Jock Brocas is a spiritual author and teacher with books published internationally. Jock is also the president of the charity organization assmpi and works tirelessly to he others develop spiritually and live a more rewarding life. Join Jock Brocas on a spiritual journey.
http://jockbrocas.us
A pair of obelisks, together named Cleopatra's Needles, were taken in the 19th century from the ruins of the Caesareum of Alexandria in Egypt; one to the London Embankment and the other to New York’s Central Park.
Inscribed by Thutmose III and later Ramesses II of the Egyptian New Kingdom, the obelisks were first moved in 12 BC to Alexandria, remaining there for over 1,800 years.
Cleopatra's needles and the Tower of the Romans, drawn c.1798,
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Cleopatra’s Needle - London
Cleopatra’s Needle
Cleopatra's Needle and the Victoria Embankment by Oliver Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
The obelisk that was eventually re-erected in London was presented to the Prince Regent in 1819 by Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali, a gift to mark British beating the French at the Battle of the Nile in 1798 and in 1801’s Battle of Alexandria.
The obelisk remained in Alexandria until 1877 when anatomist and dermatologist Sir William James Erasmus Wilson sponsored its transportation to London at the cost of £10,000, around £1,553,000 in today’s money.
The 224 ton artifact was encased in a iron cylinder, 92 feet long and 16 feet wide, dubbed Cleopatra, commanded by one Captain Carter, towed to London by the ship Olga, under Captain Booth. On October 14th 1877, a violent storm in the Bay of Biscay caused the Cleopatra to list uncontrollably, forcing the tow ropes to be cut. The Olga launched a rescue boat with six volunteers but the boat capsized, and all crew members died. Captain Carter his five shipmates aboard Cleopatra were eventually rescued though.
The paddle tug Anglia was then commissioned to tow the Cleopatra to London where it arrived in January 1878 and set up with some pomp at the Embankment on September 12th 1878.
Cleopatra's Needle is flanked by George John Vulliamy’s two faux-Egyptian bronze sphinxes, made at the Eccleston Iron Works in Pimlico in 1881. The sphinxes bear hieroglyphic inscriptions that say “netjer nefer men-kheper-re di ankh”, meaning "the good god, Thuthmosis III given life". Oddly, they are looking at the Needle rather than guarding it - or are they?
Possibly their role was NOT to stop harm from coming to the obelisk but rather to prevent anything supernatural from escaping, a task in which they appear to have singularly failed.The Embankment boasts other Egyptian touches, such as the well-endowed winged female sphinxes gracing the armrests of nearby benches.
A time capsule was concealed in the front part of the pedestal, containing twelve candid photographs of the most attractive English women of the day, hairpins, cigars, tobacco pipes, a set of imperial weights, a baby's bottle, children's toys, a razor, a hydraulic jack and some samples of the cable used in the erection, a 3-foot (90-centimetre) bronze model of the monument, and a complete set of contemporary British coins.
A rupee, a portrait of Queen Victoria, a history of the transport of the monument plans, a translation of the inscriptions, the Bible in several languages, a copy of John 3:16 in 215 languages, Whitaker's Almanack, a Bradshaw Railway Guide, a map of London, daily newspapers and finally, a twenty-four inch metal ruler, were also squirrelled away in the capsule.
It has been posited that the pictures of women and a razor amongst the items deposited beneath the monolith emitted waves of evil occult energy that eventually resulted in the crimes of Jack the Ripper decades later.
As The Ripper puts it in Alan Moore’s From Hell (1999): “They call it Cleopatra’s Needle. He who’d wield it would the BEST of tailors be, to do its work, increase the Sun God’s sovereignty … encoded in this city’s stones are symbols thunderous enough to rouse the sleeping Gods submerged beneath the sea-bed of our dreams.”
In 1977, my school Nower Hill High secreted a time capsule, which was (typically) forgotten about until accidentally rediscovered in 2013.
