit sex.
now i have the reading bug and just in time for a guy i have raved about in earlier posts, mr. john burdett has a new book out, 'the godfather of katmandu.' a brilliant crime writer who uses asia as his backdrop. sonchai jitpleecheep is the detective and through his three previous novels i have come to share his vision of the human experience, absolutely magnificent stories and so well written it's like having a cheap educational holiday in thailand. i'm very excited to be starting this one, after reading 'killing johnny fry' i think i'm gonna go for the quality trifecta and cue paul auster's new book for the final novel i read this weekend.

from osho...

Woman is what man has made of her.

It is a vicious circle.

Man has deprived woman of education and other social institutions, of economic freedom. And then you ask why women are unintelligent? You are the cause.

Women have as much intelligence as any man - because intelligence has no concern with sexual hormones. Do you think if you changed Albert Einstein into a woman with plastic surgery, he would lose his intelligence? He would still remain Albert Einstein, but in a woman's body. The difference is only of bodies; the difference is not of consciousness, not of intelligence.


But unfortunately man decided to repress woman.

For centuries it has not been clear to historians why it had to happen in such a way. But the latest psychological research makes it very clear why it happened: it happened because man feels a deep inferiority complex in comparison to woman.


And the basic root of that feeling comes from the woman's capacity to become a mother. She is the source of life, she creates life. Man is incapable of it. This became the reason to cut the wings of all women - of freedom, of education - and confine her to a prison-like home and reduce her to just a factory of reproduction so that he can forget that he is inferior.

The woman had to be made inferior so that man could feel at ease, so that his ego could feel that now there is no competition with women at all.
The woman is not the cause of all her bitchiness.

You have been torturing her for thousands of years.

No society in the world has accepted her as equal to man. No culture of the past has given the woman the same respect as it gives to the man. On the contrary, they have all tried to force her into a subhuman existence.
And the reason why the woman did not revolt against such things is simple: again, the same motherhood. For nine months when she is pregnant, she becomes absolutely dependent - particularly in a society which lived by hunting.

And by the way, I would like you to remember that the society in which you are living now - where houses exist, cities exist - is a contribution of women, not of men. The house is the woman's contribution.


Man was hunting. The woman was confined to a small space; naturally she started decorating it, cleaning it, making it beautiful, liveable - and she became attached. In a hunting society, the nomads had to go on changing... because when hunting was not giving them enough food, they had to move to where the animals were. They could not have permanent cities; they could have only tents, not houses.


And you can see it: when a man lives alone, his house is almost like a tent, it is not like a house.
Without a woman, it remains a tent, a temporary place - just a shelter with nothing sacred about it.
As the woman enters, the tent starts transforming into a house and finally into a home.


In hunting societies, the woman's function was nothing but reproduction. She was continuously pregnant. This became her failure: she could not fight, she could not rebel, she had to submit, she had to surrender - of course unwillingly. Nobody becomes a slave willingly.

When somebody becomes a slave willingly, there is no problem.


But millions of women have been forced to become slaves unwillingly. Naturally they try to take revenge in indirect ways. All those ways combined make them cats, their behavior becomes bitchy.


But remember: a woman can be bitchy only with a dog, and a woman can be a cat only with a mouse - and that's why you are angry. Seeing a woman, you are reminded that you are a dog, you are a mouse.
Your male chauvinist attitude hurts.

It is simply an unconscious reaction, and you have to be watchful of the reaction so that it can disappear.
It is undignified of you. It shows something about you - not about the woman. It is your anger, it is your hate.
If you will look at the history....


In many villages, the women cannot enter the temples. In some religions she can enter, but she has a separate section - not the same as the men. In all religions, the woman is not accepted as a candidate for the ultimate growth of consciousness. She is unworthy, not for any other reason - just because she is a woman; her crime is that she is a woman. And she can evolve but she will have to fulfill a condition: first she will have to be born as a man.

So in religions like Jainism, there are methods, rituals, religious disciplines for women, specifically intended for them to enter a man's body in their next life.

Now the whole Jaina attitude and philosophy can be disturbed because with plastic surgery a woman can become a man with no difficulty. There is no need for all those disciplines and rituals and arduous hostilities.

Just a very small amount of plastic surgery and you are capable of entering the ultimate state of consciousness. Strange, that plastic surgery is needed for spiritual growth!

But this has been one way to condemn the woman.


Another reason why man has condemned the woman is the power of the woman over the man. You can never forgive someone who has so much power over you. The woman is beautiful, attractive...
her beauty, her body, her attraction and you become just a beggar - and you are going to take revenge for that too.


But everything is going on in an unconscious state. You are not aware of what you are doing and why.
Man is almost magnetically pulled by the woman. He can see that he is just a puppet. How can he forgive the woman who has forced him to be just a puppet? - whatever he can do, he tries to do.


Women everywhere are not allowed to read the holy scriptures. In many countries the woman is not even allowed to show her face in the society. It used to be so in India; it is still so in all the Mohammedan countries.
I have heard, when Mulla Nasruddin got married according to the tradition, his wife asked him, "To whom am I allowed to show my face?"


Mulla Nasruddin said, "First let me have a look, only then can I say anything." So he looked at her face, closed his eyes and said, "Enough! Except for me, you are allowed to show your face to everybody."


These are subtle ways of humiliation, of cutting women off from the world of power, from the world where everything is happening. The woman is not part of it. She is not part of your wars, she is not part of your businesses, she is not part of your religions.
And there are countries like China - not a small country....


A woman was reading in the newspaper that of every four men, one is Chinese. She came very much worried and concerned. She said to her husband, "This paper says that every fourth person is Chinese. Now you have to be careful; we already have three boys, and I don't want any Chinese in this house."


In this vast one-fourth of humanity, for ten thousand years it was believed that the woman had no soul, she was as soulless as your furniture. Hence, if a husband killed his wife, there was no crime, he had simply destroyed his property. It was nobody else's concern to come into it. Thousands of women were killed by their husbands, but the court, the law, did not accept it as killing, because how can you kill somebody who has no soul?


In India millions of women have been burned alive simply because of the male ego: "My wife is beautiful, young. If I am dead, she may get married again." This jealousy was the reason for deciding that every woman should jump into the burning funeral pyre with her husband. The husband is dead; the living woman has to jump into the fire. And we have practiced this for ten thousand years. It still happens once in a while, although now there is a law against it.
One feels as if we don't give any attention to our social mores, our behavior mores. In the whole of Indian literature I have not come across a single statement saying that if women are required to die with their husbands to show their faith, their love, then why are men not required to do the same?


What kind of game is this in which the rule applies only to the woman, not the man?


The society is made by men. Women are living in a society which is not made for them, not made by them; it has not considered them at all.
Your anger towards women is worth understanding. Perhaps it is really your anger against yourself, your anger against men - what men have done to women.
Women have been victims. You cannot be angry at them.


In the home, the husband is the victim; and it can be said without any doubt that every husband is henpecked. In fact, every intelligent husband has to be - only some idiot may not be. But this is the price that every man has to pay for what mankind has been doing to womankind for thousands of years.


If you want to get free from your anger against women, you will have to go through a very deep inner spring cleaning and see that the woman is the victim. And because she is the victim and has no positive way to resist, to fight, she finds indirect ways: of nagging, of screaming, of throwing tantrums.


These are simply hopeless efforts. And naturally her rage against the whole of humanity becomes focused on one man, the husband.
The freedom of women is going to be the freedom of men too. The day the woman is accepted as equal, given equal opportunity to grow, man will find himself suddenly free from the bitchiness that he used to feel from the women. And he will be surprised that neither is she a cat nor is he a dog - both are human beings.


It is time.
Man has come to a certain maturity. We can create a world together, with men and women sharing their insight, their visions, their dreams. Because they are different, their dreams are different, their contributions to the society will be different. And if a society can be created in which men and women have participated equally, that will be for the first time the richest society in the world - and without all this bitchiness and nagging and fighting.


This is a strange and stupid way of living. But just because your father used to live this way it is accepted almost as if it is something religious. Your forefathers did it, you have to do it, your children will learn it from you.


Every generation goes on giving its diseases to the coming generation.

My people have to be aware and alert not to pass on any sickness which they may have received from the past generation. Let this be the dead end. Don't pass it to the new generation. Let the new people grow - the new earth, the new man.