Cleopatra’s Needle: Shades of Ancient Egypt Gather
Soon, eerie unexplained events began to unfold around London’s Cleopatra monument, including the following;
The Spectral Seaman
The ghost of a naked man has been seen on a number of occasions, leaping from out behind the obelisk and throwing himself into the River without making a splash. The first sighting of this apparition occurred only a few weeks after the installation of the obelisk, leading many to conjecture it was the shade of one of the sailors who drowned in the Bay of Biscay. Or it was simply a ‘flasher’ with a taste for the theatrical?
Aleister Crowley Was ‘Ere
It is said that the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley performed dark rituals late one evening at the base of the obelisk in order to release the trapped spirit of the Pharoah Rameses. The ceremony supposedly involved animal blood and a human skeleton. Crowley failed in his endeavour, which was accompanied by the sound of Rameses mocking guffaws. File under: unlikely.
Suicide Isn’t Painless
Cleopatra’s Needle soon became a site associated with suicide. A policeman claimed a hysterical woman approached the officer, urging him to come to the banks of the Thames by the obelisk to prevent someone from hurling themselves into the water. As he left her and reached the area, he saw the same woman leap into the river, cackling as she did so.
The Laughing Man-Fish
In Elliott O’Donnell’s Haunted Waters (1957) he recounts, “the spot where Cleopatra’s Needle stands was well-know to be haunted. None of the outcasts would venture near it. Two of them told me that one night they saw a tall, nude, shadowy figure, with a pear-shaped head and a body covered with what looked like scales, suddenly appear by the needle, wave a long arm at them and leap over the wall into the river. They said that they sometimes heard unearthly groans and hellish, mocking laughter in the river.”
The Ancient World in London - Egyptomania in London
Near where I used to live in Islington:
Cleopatra’s Needle - New York
Greywacke Knoll, Central Park, New York
Ingfbruno, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
New York’s Needle was gifted in May 1877 to United States Consul General by Cairo Judge Elbert E. Farman, as thanks from the Khedive for the US remaining a friendly neutral as France and Britain vied for control of Egypt and the Suez Canal. Transportation costs were largely paid by the railroad magnate William Henry Vanderbilt, eldest son of Cornelius Vanderbilt.
The obelisk was transported seven miles to Alexandria and then put into the modified hold of the steamship SS Dessoug, which set sail June 12th, 1880. The Needle and its accompanying 50-ton pedestal arrived at the Quarantine Station in New York a month later. The ground was flattened so the obelisk could be rolled out of the ship and transported to an interim location off Fifth Avenue. Finally a steam engine pushed the object across a specially built trestle bridge from Fifth Avenue to Greywacke Knoll, just across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
It took a mammoth 112 days to move the obelisk from Quarantine Station to its current location.
Jesse B. Anthony, Grand Master of Masons in the State of New York, presided as the cornerstone for the obelisk was laid in place with full Masonic ceremony on October 2nd, 1880. Over 9,000 Masons paraded up Fifth Avenue from 14th Street to 82nd Street. The official ceremony for erecting the obelisk was held January 22, 1881. A time capsule buried beneath the obelisk contains an 1870 U.S. census, a Bible, a Webster's Dictionary, the complete works of William Shakespeare, a guide to Egypt, and a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence.
A small chest was also placed in the capsule, but its contents remain unknown to this very day.
The wonderfully named Henry Honeychurch Gorringe, who supervised the movement of the obelisk, claimed the prime advantage of the Knoll was its "isolation", and it was elevated, with the foundation firmly anchored in local bedrock, supposedly preventing collapse if Manhattan suffered "some violent convulsion of nature."
The League of Shadows
In 1885 Gorringe died at the age of 43 as a result of injuries when he fell (or was he pushed?) from a moving train. 1885 was the year in which Gorringe published his book Egyptian Obelisks, which mainly explored his acquisition of Cleopatra’s Needle for Central Park. Gorringe was buried in Rockland Cemetery, Sparkhill, New York State. His memorial stone declares: “His crowning work was the removal of Cleopatra’s Needle from Egypt to the United States, a feat of engineering without parallel.” In 1886, his friends erected a replica of Cleopatra’s Needle over his grave, the unveiling drawing 500 people. Like the original obelisk in Central Park – it stands on its own knoll, overlooking the Hudson River.
There are far less stories of ghosts and curses linked to the New York obelisk than its London sibling, attributed by some to the elaborate Masonic ceremonies that prepared the plinth for the monument’s arrival, which may have pacified any unquiet ancient spirits.
In 2011, the pollution-blighted Needle was inspected by Zahi Hawass (Minister of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities) who declared: “If the Central Park Conservancy and the City of New York cannot properly care for the obelisk, I will take the necessary steps to bring this precious artefact home and save it from ruin.” The London obelisk is in a better condition, but in 2018 Hawass also weighed in, “I went to see it yesterday and I was ashamed … If they don’t care, they should return it.”
Note: The 50-foot granite walls of Manhattan’s now demolished Croton Reservoir (completed in 1842) were constructed in the Egyptian style popular at the time.
New York
unidentified illustrator of an article by T. Addison Richards, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Cleopatra (1999)
Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising (1972); film director Donald Cammell was the god Osiris; Marianne Faithfull plays primordial she-demon Lilith:
The following statement was made by a prominent Australian psychiatrist during a televised discussion about Australia’s (spiritually blinkered) mental health system:
Patients who claim to channel spirits are immediately prescribed medication.
Given my interest in healing, mediumship and the afterlife, and the contentious topic of ‘spiritual crises,’ the psychiatrist’s opinion naturally captured my attention. I don’t channel spirits or hear voices but do have about 35 years worth of afterlife and mediumship knowledge, and personal spiritual experiences that I shall always treasure.
Perhaps the prominent Australian psychiatrist was a religious man who believes the bible narrative which condemns mediumship as an ‘abominable occult practice’:
In Deuteronomy 18:10-12 New International Version (NIV), God is explicitly clear about forbidding specific occultic practices.“Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you.” (Crosswalk)
I agree that murdering children and casting evil spells to harm and kill others would upset the Lord but don’t see anything wrong with responsible mediumship to assist the mentally disturbed/imbalanced and grieving. The Bible refers to ‘spiritual gifts’, does it not?
Most Bible translators are uneducated in the Gifts of the Spirit. They ignored Saint Paul’s directive to understand psychic science. It is this lack of understanding that caused errors in translation to appear in Bibles.Rev Sydney Schwartz, I Walk in Two Worlds, PDN
Can ‘schizophrenic’ people can make a full recovery?
The psychiatrist’s statement was made in 2017/18, around the same time I began to write and edit articles for Jock Brocas’s Afterlife Magazine. Brocas also happened to be a grief specialist and mentor, evidential medium, spirit interventionist, Paranormal Daily News Editor-in-Chief, Parawize founder, marketing and tech wiz, photographer, journalist, author, veteran, entrepreneur and president of the American Society for Standards in Mediumship and Psychical Investigation (ASSMPI), now ISSMPI (International).
But the pièce de résistance was the revelation that as a spirit interventionist, and in collaboration with mental health professionals, Brocas helped ‘schizophrenics’ make a full recovery. In simple terms, a skilled spirit interventionist is able to identify and resolve spiritually-based parapsychological disturbances such as ‘mediumship psychosis’ or ‘potential obsession from a misaligned spirit entity’. (Catholic exorcists are known to do similar work.) Compared to the mental health treatments on offer in the odd little land downunder, particularly in relation to Schizophrenia and spiritual crisis emergence, this was huge news to me.
The widely accepted belief is that there is ‘no cure’ for Schizophrenia and that schizophrenics need to be medicated for the rest of their life. Unsurprisingly, when I shared Jock’s relevations with various people who knew of long suffering families dealing with a schizophrenic loved one, my news fell upon glazed eyes and deaf ears. Blinkered indoctrination runs deep in Australia.