The old has failed so badly that there is no point in renovating it. It is all ruins. It simply needs to be written in the history books, pieces of it preserved in the museums - but from life it has to disappear.


the problem with the modern woman is one of identity, most women are totally brainwashed by the male agenda, they conform to all male control structures without even knowing they are under control. it works on a simple phycological premise that started in ye olde days when man burnt witches at the stake because they feared the feminine principle, duality started here, good bad, male female, illusionary and part of the maya.
the male in their insecure (and i know cos i've been there) status of knowing the feminine principle is equally as powerful as the male has to subjugated women from discovering their power, so all sorts of constructed ideas are created usually within other memetic structures, religious and political.
the overall prime directive is to keep women away from their goddess nature, including the role of motherhood, in contemporary society this is done by making them hate their bodies, plugging them into the glamour, fashion, hollywood celeb, consumerism, finding unfulfilled relationships with abusive partners becomes an unconscious desire as that way they have the validation they require that reflects their self loathing, consequently women react to love in a negative way, destructive and seek out obliteration. i seen this so many times, the damage is almost unrepairable unless the woman is able to take some responsibility and self direct their own pattern of behaviour away from their eventual car crash.
as an avatar of the goddess i think men have a massive responsibility to take some interventionist approach here, start focusing on the reality of feminine principles and educate women away from the lie that males create unless of course women want to be powerless and the play things of men, androids, i call them, which most of them do.

he's a cheeky panda bear type man with stubby nose and pug face, he has chubby cheeks and that black and white furry suit but he's always so aggressive when he drinks, that's the thing i hate about him, unpredictable personality. he's got that cute look, enjoys reading and making flans for his mates but as soon as he's drinking he becomes ugly. all that ego starts leaking through and it has to fucking exert it's destructive influence upon anyone close, destructive clique.
so one night im chatting with a opera singer from anteries 7, we are in a tea house waiting for the sun to set, apparently there's going to be some sort of meteor shower and she's gonna sing an aria to the small select audience. there's three guys on the stage setting up the mic and a small 3 pice band tuning their gear but i suspect they are actually having a cheeky spliff under pretense.
anyway im enjoying listening to her stories when he comes crashing in on the conversation, already under the influence of some sort of vodka type spirit, a malevolent thing if ever i seen one, it's dark and miserable under a mask of smiles and laughter. i glance into his eyes and scan his aura, i get a 15 minute window, short term future, things will get ugly unless i can hijack the situation.
he's already making the opera diva look nervous and i can see the management getting worried in the background.
while he's basking in his own self obsessed glory i sneakily slip a pill in his glass, it's a parallax, very illegal and as soon as he sips his drink it will enter his blood and begin changing his reality. i take a long breath and pretend to look interested in his boorish tale of sexual conquests and travels to exotica.
he holds the glass up to his lips and quaffs his drink, almost immediately his eyes expand, dilated and glare.
he is under my influence now. i ask him if he can play the harmonica, he nods his head, 'yes.'
i pass him a harmonica in the key of cm the same key the diva is going to sing in.
'you will accompany the diva on harmonica when she cues you in. do you understand?'
'yes i understand.'
'you will never drink again, from now on any alcohol will taste terrible to you and make you violently sick.'
i can see the spirit that is inside him anger, a small internal conflict ensures, his eyes are struggling, his face sweats and for a moment i'm thinking the parallex may not be able to defeat the spirit. it's inside him, wrestling to stay relevant.
i look the thing in his eyes, 'i cast you out from this weak soul, begone from this world.'
his eyes start to dim, and slowly he falls into a deep sleep.
the diva looks at me, 'is he okay?'
'yes, i think so. you will have a harmonica accompanying you tonight, i hope you choose something bluesy.'
'i'm highly adept at configuring my songs in most styles.'
'good, i really hope this works.'
'did i ever tell you about the time i played for the grand emperor of venus?'
without waiting for any response she starts talking.
later just as the meteor shower appears as a faint dot in the distance she is introduced to the audience who clap and cheer loudly.
the panda man climbs on stage with the band and stands near the mike, the band kicks in, and they are tight, moving into some semi operatic space rock blues from early 30th century earth,

"did you hear about the universe
the one we live within
it's the sun that sustains you
the one your basking in
and did you do the gorgon tango
did you shake the squid about
did you kiss the hydra
on the lips of every mouth
you know i'm a life form
that loves to tell you truths
that's why the only song i sing
is the operatic space rock blues..."

and then in came the harmonica, old panda man, under the influence of the pandorax standing with his legs apart blowing that instrument like it was part of his breathing, the audience were mesmerized as the meteors started to come into view, they were beautiful, purples trails of fire across space, reds and blues exploding in their wake, a trail of yellow flame cutting the night like a zipper.
i slipped outside for a quick smoke and a line of kick. a cute waitress with bright red lips and a short skirt came with me, you know girls love kick.

after the show the old panda seemed to be emerging from the pandorax hit, he was looking a bit confused, his hands searched for a drink, the diva was surrounded by people wanting her autograph, she looked amazing, the band were packing up their gear.
i decided to take the waitress back to my place, but i had to put the old bear panda on a transporter tacking him close to home, the diva asked him if he would play with her full time, but he would have to remain sober. the bear looked at her as though she was mad.
it was a strange night under the cosmos, this sort of thing don't even register, it's nothing, a minor drama. operatic space rock blues.

i have a massive photograph of a girl i was in love with, meredith, it's a portrait on glossy photographic paper, i have it rolled up in a room, i've never looked at it, it's been sitting there for 3 years.
i get the feeling i should frame it, it's gonna cost a fortune but i should do something with it, i wanted to write over it but i think i'll just save that idea for another face, there are a few faces i could write over but meredith's has a pristine look, her eyes in this photograph are amazing, she had a chameleon look, the sort that kept me guessing. i like that, i'd never really know who i was gonna get, there were many sides to that girl but i loved them all. this side is her seductive side, i think it captures her at her best, elegant and sexy, looking like a sophisticated jazz singer from 1944, she radiates jazz, it oozes from every pore. once she sang me a jazz tune and did a little dance, man it was amazing, i loved that dance, i loved the way we just lived in that cocoon, smoking weed and getting up early for our one walk to the coffee shop for our lattes and spinach pies. that was the only thing we managed to eat all day and night, we were both pretty fucked up but i liked that time a lot, we would stay home like shell shocked rabbits, attached to one another through both flesh and the trauma, stunned, dazed and somewhat amazed, the both off us knew we went back a long time, we were really good together until we the tyranny of distance and brain injury, and i didn't even know who you were, and you and i just detached, slipped away from one another. you went into a sort of drug induced madness ofr depression and me slipping into brain injury reality, no concentration, no memory, no idea.
but that's really all i remember, i don't really know why we drifeted apart, i don't know much about that time but i have a really lovely photograph of you i want to frame.

the first time travellers will start to show up in movies, old films will be searched and certain extras will appear in the background using technology that could not of existed in the year the film was made, i pods, ray bans, digital watches. suddenly a whole new area of research opens up and people will study old films looking for these clues.
one day some one will suggest that if we look carefully at modern films we will see technology that is new to us, from travellers in our far future.
the researchers will eventually study the way this technology is used in these films and then create the technology in our time, however the central mystery of time travel will not be revealled until a certain captain mission is discovered in an old joan crawford movie. there he is in the background, sipping a coffee in a coffee house in berlin, using an i pad, he looks up from the device and waves at the camera, then he blows us a kiss just as his head bows down again.
the scene is brief and captain mission is in the background, blink and you will miss it, but researchers slow it down and magnify it digitally and there he is, waving at you.