Is old school psychiatry and psychology failing your mental health?
After a disastrous experience with an Adelaide psychiatrist in early 1990 that nearly killed me and caused even more trauma, I was fortunate to have a session with a gifted spiritual practitioner in Sydney that a friend introduced me to. The practitioner helped her heavily medicated boyfriend recover from long-term and increasingly debilitating depression by identifying and removing negative entity attachments. Although he reluctantly agreed to see her, he was amazed at how much lighter he felt after just one session. Over time, he was able to wean himself off the medication and return to a balanced, productive life. During my session, the practitioner identified the root cause of specific issues that began in my mother’s womb and provided me with other helpful insights that all made sense and brought immense relief and clarity.
If your psychiatrist or psychologist is failing to help you resolve your issues, research the services of a skilled and qualified holistic practitioners, particularly in the fields of energy medicine, kinesiology, sound medicine and parapsychology. Skilled spirit interventionists are out there but often prefer to ‘fly under the radar’, but an experienced medium or shamanic practitioner should be able to assist. Reputable holistic practitioners are much easier to find these days than they were in the 80s and 90s. If you are prepared to do the work and commit to the journey, with the right support, you will successfully help you transform your inner world and your entire life. Drug free. And be sure to arrange an in-person consultation wherever possible.
Spiritually Blinkered Mental Health Systems
Inspired to write an article about spiritual crises, psychiatry, mediumship and mental health, I asked Jock to share some thoughts about medicating people who claim to channel spirits or hear voices. He kindly provided this response concerning one of many Schizophrenia cases he had dealt with:
‘I had an email from a distraught mother who requested help because her son was hearing voices. The medical community’s instinct was to medicate and I must say in my own perception – discriminate. They were convinced it was Schizophrenia.
The individual was referred to me because of a previous case involving another family member who was in a similar situation and being medicated to the detriment of her being. Investigations revealed that the individual was suffering what I consider as “mediumship psychosis” or “potential obsession from a misaligned spirit entity.”
After only one intervention, the issue was dealt with and to date, there have been no more interferences and nor is the individual under any medication or medical treatment. I truly believe that mental disturbances that have no foundation in physical or traumatic ailments should be investigated for a spiritual solution and that spiritual intervention should be a considered approach.
The problem, of course, is that you can’t have just anyone doing this type of work, as the responsibility is huge. This is why within our ASSMPI/ISSMPI organization, we are moving forward in research and development of protocols to investigate and deal with mental health issues requiring spiritual intervention.
While I have no foundation as a healer or indeed a psychiatrist, I do understand the spiritual efficacy of intervention by divine law and authority, and believe it goes some way to providing relief from spiritually-based parapsychological disturbances or psychosis.’
Mental health and psychotropic medication
To top things off, I also came across an extended TV news report featuring an Australian mental health nurse who expressed her concerns about the overuse of inadequately trialled psychotropic medications for schizophrenic patients. She claimed that the drugs were causing damage to patients’ physical health and that they were being cruelly used as guinea pigs. Horrifying stuff.
Who in their right mind would aspire to cause even more suffering to vulnerable people who need care and support? Nobody. Apart from profit-worshiping CEOs of pill manufacturing corporations, it seems. The ones that put profit before health; profit at any cost. An Australian politician who experienced traumatic events before entering politics revealed in a candid interview that the majority of politicians were medicated for depression and anxiety. Hasn’t anyone told them about safer and far more effective holistic health pathways, and the dangers of long term psychotropic medication?