panther like, you wander around that suburb, the one that you once lived in, terrible emotions rise, a tangled web of memories, where they really yours you wonder. that's the trouble, you can't trust anything these days, even yourself. except you have that instinct and the gifted intuitive insight that drives you.
there's a few clouds in the skies, obscuring the stars, last night you caught a glimpse of a yellow moon, hanging up there, jaundice eye and fixated stare, flickering in black soup. but tonight there's just a great dark sky oppressing the city, all light finding penetration challenging.
walk down the main street past the shop where you pick up scattered recollections of a fight you had, she screaming at you in front of a whole bunch of people, causing a scene, creating some drama over some thing you said or did. you can't recall the details just the energy, terrible and furious. it doesn't make sense, like some interference buzzing in your head, what were those memories, what ever they were they hurt and they are ugly, maybe they aren't yours, maybe you just picked up random memories that have been scattered and left hanging like lost energy fields. you shake your head, puzzled and confused, the whole town seems to be drowning in these energy fields. you step up your pace, wrap your scarf around you and head towards the car.
as you turn around a corner past the drive through bottle shop you get another sensation of dread, you can feel the heavy weight of a violent war of words, she's shouting and swearing but the words are like daggers, they cut and slice you, they are weapons and you have no defence, you remember trying to defend yourself with gentle words, kindness and empathy but she's lost all sense of reason now and the anger spills over into a sinister zone.
jesus the severity of this pocket hangs heavy, it's like a molasses you walked into, but you don't own it, it's some one else's, your just picking it up, like an echo.
you start to run, this town has to many ghosts, a heavy rain begins, your running fast fumbling for keys, up ahead you see your car, you're closing in when the big one hits you.
shes angry, thinks you had some sort of affair, thinks you said something to some one, you're confused, scared, you never seen her so angry and fierce, you can see her screaming at you but the words are irrational, they just come out in a deep red hate, like a brick wall closing you in, you're finding it difficult to breath, tears falling down your face. you stumble around trying to get your keys out, but your inhabiting two different times simultaneously, you don't know how to survive this but you manage to open the door, around you her screaming and hysterics are reaching a new plateau, insanity, abuse, you want to get away, you will say anything, do anything, just make it stop. you slam the door and suddenly you feel her blows, her scratches on your face. there's no escape from some memories, even if they may not be your own.

walking early morning in the sunlight, the soft thermal kiss makes me smile, a happy dog by my side we wonder what the day brings, and it brings beauty in the form of nico looking like a 1960's model, stepping onto the red carpet at cannes in her glamourous outfit, all casual and oozing sensuality like a ripe peach. we wander down for a soy coffee, the workmen at the corner of the street all turn their heads and stare, i can see their thoughts and tell nico she's in demand with her new ripe peach look as cars crash into lamp posts and buses veer off the road into shop fronts, passerby's walk into doors and the workmen start digging up the wrong building, a policeman swoons and a waitress spills hot coffee all over a customers lap, sending him screaming away. yeah chaos ensues as our backdrop but nico is indifferent to it, wandering along the street carelessly without any idea of her side effect, which lets face it adds to her attraction. me i'm just there, right place right time, that's the way it is this spring morning, the birds and the bees are out buzzing and swooping and so are we.

there's some things i need to say, some words i need to write, they are being transmitted as i write, like most of my blog, they enter the tips off my fingers bypassing my brain, my mind has no boundaries, i can't tell where it stops or starts, i guess my hearts catching up.
somewhere in the near future they will cross paths and hopefully some harmony will enter my life, some peace and quiet, a little pocket of bliss.

i say goodbye to miss cupcake who sails away on a great big clipper ship filled with food, it will drift around some sun drenched island and she will lounge around looking glamorous while waiters and stewards pamper her and cater to her needs. the sun will set in the foreground and she will look like a perfect picture postcard.
i'll probably be wandering around some island in the year 2017 and find a small souvenir shop that sells cards, one of which will be a glamorous lady enjoying the south pacific sunset.
she has baked me a cake, it's a lumberjack cake, my favourite and it's very very good. for the first time in a long while i feel kinda special.
i eat quite a lot of the cake, it's divine, i take some small slithers in for the work people who are instantly smitten. wow i'm really touched by this.


i speak to nico on the phone, we drift into deep and meaningful type conversation, she is a highly intelligent woman, extremely yummy, i'm glad that we met, we talk about amazing things and she is quite challenging, actually some of my biggest ideas are generated from our conversations, the idea of respect is a new one, i mean i never thought that love could be defined for me.
one afternoon we watched a movie together, 'the story of o'
i've been talking about it with her for a while, i'd never actually seen it although a lot of women i know all requested me to watch it with them or read the book but it was nico that i eventually saw it with.
i was not expecting much, from the outside it looked like a cheesy french 70's porn movie but i was absolutely amazed at the conceptual accuracy of the film eventual harmony and central thought in terms of power and control.
we both like the ideas in the movie with a process of evolutionary sexuality thrown in, i like the prescriptive sexual approach, if it actually empowers rather than subjugates. i don't see the idea as controlling or dominating, i see it as liberating and the women in my life who know me well enough see that to. respect is the name of the game.


immediately after the movie we both agree it was indeed brilliant, although i'm confused by the emotional disconnect the males have. it's strange to me but then i guess i have a female soul so i would always find the males emotional state strangely unsatisfying. nico and i discuss the contextual ideas, a male takes his woman to a special place to train her in sexual submissiveness, she is trained by another man, then she is returned to her lover whom is in love with another woman. however while in training she is told she will eventually meet the master, whom she will have to obey as she does her lover. later she meets this master and her boyfriend willingly let's her go to him hoping he will clear a space for the other woman he is in love with but she rejects him for o.
meanwhile o undergoes a process of further humiliation and through this finds empowerment in her own sexuality, the twist arrives when the master falls in love with her and she then turns tables and burns him with her cigarette thus creating an equality. they pursue love together as equals who have found respect for one another.

but nico and i are fucking smart cookies and we go on to discuss that in the next sequence, the as yet unmade 'story of o 2' the enlightened female would be the one with the power. this is the process that is natural, most relationships have nothing but a political, financial, emotional power struggle at the heart of them, we have all been conditioned to accept this as normal, yet the relationships that work for me are the ones where power and control games are understood completely as natural process that can be structured into a relationship, rather than remain unconscious and destructive, somewhat normative.
i like to play without the destructive elements. i like the road to liberation, i like my girlfriends to be free and i like the fact in that freedom they get me, and therefore respect me. that way love comes free and i can trust it.

at the end of the day all a man really wants is a woman who makes him lumberjack cake.
a dog that wags his tale when he comes home from work.
after that it gets complex

early morning i'm sitting in a cafe reading about a great show i used to watch called twin peaks, david lynch's first tv series which broke all the rules and i was the first thing i watched diligently. he says the tv executives demanded an ending prematurely due to bad ratings. fuck i hate these executives, when i get to ride my blimp and become ruler of the world there will no longer be executives controlling art.
i visit my doctor who says i look like a kgb agent or a criminal dressed in black and a big berlin overcoat and hat, she tells me my results are in. i sit down for the bad news but she tells me my blood is perfect, 'the blood of an 18 year old except in one area, vitamin d.'
she says i need more sun.
'i know,' i say. 'can you send me on a holiday?'
'where would you like to go.'
'on a cruise.'
i leave and wonder out through the rain, through the puddles and people getting up, i don't want to stick around, i just want to close my eyes and feel warm. i retreat back to mission control, looking forwards to a coffee with miss cupcake but it dosn't eventuate, instead once again some strange male control impulse destroys everything and i know she is to angry and upset for coffee, so i wander the rooms of mission control, attempting to keep warm and eat some molasses i find in the fridge, it's the only food source i have at the moment so i guess it will have to do till pay day, i have budgeted for coffee surprisingly, i'm thinking about that first sip but the rain deters me and makes me feel sad.
i should take pan for his clean and shampoo but it's so wet there's no point. maybe tomorrow.

mommie dearest is the story of joan crawfords relationship with her adopted daughter, and let's face it there's a point where no matter how much empathy you feel you just have to draw the line and say, well joan crawford was a brilliant actress but a fucked parent and a pretty bad example of a human being. riddled with ego, and enamoured by the glamour she is unable to stop competing with even her daughter whom she traumatises. it actually is about time the media looked at the role mothers play in their children's lives, i understand that occasionally parents fail, it's reality but this is not failure, it's abuse, it's vindictive and often psychotic and despite all the riches and luxuries the fact is joan crawford hated her children. however she was off course a product of a male dominated world, treated as a commodity herself, she didn't stand a chance.
it's her children you have to feel sorry for, they are in a war zone, caught with the conflict of naturally displaying paternal love to their mother and a need for that love yet being hated in return.
watching this makes me more angry than watching the plight of aboriginals in the territory, it makes me more angry than unjust wars and conflicts, this is the heart of the human condition, it begins in the self, close proximity, the relationship a parent has with their children is the nexus, the microscopism of the human condition, we can't get that right, we may as well roll over. mommie dearest. how terribly sad, how fucking evil.