You be the judge if the projected global billions from psychotropic drugs are being driven by profits at any cost or achieving optimal health and peace of mind.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) defines Schizophrenia as a psychotic disorder characterized by disturbances in thinking (cognition), emotional responsiveness and behavior. It falls under the Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders Class. 5 to 6% of people with schizophrenia die by suicide, about 20% make suicide attempts on more than one occasion, and many more have significant suicidal thoughts. The incidence rate ratio for suicide among those with schizophrenia is about 20 times higherthan the general population (Med Central)
Approximately one in one hundred Australians live with schizophrenia, and according to the Results of the Global Burden of Disease study for schizophrenia: trends from 1990 to 2021 and projections to 2050study, Schizophrenia ranks as the third leading cause of disability worldwide. People with Schizophrenia also have a 10 to 25 year shorter life expectancy compared to the general population. Much of this mortality stems from unhealthy lifestyles combined with low income, limited medical care, physical and psychological changes and increased co-morbidities.
Mental health, trauma mediumship and self-care
A previous long-term relationship with a highly attuned medium taught me many things about mediumship, including the highs and lows of the ‘gift’, and the detrimental effects of undealt trauma - my own included. While the definition of trauma has changed over time, it is broadly defined as a disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress, or a physical injury. The American Psychological Associationdefines it as any disturbing experience resulting in significant fear, helplessness, or dissociation, while the DSM-5specifically identifies trauma as exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence. (Psychology Today)
Trauma can also serve to heighten sensitivity and if dealt with, may activate a deeper sense of compassion for others, both of which are essential qualities for responsible and attuned mediumship. Undealt trauma that remains ‘buried’ and ‘energetically trapped’, inevitably causes intermittent havoc on all levels. Whether or not you are a medium or psychic practitioner, don’t be frightened of seeking professional holistic support, even if it’s just for a spiritual ‘tune-up and balance.’ Medication will block your mediumship and psychic abilities and adversely impact your livelihood. Ongoing talk therapy will just have you go around in circles or feeling stuck in a rut. For example, an acquaintance of mine has been counselled by a Catholic priest for about 30 years and still suffers from depression.
But rest assured, if and when you are ready, and with the right professional support and guidance, post traumatic stress can transform into post traumatic strength if you are willing to do the work. I speak from experience and consider myself to be a happy and productive work-in-progress.
Additionally, if a self-care protocol is absent from anyone’s life, especially mediums and other health/care-related practitioners whose role involves significant amounts of giving, it is bound to be detrimental to their health in the long term. By self-care protocol I mean simple things like preventative health awareness including nutrition, exercise, time out in nature, impromptu adventures, a creative hobby, laughter, fun times with friends and family, incorporating personal development with spiritual development, and refraining from working and/or drinking/drugging yourself to death. To name a few.
It really isn’t hard to care for ourselves as well as others, and the rewards are great. Health is by far our greatest wealth, after all.
Spiritually ignorant psychiatry is potentially harmful to mental health
Have you ever loved someone with all your heart and soul in your childhood or teenage years and they suddenly died, catapulting you into a state of shock and denial for several years? Does impossible grief ring a bell? Did you wonder why the world still turned when yours just crashed and burned, leaving you feeling like a heartbroken spirit adrift who refused to accept the finality of it all?
Perhaps you stumbled onto your spiritual path in search of answers when you were twenty-something, your only guide an obscure spiritual book or two. You eventually found yourself on a spontaneous inner joy ride that you couldn’t explain to anyone. A soothing, exciting sense of something far greater and more beautiful than you could ever imagine. Then your loved one in spirit reconnected with you in your dreams and/or waking life, providing reassurance and support when you needed it most. But just as you felt that you were finally emerging from your darkest days and that the proverbial stars were aligning in your favour, your immaculate ride was crudely interrupted. External events turned your newfound spiritual joy into something something akin to a confusing spiritual crisis, or attack, of sorts.
You innately knew that you needed spiritual counselling but back in 80s Adelaide, that was virtually unheard of; written off as gobbeldygook. In Australia, at least. You wound up in a room with a spiritually ignorant psychiatrist that bypassed your spiritual experiences and flatly ignored the criminal elements that smashed you off your happy perch. Her answer to your anger and grief was drugs. She started with a mild sedative and ended with debilitating psychotropics that nearly caused you to commit suicide. Even though you were never suicidal to begin with.
The ‘final’ drug nearly killed you within a matter of weeks but it wasn’t your time to die. You recovered enough to book one last appointment and told the psychiatrist what happened. Once again, she refused to listen and take responsibility.Instead, she consulted her notes and told you that you were a ‘highly creative type’ and threatened you with yet another toxic drug. You told her to stick her drugs and refrained from slapping her on your way out.
Soon after dismissing the psychiatrist’s abusive, incompetent services, you were informed that your abuser suffered a nervous breakdown. You limped out of town to start a new life. Many angry years later, you began to calm down and reconnect to your compassion. You hoped that the psychiatrist made it through the darkness without committing suicide because of her beloved psychotropic drugs. However, your traumatic experience left you with the biased opinion that psychotropics are a dangerous and debilitating bandaid. They just shut down the spirit and bypass the root cause of trauma or any other imbalance.
Thankfully, a spiritually minded friend and psychologist would eventually break the news that the broken psychiatrist completely missed your Post Traumatic Stress diagnosis. But this leaves you wondering how the psychiatry profession could be so incompetent.
All’s well that ended badly
I can say yes to all of the above. My dear father died without warning when I was 17. The external events that drove me into what I regard as a preventable spiritual crisis, primarily involved an unreported malicious scandal comprised of extreme character assassination, lying informants, attempted false imprisonment based on fabricated allegations and silver bullets blasted through my workplace window overnight. The bullets followed dreams of being shot in the back with a radio colleague and sent me into a tailspin. Intriguing material for a book and movie one day, perhaps.
And how’s this for a twist? Despite leaving that traumatic experience behind a long time ago and the shadowy perpetrators getting away with it, I had a lucid dream which involved three seriously looking men in suits. One of them told me the name of the political figure that ‘sent’ the bullets my way. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in time to come.
To this day, I am still thankful for an obscure paperback about a spiritual healer and seer called Edgar Cayce. It found me in the mid 80s when I was struggling to stay afloat in my ridiculously consuming TV job. It thankfully ended in 1988 and opened the door to a breezier writing job at a popular radio station. The book’s soothing words and afterlife concepts helped me breathe again and anchor myself, somewhat. Back then, topics like death and the afterlife were taboo. In Adelaide, South Australia, at least. A veritable chambers of horrors. But I was fortunate to have one solid friend with an open mind to the mysterious world of spirituality.
Mental Health Tip: Stop Watching the News
Whilst on the topic of the media and mental health, I highly recommend a book called Stop Reading the News by Rolf Dobelli. The core message is to limit your exposure to the constant barrage of generally negative, traumatizing and largely manufactured ‘news’. Be discerning in relation to where you source your news from and aim for information that is worthy of your time and attention. Here are some pertinent notes from Dobelli’s book:
~ ‘The way news is presented and the way that we access news has changed significantly over the last 15 to 20 years. These changes have been detrimental to general mental health.’’ Graham Davey, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Sussex University and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Experimental Psychopathology.
~ According to a study by the American Psychological Association, half of all adults suffer from the symptoms of stress caused by news consumption. One in 10 Americans check the news once an hour.
~ To the media, what’s relevant is anything that grabs attention. This is the racket at the heart of the industry’s business model. The news they supply us is irrelevant but is sold as relevant.
Holistic healing pathways Vs medication
In retrospect, the Adelaide psychiatrist did me a favour because she gave me an excellent reason to steer clear of Australia’s drug-driven system for the rest of my life. Over the years I have read hundreds of testimonials about psychiatric drug abuse for a myriad reasons and hope that everyone found their way out of their system-induced debilitating and suicidal darkness. For people who find it easier to take psychotropic medication, and it works for them, I wish them well. It’s important to make our own life choices, particularly in relation to health.