europa a city at the edge of time, a city at the edge of space, a city that is nexus to the multiverse, you see the strange multidimensional shifts, the ever changing morph, there's change within change, when you think you define something it's gone, like smoke only shifting to something else, here the roads have curvature, here the sky is momentarily blue for you, your slipping away, you're lost, you a bit saddened by your history but as it is being rewritten, your future calls. you like the sound of her voice.
wandering the train wreck of history does you no favours, it's a veil you tell yourself, a veil.
your out there, sun has long gone down, you're looking for a paddle pop, but there are no shops that sell such things, you find only bars, clubs and cafes, restaurants and theatres, your suddenly looking through a shop front filled with magic tricks, rabbits pulled out of hats, rope tricks, there's coin tricks and tricks to make you invisible. this perks your interest, but in europa you are invisible, in europa you are totally invisible. suddenly a door opens, you step forwards, into the dark city vortex, it sucks you up like a budgie in a vacuum cleaner, you fall through the night, find yourself in a new universe, one where a woman lays on a hotel bed, she's looking softer than you remembered, she's gentle and kinder, all that bullshit drama long gone, what happened here?
shift: it's a crime scene, death or murder? you can't tell only in this universe time flows backwards. the murderer is a redeemer, a killer who brings life, she's sleeping, smiling in her dreams. you watch her for a little bit sitting at the edge of her bed, the tv plays an old cowboy movie, the volume is low.
a police man comes from the bathroom, he's followed by a forensic team who are cleaning up, covering up fingerprints and removing the dust and placing strands of hair back where they should be.
'thank you very much, your a hero.' he hands you a card, it's pink with the words, 'treasure chest' printed across the back.
'am i?'
'she's alive.'
they exit the room, just as she starts to wake up, you want to be the first thing she sees but suddenly europas physicality shifts you into another aspect of the multiverse. you find yourself in a car with a beautiful girl, you're listening to music, james brown, driving along the back streets of europa, she looks content, you feel content, when suddenly sirens overwhelm you.
you pull over, your processing guilt, did you jump the lights, is your safety belt on, are you under the influence of some weird drug daryl slipped you in the tea, the highway cop walks towards you. your lady friend smiles at him, she bats her eyelids a bit, but he's not that interested, he's talking to you about how he wants to be a drummer, how he wants to play funk in a band. he gives you a ticket but it's not a ticket, it's a 'get out of jail' pass, you give it to your friend, she smiles and looks coy.
then you slip back to the magic shop doorways, another europa shift, back to the place you started.
you wander back, retracing your steps, you slip the cards in your wallet, you feel sleepy, suddenly in the distance you see the 7 -11 shop, that awful white light spills over into your mind, like a dangerous offering to a dangerous god, you fish around for change, you step in, luckily you have sunglasses to assist your eyes.
you stare at the glass, slide it open while a cold wave resonates its chill factor, you pull out a paddle pop, you hand over the cash and are about to walk out.
'take the red one' the man behind the counter says. he smiles and nods his head. i take the red one and walk out, i peel it open and the ticket falls to the floor, landing upright, 'you have won' it says.
i pick it up and put it with the others, europa shifts again, i'm on a wide road, still at night, standing in front of a lingerie shop, looking at the manikins, wondering if they are female shouldn't they be womanikins?
everything happens here, europa, the multiverse is all connected in one magnificent city, illusions meet truth, the perfect place to write, the perfect place to fall in love, the perfect place to start a band, the perfect place to walk along looking for a coffee shop or resturant.

europa, some where between interzone and outerzone, a city built on myth, a city the city, a hybrid jung kafka labyrinth, a tram city where the streets have no names but they have games, personality oozes and pours, everyone knows every one, strangers introduce themselves via their hat tricks and the lonely can meet the lost here on street corners bars and cafe , you spend money frivolously, it flows right through your fingers and toes, it falls between hands, it slides between the legs, in the inside pockets and the outside rockets, europa is the place where you come to be in fashion with anti fashion, it's cool, it's the soft porn city, it's the city of interesting drugs and medicines, there's freedom here to utilise, freedom to innovate and think outside the box, particularly in architecture, i see why europa exudes such masters, it's all form and shape, and light.
looking out the bliss, locking out the night, money is limited, but you hear generous figures, you see people make do, you see the talent on street corners, a trio of musicians all girls, all under 16 playing and singing in harmony, it's beautiful, a man plays a cello while lunch is served, a big black bird lands on my head and flies off, 'crow,' daryl says.

europa, city of cakes and trams, captain mission floats high above the rooftops, he scans the street, the cafe society whispers in codes,, he reads the labyrinth with his extra vision and urban shamanism, the girls of this city smile back, the girls of this city have style and grace, they have the seven ethnic army dna encoded in the space between their eyes, the girls all smell good and talk softer, the carry words well, effortlessly, they wear individuality like a visible cloak.
i descend into a strange gothic world, long boots, black jewellry, a nightclub attached to a clothing shop, they like the artwork, i like theirs, i smile at the girl, she's unconvinced at my gothic nature.
'why i am an origional goth.' i say.
'well you're to dark to be a goth.'
'actually origional goths inhabit the darkness visible.'
'well i never met anyone like you, you're old for starters.'
'yes. i am about 4500 years old, i was there when jesus died...'
'do you drink blood?'
'no i am not really a vampiyre, i'm an origional goth, although i do have a good understanding of certain vampyric sexual rites, but there's no blood drinking in them.'
i throw her a smile.
she smiles back.
'mmm, where do you live.'
'i live in sydney. would you like to have a few cds, see if you can sell them.'
'what do they sound like?'
'trans dimensional pop.'
'wow, is that like goth?'
'no, it's origional goth, beyond a genre.'
'can i dance to it?'
'yes, i dance all the time. but it's dark.'
'mmm yeah i think i get it, you man like sisters of mercy.'
'mmm why don't you just play it, see what you think, it's no big deal, i don't really care what you call it. i know what it is.'
'i'll play it in the club tonight, do you want to come in later and i'll introduce you.'
'no thanks, i will be in bed by about 8ish.'
'that's not very gothic/'
'i'm an ....'
we both finish the line.
opposite the gothic nightclub boutique is the haunted bookshop where a enigmatic man hosts tours of haunted melbourne, but right now mission haunts his shop looking for obscure alchemical texts and a nice necklace but finding nothing reveals itself.
he wanders these streets like a strange character from an imaginary novel, a writer who falls in love with a prostitute he meets on a tram, they visit the aquarium and find nice places to drink coffee and eat cakes, she is very feminine and intelligent whereas he is introverted and quiet until gradually through the story he becomes more and more extrovert . they both wander the streets following a trail of red string and at the end of the novel they find the red string connected to their hearts.
captain mission is an original gothic romantic. his fantasies lead him astray and he comes undone.
europa has seduced him, it's easy transportation, it's flow and feng shu, it's vibrancy and originality, architecture and art. yes it's eccentric enough for him to feel at home.
the sun streams down through the layers of city scape, the ground level here works for me, although there's more altitude, slopes and hills, therefore water flows, everything follows gravity, it's a well thought out city, planned in terms of space, certainly from the cbd area.
in another store a guy takes a few cds on consignment, he looks at the cover, 'is this you?'
'yeah.'
'mmm, where's your beard?'
'on the floor, swept away, gone baby gone, but it will return.'
'what type of music is it?
i have to go through this ritual several times, it's okay, i don't mind as long as i don't have to talk about myself.
in another store the woman says, 'are you on the radio?'
'in sydney.'
'well are you on the radio in europa?'
'nope.'
'you need to be on the radio before we can stock you.'
'okay.'
he writes down the names of two stations, he instructs me to contact them, he points at his assistant, 'mark here has been in a band for ten years, struggling away, he can't sell his cds, they won't play his stuff on the radio.'
'okay.' i say.
i exit by walking up some stairs, into the sun, i meet an indian man in a marvin the martian t shirt, he has a big beaming face and a wide smile. he looks very jolly and is talking about how he nearly crashed because all the girls are wearing summer gear. i smile and walk past him, it's true, all the girls in europa look good.
captan mission lays on his bed, he reads his book, nearly finished the strange story of a man with horns, it's a great story to start with, but somewhere in the middle it takes a turn and then right when you think it's about to be unfinished it returns to a point where it's redeemed itself, a lot like the story. i really kinda thought it was okay, but not quite my standard, but better than his old man, steven king whom i think has not written a good book since 'christine.'

the last person that looked me in the eye and said they loved me was an authentic high priestess of a temple i stumbled across a few years ago, the temple was in it's early days, infancy, nothing like it is now, there were no hollywood celebrities ringing us up for the experience, my name was whispered in these circles and the high priestess was still a low priestess but i saw her ascending and called her to rise.
i don't fuck around with powerful goddesses, i am an avatar myself, so i know what the fucks going down even if they don't. some women take a little while to find themselves, it took the low priestess a few years but with the right direction, a little unconditioning, some guidance and belief, plus some little magick, she found her true will.
anyways she is extraordinaire, with or with out me. strangely the hp is the only woman i ever met who just got me straight away. didn't really even need to get to know me, just knew me straight away, knows me deeply and we share a wonderful understanding that lays deep and wide, she gets me.
do you know what that is like?
to be got!
it's better than being needed, loved, desired or owned, it's better than any other kind of relationship you can have, with anyone, becuase to be got means your totally understood and respected for who you are. that's uber cool in my book.