In early 2013, I took a twelve-month sabbatical from my job because I felt my old traumas stirring and decided to do something about it. My supportive GP respected my choice to explore holistic health pathways and I diligently found highly skilled holistic practitioners who collectively helped me find my way back to health on all levels. My GP was amazed by my rapid progress and recovery from acute stress and also commended me for having the resilience to confront my old traumas rather than bandaid them with medication. She also stated that:
~ Most people in the 50+ age bracket choose the medication option and that my chosen holistic path would terrify them.
~ Trauma and old wounds have a tendency to resurface in ten year cycles, because they need to be addressed and released - medication or no medication.
~ Long-term psychotropic medication often impacts the quality of life and can shorten the life span
~ Associated side effects can cause more health issues including chronic depression, that require more medication.
For anyone who isn’t aware, antidepressants are one of the five main classes of psychotropic drugs, alongside anti-anxiety agents, antipsychotics, hypnotics and mood stabilizers. Some of my former work colleagues have been in and out of Adelaide psyche wards to withdraw from one antidepressant and start on another. This was shocking to me, but like I said, we are all responsbile for making our own health choices.
Nutritional psychiatry
One of my most exciting health discoveries was ‘nutritional psychiatry’ and the vital role that balanced nutrition plays in maintaining robust health on all levels. A nutritional psychiatrist would be the perfect match for an attuned medium, should the client require spiritual intervention. My first nutrition teacher was Lyn Craven, an advanced naturopath and herbalist based in Bondi Beach, Sydney. Her guidance mirrors the following quote:
A lack of essential nutrients known to contribute to the onset of poor mental health in people suffering from anxiety and depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and ADHD. Nutritional psychiatry is a growing discipline that focuses on the use of food and supplements to provide these essential nutrients as part of an integrated or alternative treatment for mental health disorders. – Joyce Cavaye, Author & Senior Lecturer, The Conversation
Has deep nonsense really taken control?
Given my experience with a spiritually ignorant and negligent psychiatrist, I can’t help but wonder how many suppressed sensitive souls such as healers, artists, writers, musicians, mediums, visionaries and empaths are out there. This excerpt from unpopular Australian psychiatrist Niall McLaren’s Mad in America article Is Australia’s Psychiatric System Redeemable? bears repeating:
There is indeed something rotten in the state of modern psychiatry, and it is the artfully concealed absence of a formal, articulated model of mental disorder. When medical students vote with their feet in not choosing psychiatry as a career, they are showing that they are at least intuitively aware of this. All the money in the world, all the committees and research projects aren’t going to do more than rearrange the deck chairs just because deep nonsense has now taken control.
No doubt for daring to expose this, I will be subject to the usual barrage of secret complaints by anonymous authors, which will be investigated in camera by an unnamed committee considering evidence I am not allowed to see, who will reach a decision that favours the status quo, and for which there will be no effective appeal. Because that’s how psychiatrists operate. The one thing they will never do is have a fair, open, transparent and, above all, honest debate about the realities of being mentally disturbed in Australia.
Billions of Australian taxpayer dollars are spent on mental health each year and one would expect a happier, healthier and far mor productive population. Sadly, this is not the case. According to a Productivity Commission report released in November 2020, mental illness and suicide costs Australia a conservative $220 billion a year, or $600 million every day. The report was commissioned prior to the additional challenges and trauma caused by the COVID-19 episode, so this figure is now seen as wildly conservative when trying to estimate the economic impact of mental health. The Banyans & ABC News
Tidal wave of psychiatric drugging, including children
To shed even more light on the concerning state of mental health treatments in Australia, increasing numbers of children are now being recklessly and unlawfully treated with psychotropic medications. Little wonder this continent is viewed as ‘experiment island’ from afar. Talk about how to numb and dumb down a generation:
‘Australia is experiencing a tidal wave of psychiatric drugging. In a population of 27 million, there were 47.3 million prescriptions written for psychiatric drugs in 2023/2024. Over $13.2 billion is spent annually on mental health. Of great concern is the growing numbers of children and teenagers on antidepressants when no antidepressant is approved for use in children under the age of 18 for depression. There were 161,729 Australian children aged 0-17 on an antidepressant in 2023/24.’ ~ Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR)
Healthier Healing Pathways
Pearls of wisdom
In closing, during my travels to the Hopi Lands, Arizona in 2018, I noticed an announcement on a community noticeboard about their annual health conference. It included keynote speakers covering the four levels of health: Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual. The spiritually ignorant and wisdomless western world health fraternity has some catching up to do, me thinks.