captain mission returns from europa after a few days wandering it's narrow streets and lane ways, exploring the dimensions and elements, tasting the foods and supplements, in narcosis and never lasting moments between he sees the faces of the inhabitants, all singularity stylish and vibrant, he sneaks into cinemas to watch the counter revolutionaries, he falls into extreme baguette reality where they are dealt out fresh and tasty every narrow minute some new delight inflicted upon his sensory system, equisite chocolate, ice cream, korean meals in space ship restaurants, magick bookshops and underground music, he meets dave gravy a famous melby musician, a man with a nice safari suit and moustache, he embarrasses himself by not really knowing who david gravy is, stuck in a moment he can't get out off, he connects with his lost friend daryl, synchronised and intuitive mind swap paradigm, we follow the healing path of spirit, we are transmuting and mutating, i offer the city some cds, paving the way for the new one, snuff music is coming. captain mission meets a traffic cop called tyrone who plays drums to the dinners, tyrone is taken by mission and wants to hang out, e mails are exchanged, numbers swapped, a little cabaret preformed for an audience of one, she is beautifully shy yet also lit up like a xmas tree. green onions starts playing somewhere, a sword fish is born to eat and all is well in the kingdom.
down in saint k, deju vu has shifted the landscape, no more junkies and whores, no more destitute patients tripping the mind fantastic, no, it's all been cleaned up thankfully, nice trendy shops and cafes, people look healthy and young, the music is killing joke covered by a teenage torch singer with a narcotic voice, softness exists here where in my memory it was hard and rough and slightly edgy long time ago.
there's a moment where the blossoms fall and i watch from a tram, it's a moment in life you wanna freeze, it's a moment that proves divinity, it's a cartier bresson point and it's good to have moments like these, i'm lucky i have an infinite bank to fall back upon, to catch me when i fall, i share them, there's enough to go around. my feet hurt, i'm fatter than i was before, europa is a gastronomicon grimoire, it's spell crafts are tasteful and tasty. i'm home.

i am home now, sitting here listening to the wind, letting the sun stream along my skin, the birds sing quiet songs of joy and i think to myself, what a wonderful world, how strange to look back at a point in life where you saw the future and it is now.

agent stone has her back to the wall, heat closing in, attacked from all angles, she pitches me her phone, it's a super duper new technology one, shaped like a sonic screwdriver or some sci fi gadget, i translate the abuse, it's a heavy vibe, i reconstruct a response, we hit send and watch the explosion, like a slow motion sequence, she pulls the trump card, the game is over but the battle is just begun.
we wander down the park, dog and boy, girl and man, down where the water meets the grass, where the strange clouds come over water filled and ready to burst over everyone caught unaware without umbrellas, without raincoats, without a romance to run towards, i head home, chat to nico, fall asleep soundly.

morning comes i see miss cupcake, we have a manic hour in a coffee shop, people encroach on our space, a psychic claustrophobia seems to insult me, i can't stand it, it's like having a conversation within a conversation, who are these idiots who have gatecrashed my time with miss cupcake in this cozy place where coffee smells waft across the floor and the windows display cakes of precision within such intimate ambiance, yet those voices intrude like barbarians at the gates of veinna.
this is my time idiots, i repel you with my anti magnetic personality, my psychic warlock stares, my insidious enchantments and my furious spell craft. begone!
i head home, chat with nico on the phone, we cover all grounds from unconditional love to well my new look, beardless, yes i have shaved for the first time in many years.
i tell her i look terrible but she's to polite to disagree.
i do feel awful, like a stranger, exposed and vunerable, naked and alone, who knows who i am anymore?
not me.

anyways later i pay some bills, it's exhausting, i can't stand this, surely some one somewhere would have a better system for us left brained peoples.

wandering the streets of babylon i see my old father in law, andre, looking a bit lost and sad, we meet for an embrace, he's just lost the love of his life to cancer and i know what that kind of loss is like, i know how it feels to loose.
so we hug, it's all i can do, except we go through the formalities. what happens when you loose someone to death, some one you love, you feel cheated when it's something like cancer, you feel angry that they got it, you feel fucking angry that the universe operates in such an unjust seemingly arbitrary way. where's the fucking compassion you think, if your so intelligent. well i guess its like an excession, an ant attempting to comprehend the orbit of jupiter or the inverse square law. it's beyond rationality, it just hurts like hell.
we talk about cycles, how it all comes around, i say its good as then you can tie up loose ends and make some peace with discord, he says, there's no point as it just all untangles again.
i say, 'don't tell me that, i just got to liking the fact you can resolve the unresolved.'
he's hurting, i know, i'd feel the same, i did feel the same when my friend lisa died on her boat.
she knew she was gonna die, be killed, she was expecting it and i didn't believe her.
i felt like that when elle threw herself of a cliff.
i felt like that when sue hung herself at rnsh under 24 hour surveillance.
so yeah i understand his anger and bitterness, i understand why he wanders around looking lost, but death is not the end, his love was and is real, in fact it's the only thing that's real.
there's a lot of bad energy that existed between us, but it's put to rest, andre is a good man, he loved his partner in the best way possible, i know that i saw it.
i am grateful to have healed that wound that lay exposed between us, despite the fact sorrow brought us together, that's why sorrow exists maybe, to bring people together and let petty dramas be buried and old wounds heal. the journey of the soul. we all ride that train together, underneath all the bullshit, when you dispense with all the persona and ego.

the parasite sits in your brain stem, at the base of the neo cortex, it is immensely intelligent, but it's biological imperative is survival, and in order to do this it must inhabit the cellular structure of the human brain stem. it's part fungi and part insect, entering the body as a spore, the spore finds its way to the brain stem, where it attaches itself. then it starts to grow, spreading into the whole neo cortex and also the psychic centres where it starts transmitting messages to the sensory system, right into the language symbolic regions, the place where new ideas form. it's insect qualities is embedded in the hive mind it generates. it sits as chrysalis form until something some where flips a switch and activates the next stage in it's development,
you could be driving along, listening to the radio, making love to your wife, fucking a stranger you picked up in a bar, down the cereal isle at the supermarket, in the dentists waiting room, when it hits you, like a bolt out of the blue, the form takes shape as an idea. imagine that? an alien invasion in the form of a meme.
yes you believe this is true, with nihilistic precision you understand everything is a lie. even that, the truth is a lie, nothing means anything. everything is just a genetic imperative to survive. the meme has infected you, it wants the host to shut down, to remain depressed, in darkness, for spores and fungi require darkness, damp landscapes, bleak environments to grow and spread, a metaphorical environment for optimal growth.
note: the largest living form on earth is a fungi network that spans three countries. now it's spores have found their way into the central nervous system of 7.4 million individual human units.
the units themselves are the depressed zombies, hell bent on self destruction, annilitation and the sadistic pursuit of power struggles and control games, the battle for the mind.
you're sitting in a transportation device and a woman you seem to like a lot, snaps at you for no apparent reason, it's irrational and somewhat abusive but that's what she does, there's no context, it's personal and hits you deep for she can never understand the depth of your sensitivity to her. what the fuck, you think, processing quickly but your battling in your own mind, weighing down the options correlating the information available, the logical choice is to strike back, deep and hard. for every force remember there is an equal.
'look you arrogant spoilt bitch, you don't have the experience, skill, insight, intellect or humility to even comprehend my reactions to your abuse so either sit down and behave reasonably or keep your judgments and controls embedded in your tiny little mind.'
for every force there is it's equal and opposite and you understand the implications of such a response and chose to keep silent.
this is the battle of the mind. you win that one but the war is never finished, on and on it goes as the enslaved zombie masses relentlessly destroy, hurt and corrupt becuase they are terrified of love.

Natasha Mitchell: All in the Mind -- beware the parasites have arrived and they're ready to take over your brain!

Film Trailer: Parasite: Be assured, Parasite is the most gripping and frightening movie you will ever see. You are about to witness the future, be warned it is a shocking sight.

David Hughes: We just don't like the idea of something else or somebody else or anything else taking over our behaviour, we think that's very special to us.

Natasha Mitchell: Well it spooks us doesn't it?

David Hughes: Yes, absolutely and if you can take a step back and just think about the incidence of parasites, half of life on the planet is a parasite and many of those have evolved very cool tricks either to take over behaviour or even just take away food from us during the infection process.

Kevin Lafferty: Parasites are trying to get on with their lives, just like us but they're trapped within our bodies and so one of the ways that they've been able to figure out to be more efficient at the things they do is just to have us do some of their business for them. Probably I think one of the most dramatic ones is a worm that lives inside crickets.

David Hughes: Fred Palmers in Montpellier in France had gone all the way from New Zealand to study this and then a lady, a private person in France, had realised that these crickets were jumping into her swimming pool every night.

Kevin Lafferty: And this worm needs to go to a stream where all the other worms in the worm population will get together and form a huge ball and have this sort of mating orgy that lasts for weeks in the stream.

But get to the stream they have to trick the cricket into jumping into the stream and crickets don't normally do that.

David Hughes: So he quickly went back to France and discovered what happens in this case is that the crickets come out of the woods and jump into swimming pools at night time between 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock in the morning.

Kevin Lafferty: So the worm eats the cricket inside out, eats all the fat and all the stuff that isn't tied to the musculature and then it makes the cricket incredibly thirsty and then the cricket goes on essentially this quest for water and jumps into the stream and as it does that the worm pops out of the anus and it's about a foot long worm that pops out of a two inch cricket.

Natasha Mitchell: That is incredible.

Kevin Lafferty: So that's a powerful manipulation of behaviour, clearly countered to those interests. I don't know the whole thing is both fascinating and creepy at the same time.

Natasha Mitchell: It sure is, we have ways of making you think. Prepare yourself for a creepy encounter with suicidal crickets, mad rats and zombie ants. Parasites have developed uncanny ways of co-opting brains to get what they want. One of my guests even argues they could be changing the personality of whole human civilisations.

Hi, Natasha Mitchell with you and if you heard The Science Show with the RadioLab on parasites earlier this year here's another opportunity to be parasitised.

Film Trailer: Parasite: It's the most terrifying form of fear. Parasite. That thing on your stomach ... The new strain of parasite when it reproduces it will cast millions of microscopic spores into the air ... Just move your legs towards me, real slow, real slow.]

Natasha Mitchell: No it's not a monster movie parasites are as much a part of the symbiotic way of the world as we are. We cohabit, they inhabit -- and sometimes us. The parasitic mission of course is to live and sexually reproduce. And often that involves the manipulation of the behaviour of their hosts.

Take Toxoplasma Gondii: if you're pregnant you've probably been tested for this parasite because it can cause brain damage and blindness in your developing foetus. So it's definitely one to know about. Most of us though don't know. In fact you might have it, I might have it, even ecologist Dr Kevin Lafferty from the United States Geological Survey could too.

Kevin Lafferty: Well I actually do know that I don't have it...

Natasha Mitchell: Have you got it?

Kevin Lafferty: But you don't know if you have it or not. Chances are reasonable that you do; somewhere between a third to a half of the world population is infected with this parasite. Toxoplasma is a parasite of cats. That's where this protozoan has sex. And to get back to a cat it has another one of these predator-prey transmitted life cycles. Basically cat faeces go out in the environment and they contaminate the soil. Things like mice or birds or whatever contacts that soil and can become infected and then a cat can come along and eat an infected mouse and that's how the lifecycle is completed.

Humans are commonly exposed to toxoplasma either by contact with contaminated soil or by eating undercooked meat products.

Natasha Mitchell: There was a 2002 figure that said that 38% of UK meat products being sold had toxoplasma gondii on it, that's kind of confronting isn't it?

Kevin Lafferty: Yeah, I guess what it says is only eat two thirds of UK meat products -- if you only knew which ones were which.

Natasha Mitchell: Dodgy stats -- anyway, go on.

Kevin Lafferty: I became interested in toxoplasma because I'd read some papers of folks that had studied the effect of the parasite on mice. So the parasite goes into many different types of tissues but it prefers to go into the brain of the intermediate host. What these researchers had done was some very sophisticated studies showing that infected mice lost their fear of cats. Specifically their fear of the smell of cat urine. But they also had increased activity, and the great thing about this experiment was that they were able to change the behaviour of infected mice back to normal by giving them a drug that killed the parasite. They could also do the same thing by giving them a mood stabiliser drug.

Here we have I think a really strong experiment evidence that parasites that are in the brain can manipulate behaviour in ways that make -- at least in this case it seems really obvious that this should make a mouse more likely to be eaten by a cat. But what fascinated me was that here we have a parasite that can do these amazing things in a mouse but when it gets into our brain it doesn't know that it's not in a mouse and it's trying the same tricks and the trick we think happens in the mouse is that it manipulates dopamine and perhaps some other things. And the way it does this is by continually provoking the immune system. It causes inflammation and that alters these neural modulators in our brain.

Natasha Mitchell: And if the Toxoplasma parasite is so common in humans then could it be infecting the personality of whole populations? Parasitologist Kevin Lafferty has a provocative hypothesis there -- wait for that in a moment. But let's hear another real life fable of parasite psychology first. The story of a fish, a snail and a bird.

Kevin Lafferty: We have these parasites called trematodes; they have very complicated life cycles: they live as adults in birds, in the gut of the bird and their eggs pass out with the bird's faeces on to the mudflats of an estuary. At that point a snail contacts the eggs and becomes infected. The worm grows up inside of the snail, it actually castrates the snail for life and then every afternoon the snail will shed these free-swimming stages that go out into the water and seek a fish. The stages that leave the snail look like little tadpoles but they're microscopic. They find the fish; they penetrate through the tissues and then form a cyst. They are essentially waiting for the bird to come along and eat the fish, that's how the life cycle is then completed.

Natasha Mitchell: Now what's interesting about this is that the fish's behaviour is changed reasonably markedly by the parasite. How? And then we'll discuss why.

Kevin Lafferty: We were really suspicious about the fact that these cysts were on the surface of the brain. What the parasite is looking forward to is the day that bird comes and eats this fish and it gave us the hypothesis that the parasite might be able to manipulate the behaviour of the fish in some way. And what we found was that infected fish had four times higher frequency of what we called conspicuous behaviours compared to uninfected fish.

Natasha Mitchell: So it was coming to the surface more or something like that?

Kevin Lafferty: They would do two things, they would come to the surface more frequently, and the other thing they did is they would roll over on their sides and when that happens in the field you see this bright flash, and that really attracted our attention and the idea was then to see whether or not that attracted the attention of birds, so we set up a field experiment. We made some large pens, we put fishes inside some were infected and some were not infected, and then we covered one of the pens with a netting to keep birds out. And the birds came, these are herons and egrets and they came and fed on the fish in our enclosures and they only took the infected fish.

You were ten to thirty times more likely to be eaten if you were infected. So that was a very clear demonstration that this parasite that lived on the brain by manipulating the conspicuous behaviours of these fish was able essentially to determine who lived and who died in the fish population in a way that helped it complete its own life cycle.

Natasha Mitchell: Because it ultimately wants to get back inside a bird and it's the only place it sexually reproduces. Did you work out a sort of mechanism for how it was changing the behaviour by infecting the brain in a particular way?

Kevin Lafferty: I have a student, Jenny Shaw, who's just finished her PhD and what she did was to grind up fish brains and she found that the more parasites that were in the brain, she got a big change in serotonin levels which is a neuro modulator. In her trials she took fish and she stressed them out, she chased them around the tank with a net, and that changes the brain chemistry of the fish in a way that -- essentially the characteristic of a stressed-out fish who is trying to escape.

But the infected fish didn't seem very stressed out. What the parasite appeared to do was to just make the fish less stressed when it was being chased around the tank.

Natasha Mitchell: So it bumped up the fishes' levels of serotonin in some way which diminished the fishes' anxiety and response to stressful situations -- a bit like antidepressants do.

Kevin Lafferty: Yeah, quite a lot like a living antidepressant.

Natasha Mitchell: Is there a risk that we anthropomorphise parasites and how they affect the behaviour of their hosts? We sort of develop a grand theory, a grand thesis about what are parasites capable of. Is there a risk of anthropomorphising?

David Hughes: I think there definitely is this risk and I think we do that with many biological subjects and also in the choice of the biological subjects we make as professional scientists. We tend to gravitate towards whatever resonates with us and definitely in the case of these zombie ants we do think about it in zombie behaviour yes.

Natasha Mitchell: Wait did ecologist David Hughes just say zombie ants? You'd better believe it.

[Ant sounds]
.
An incredible recording made on an ant mound in British Columbia, Canada, by composer and media artist Matt Rogalsky.

Associate Professor David Hughes is on a worldwide quest for zombie ants and the fungus that's taken over their brains. And a recent fossil discovery suggests it's a parasitic relationship that may have been around for more than 48 million years.

David Hughes: Well we've already been three times to Brazil and also sampling in North America and South Carolina and now we're in Australia, we're going to be sampling in Cairns over a week also with a chap from the Brisbane Herbaria collection there. Definitely the Amazon is going to be a place we're going to, Ecuador and the Brazilian side and we're interested in the Honduras, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. Basically as many places as we can.

Natasha Mitchell: You're in search of one of the most dramatic examples of how a parasite can manipulate the behaviour of its host, and in this case the host is a humble ant. But what the fungus manages to achieve is really far from humble isn't it?

David Hughes: Absolutely, as with many examples of insects and fungi which infect them, it starts with a spore going through the insect's skin and then into the body of the insect and then the fungus and reproduces inside the body. In most cases then the fungus just kills the insect but in the case of these ants what happens is that the fungus produces a cocktail of chemicals, we don't know what they are at the moment, but they cause the individual ant to leave the nest, usually these nests are in the canopies of tropical forests, and the ants go down to the understory vegetation, they kind of walk around drunkenly for a while. After about two hours then they very precisely bite onto the underside of a leaf, not just any old leaf but leaves within a narrow range of the forest floor in a particular orientation and then they bite into the surface of the leaf -- not just any part of the leaf but into the main vein and then the ant is firmly attached upside down, attached to the main vein of the leaf and then it dies.

And all of this complicated behaviour is because the fungus is effectively choosing a nice place for it to grow once it kills the ant, because then it's going to use all the ant muscles and resources to produce fungal spores. And over the next coming days the fungus grows from being inside the ant to the outside effectively stitching the ant to the leaf and the fungus then reproduces.

Natasha Mitchell: And that's one dead ant, dead ant, dead ant. David is talking about a fungus called Ophiocordyceps, and carpenter ants, which nest in the canopy of tropical forests like those in Southern Thailand where he's done much field work, 300 km north of the Malaysian border.

David Hughes: So we actually mapped out 1,360 square metres of forest and looked under every single leaf and those ants are found under those leaves and just in order to get a really good map of the situation.

Natasha Mitchell: The ant is prompted by the parasite you think to come to a very particular level and you've actually investigated this, and it's a level that's ideal for the parasite to reproduce isn't it?

David Hughes: Yes, we've actually taken these ants from this particular level and put them back up into the canopy when they have been killed by the fungus or we put them down on the ground level, and the fungus is not able to reproduce or even to grow at ground level or in the canopy. The canopy is very dry and it's very hot and the ground is excessively wet and it's got a lot of movement, so the fungus is not able to live on the ground or in the canopy, it lives under the leaves at this particular height.

Natasha Mitchell: Amazing, so the ant comes down to a very particular height, they bite on to a leaf, you describe that as a death grip. At this point I gather the fungus really goes to town on the ant doesn't it so what have you observed there?

David Hughes: Absolutely, so very quickly after dying the fungus then changes its whole strategy from growing inside the ant in a particular single-cell stage to burst out of the ant's cuticle, growing sometimes onto the leaf to keep the ant attached to the leaf and then growing this enormous stalk out of the back of the ant's head. And from this stalk spores are produced which are then shot out to infect new ants.

Natasha Mitchell: This stalk is quite bizarre, I've seen the photos that you have of this, it's like a sort of extra limb that grows out of the ant's head at some point with a big circle of spores on the top.

David Hughes: Yes exactly, it's a really interesting feature of this group of fungi.

Natasha Mitchell: Just absolutely bizarre. Do we know how the parasite actually works inside the tiny nervous system of the ant -- because you've actually done dissections haven't you of ants to see where and how it's co-opting the anatomy of the ant?

David Hughes: Yes, so we've done dissections and we've actually with histological measurements we can see whereabouts the fungus are inside the body. We found they're not actually inside the brain, we find they are just dispersed inside the head region or inside other parts of the body. So we think that are not physically activating any part of the brain but producing chemicals that would then interact with the brain.

Natasha Mitchell: And so the ant dies and it has become a zombie, effectively, co-ordinated by a parasite fungus, so its body is there simply to serve the fungus?

David Hughes: Absolutely yes and then very quickly the fungus takes over and converts ant muscles into fungal tissue and at the same time the fungus has to deal with a whole range of different organisms in the forest which would be just as happy to eat the dead ant as the fungus is. And so it has to produce lots of antibodies which stop a lot of organisms taking over the ant.



Natasha Mitchell: It's intriguing isn't it?

David Hughes: And this is the reason why we're very interested in this group of fungi so one which infects caterpillars in the Tibetan alps has been used in human medicine for about 1,500 years, and in Chinese medicine particularly, and also in Western medicine. And we know that it has anti-cancer and anti-malaria and anti-TB properties. Because if its rarity it has been over-collected extensively, it's shot up to about $90,000 US per kilo.

Natasha Mitchell: Well that's a concern isn't it, the impact of deforestation must be enormous on this symbiotic story of parasite and host?

David Hughes: Yes it is, and there are some healthy signs about deforestation particularly in Brazil which has eased up on these things. So now that provides the impetus for us to go and discover some of these interesting metabolites in forests.

Natasha Mitchell: Incredibly, David with scientists at the Smithsonian have just reported on what they're confident is a 48-million-year-old fossilised leaf with those very characteristic bite marks of a parasitised ant, not just any hungry insect they think. The first evidence of behaviour modification by a parasite in the fossil record, 48 million years, that's one long and deathly love affair between a fungus and its ant isn't it?

I've popped the audio about that on my All in the Mind blog. and Associate Professor David Hughes there, about to take up a new position at Penn State University.

And on ABC Radio National's All in the Mind I'm Natasha Mitchell, it's parasites on the brain, on air and online at abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind.

Now if you're infected with rabies people are likely to know, the frothing at the mouth perhaps. But could another brain parasite be shaping the personality of our entire population? Entire civilisations even, without us knowing, and might we be less neurotic without it?

Recent research suggests that high infectious disease rates and lower average IQ could be linked -- with the message that keeping kids parasite free is as important as schooling. But take toxoplasma, that parasite we heard about earlier. Dr Kevin Lafferty has crunched some interesting data there.

Kevin Lafferty: The thing that interested me was we had these ingredients for an interesting story potentially. Firstly a parasite that manipulates behaviour in humans, secondly a very, very common parasite where maybe half of us are infected and thirdly a parasite that varies tremendously in its abundance from country to country.

What those three ingredients suggest is that some of the variation that we see in human culture and societies and human personalities and behaviours from country to country could be somewhat affected by this parasite that's in our brains.

Natasha Mitchell: Now that's intriguing. So what do we know about how Toxoplasma Gondii affects our behaviour, humans, and we must remind ourselves we're only just an intermediate host to this little parasite. In fact it really always wants go get back to the cat where it can breed. But what do we know about what it does to us?

Kevin Lafferty: There is a group in the Czech Republic that has done several years of studies on the personality differences of people who are infected and not infected. And the results are actually quite complicated and fascinating but I'll summarise them. The thing that is most consistent across the effects is an increase in a personality trait called neuroticism, which means that infected people tend to be more neurotic. Being more neurotic is not necessarily a bad or a good thing, you don't want to be on the extreme end of completely un-neurotic or super-neurotic. If you're un-neurotic you'd never respond to stimuli and super-neurotic is not so good either.

I'm not a psychologist but I think that the easiest way for me to describe it to folks is that people tend to be more reactive, sort of dogmatic and rigid and perhaps guilt prone and these are some of the descriptors that go along with neurotic behaviour.

Natasha Mitchell: There is a very potent gender affect here, isn't there, that the parasite seems to affect the behaviour of men and women quite distinctly. Give voice to that distinction.

Kevin Lafferty: What these guys found was that women that were infected tended to have an increase in intelligence quota and men had a decrease in intelligence quota.

Natasha Mitchell: I'm clearly infected then.

Kevin Lafferty: Woman who were infected tended, they described them as being more warm hearted and more interested in shopping. You know I didn't write these things I just found it absolutely fascinating that these were some of the descriptions of infected women. So for men the effects of toxoplasma I think you would come to the conclusion they were generally negative from our cultural perspective. But for women it was sort of a mixed bag, hard to say whether it would be negative or positive.

Natasha Mitchell: Why did this impact, potential impact on human behaviour interest you so much because it seems to be quite subtle doesn't it given that so many of us are infected by this parasite?

Kevin Lafferty: You're right it's important to state that these are subtle differences that are only distinguishable with large sample sizes and statistics and so on and so forth. You wouldn't notice the difference in yourself probably.

Natasha Mitchell: So in a sense an infectious disease, a parasite, could operate at a civilisational scale at a population level, even if the affects are quite subtle at an individual level.

Kevin Lafferty: That's what was worrying me, yeah. And it turned out that the fact toxoplasmosis is a health concern for pregnant women means that we have fabulous data on the prevalence of this parasite from upwards of 40/50 countries. We also have data on both cultural dimensions and aggregate personalities on a country to country level. People have done large-scale surveys with many, many, many people to identify differences in culture and personalities from nation to nation.

And basically the most interesting result -- you get a very strong association between the prevalence of toxoplasma and the measure of neuroticism at the country scale. The toxoplasma explains about 30% of the variation among countries in neuroticism. Now that may sound like a lot but I should point out we wouldn't expect toxoplasma to explain all the variation and the personality traits amongst countries certainly. but toxoplasma explains more variation in that particular personality measure than social science has been able to explain by any other measures. So it really does appear to be a strong association.

Natasha Mitchell: It's an association with a great story behind it, but of course you can't establish whether that relationship is causal, whether in fact toxoplasma works at the population level like this to sort of change the average or aggregate personality of a whole population.

Kevin Lafferty: Yeah, it would be nice to be able to do the experiment but it's not that practical. When we have a correlation like this we, as you said, we cannot demonstrate causation without doing the sort of experiment that would be impossible to do at a global scale. Really what we have available to us is to link these steps in the logical chain. We know we have a parasite that gets into our brain, we know that it manipulates the neural chemistry in brains. and we know that that is associated with changes in individual personalities and the assumption is that individual personalities can affect measures of group personality at the country scale. If that's the case and we know that toxoplasma is very, very common and it varies a lot from country to country you can sort of see how the logic lines up in support of this fairly bizarre conclusion.

Natasha Mitchell: What would it mean for a culture to be more neurotic than another? What does that mean in terms of the behaviours or habits or ways of seeing the world that a culture might demonstrate?

Kevin Lafferty: So what the psychologists suggest is that more neurotic cultures tend to have more rigid role orientated societies, they tend to be more risk averse and put in political structures that deal with uncertainty. They also tend to have much stronger gender roles so you know in a more neurotic society you know men do manly things and women do more feminine things. So there are implications of course of all those sorts of tendencies to result in many different types of cultural institutions.

David Hughes: Yeah, I think Kevin has made a really interesting insight with that study where he's shown correlations between for example neuroticism in human societies and the levels of these parasites.

Natasha Mitchell: I mean is it in the parasites' interests though to infect humans and change our behaviour?

David Hughes: Not at all, we're a dead end host for these parasites, what they want to be is inside rodents and then manipulating the behaviour of rodents to get then into cats. But since they're in us, since they're here reproducing they still produce chemicals and these chemicals can affect our behaviour. Actually some people are now questioning whether we can use these to our own ends. For example people are seriously considering using toxoplasma in the control of certain psychoses like schizophrenia.

Natasha Mitchell: Really?

David Hughes: Absolutely, because they do produce stuff which changes the brains of mammals.

Natasha Mitchell: So find a pharmacological equivalent?

David Hughes: Yes, absolutely.

Natasha Mitchell: Intriguing.

David Hughes: Another thing is we are in fact and the first thing that happens when a woman realises she's pregnant her doctor gives her a test to make sure she has or hasn't got toxoplasma. Interestingly there's a group in Canada looking at the evolution psychology of this and they see that women in the first trimester are much more aversive to food, as we all know, and they have increasing levels of morning sickness, which people think is in some way adaptive. But interestingly their reaction to parasites also changes, they become much more what's called disgust prone: they dislike a lot of things which could potentially infect them.

Natasha Mitchell: So when the foetus is most vulnerable?

David Hughes: Yes, you avoid foods and you avoid sources of contamination.

Kevin Lafferty: The things that we've been talking about are really subtle personality differences, but there are some interesting studies that have shown more serious associations with pathologies. So for instance schizophrenia is strongly associated with toxoplasma, there is an abstract here at the parasitology meetings that shows that Parkinson's disease is twice as high in toxoplasma positive individuals controlling for other sorts of demographic factors.

Natasha Mitchell: Now that's a very intriguing connection, there's not a lot of public discussion about that, that the possibility of infection could create a mental illness. I think we sort of resist this idea that parasites might account for major transformations of human behaviour.

Kevin Lafferty: It's largely, you know, the subject of zombie films and it's horror movie stuff. You know fortunately in this case it's really subtle things that our society has adapted to dealing with.

Natasha Mitchell: Kevin Lafferty, should we be scared of parasites, given what they have the potential to do to our minds?

Kevin Lafferty: Well I think that we need to realise what potential they have and it will help us because we're so intimately connected to them to understand them better. I'm not sure scared is the right thing, we've been dealing with parasites for the entirety of our evolution; they are a normal part of our species' history. And one of the sort of mind games I think is interesting to play with toxoplasma -- you know, half of us are infected perhaps, and if you were to ask yourself, if I am infected and I could cure myself to get rid of my toxoplasma which is my co-inhabitant, would I want to do that or am I happy with the personality I'm sharing with my parasite?

Natasha Mitchell: Ecologist Kevin Lafferty with the US Geological Survey. He lives on a nature reserve in California and on our shores recently managed to get a few ocean surfs in between sessions at the International Congress of Parasitology. Before him, Associate Professor David Hughes.

covered in mud and dust, shrapnel wounded, you trudge through the battle field, you manoeuvre your way through the bodies, the mist, the unholy stink of burning flesh. you come to the tent, it's untouched, not even a tear in the fabric, the red tent where the general planned his attacks. you walk inside, it's larger than you think, the vastness of it surprises you. there's a large oak table, candles burning, there's bottles of champagne open and filled glasses. a voice calls, 'help yourself, i won't be long.'
you pick up the glass and smell it as your parisian tastes have educated. you like the taste, but would prefer water, yes water would be better than this bourgeois poison. you look across for a decanter, throwing it's stopper away and drinking down in large gulps, your dehydration sated.
you march through into a second area, you have to take off your jacket, it's getting hot, and sweat starts to blur your vision, the colours of the velvets begin to change, the deeper you walk, from soft rich pulples and violets to darker shades, crimsons, reds and yellow streaks, the heat getting unbearable, the decor sparse and more minimal, you have dropped most of the accessories you carry, stripped down to your skin and shorts you carry only your sword, youir skin getting heat marks, a blister appears on your hand, you can feel your hair singe and as you walk your vision begins to blue, the colours blled, into, blood red.
and there in the depths of the the red, the generals general, the manipulator of all war, he smiles, you have done his work, you must be rewarded.

i recieved this letter from a friend in london commenting on my post re: light therapy a few posts ago. it's very interesting and i'd like to share it with you all....

Hi Cap..It was interesting what you said about light therapy on your blog.
When me and Jean were visiting the Island of Kos in Greece a few years ago we went to this ancient site The Aesclepeion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asclepeion

It was a renowned centre for healing across the greek and roman world.
the famous doctor of the time Hippocrates (hippocratic oath etc)was trained here.
They had various therapies including dream therapy,analysing dreams which were opium induced by the doctors
They would invoke goddesses to visit in the dreams by rituals
,Hydro therapy,dietary therapy(vegetarian diet for the duration of the cure)and also light therapy in the form of solariams.
The egyptians also used crystals.( a lot of these methods were taught to the Greeks by the Egyptians)
A lot of the practices were followed by doctors in Europe later.
I too have a great sensitivity to light and can see vibration in light (t.v. and lights flickering etc.)
I can also see Auras under the right conditions.
I think it is tragic in these times that we have to
accidently find information from all this ancient knowledge.
We have an electrical field as you know and light bodies which can be affected with interference.
You instinctively knew that light was doing you good and electronic light doing harm even as a child.
Childrens intuition is filtered out intentionally by the school system rational brain training methods.
Only a few such as yourself manage to hold on to that inner knowledge.
It shows peoples ignorance of electronic smog.
In connection with this look at this article;

http://topnews.co.uk/214639-cancer-man-made-disease-say-researchers
Ancient people didn’t suffer from the amount of cancers we have around today..
Keep well…Terry.