May you find the following excerpts from West African Shaman Malidoma Patrice Somé’s article What a Shaman Sees in a Mental Hospital as helpful and uplifting as I did:
‘In the shamanic view, mental illness signals the birth of a healer. Thus, mental disorders are spiritual emergencies, spiritual crises, and need to be regarded as such to aid the healer in being born. What those in the West view as mental illness, the Dagara people regard as “good news from the other world.” The person going through the crisis has been chosen as a medium for a message to the community that needs to be communicated from the spirit realm.
Mental disorder, behavioural disorder of all kinds, signal the fact that two obviously incompatible energies have merged into the same field. These disturbances result when the person does not get assistance in dealing with the presence of the energy from the spirit realm.
In the Dagara tradition, the community helps the person reconcile the energies of both worlds – the world of the spirit that he or she is merged with, and the village and community. That person is then able to serve as a bridge between the worlds and help the living with information and healing they need.
Thus, the spiritual crisis ends with the birth of another healer. Western culture has consistently ignored the birth of the healer.’
Here’s to a healthier, happier and far more enlightened future.
Don’t think of me as gone
Note: This updated article was originally published in the Afterlife Magazine by The Otherside Press which has since joined the PDN group.
If you live in Australia and feel that you, a family member or friend may need support from a spiritually aware psychologist, counsellor or community support professional, contact either of the following organizations:
Australian Insititute of Parapsychological Research (AIPR), founded in 1977. According to their Aims and Policies: AIPR provides support in matters to do with alleged or actual experiences of a paranormal nature that may require relief of suffering, distress, or helplessness (this support work is undertaken by AIPR members who are qualified psychologists, counsellors, and social-workers, and trained in (house) ‘clearing’ techniques.)
The Australian Parapsychological Research Association (APRA) is currently moving into a new phase of development and offers support for individuals wishing to discuss personal psychic or paranormal experiences and related trauma.
The Essex seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea is a peculiar place; a faded former holiday resort for London’s Cockney underclass, now best known for being the constituency of former (and maybe again, if he is re-elected on August 13th) Reform MP/leader, one Nigel Farage. Two of my articles on Mr Farage are linked below in Additional Reading.
I knew the area fairly well, as both my widowed grandmothers live in the village of Little Clacton, just outside the town. I used to stay with both for a week during the summer holidays as a kid. One of my grandmothers later married a faith healer, who held free surgeries in his consulting room at her bungalow. A decent old cove, he however did say I possessed ‘The Sight’, which was slightly disturbing for an imaginative youngster to hear, but there you go.
Clacton Pier
On Clacton Pier by JThomas, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Anyway, the area has an interesting history. I was told of smuggling tunnels linking the nearby church of Saint James to the ancient cellars of local pubs The Blacksmith’s Arms, The Ship Inn and The Queen’s Head, presumably as part of a ‘Dr Syn’-style contraband operation organised by the local vicar(s). Other tunnels were rumoured to link the manor house, Giddy Hall, to the coast (unlikely, as it’s around 2.5m away), so the Clacton gentry were also presumably involved in the racket.
From Hidden East Anglia:
From a genuine event has arisen an odd little legend. In 1806 the Cameron Highlanders were stationed in barracks at nearby Weeley. At the St. James’ Day Fair (on July 26th) a fight broke out outside the Blacksmiths Arms between villagers and some of the soldiers, with some of the latter being chased along the street. A soldier named Alexander McDonald had hurt his foot, and was caught, struck and slain. On the spot where his head hit the road, it was said that a hole appeared which could not be filled, no matter how hard people tried. His gravestone can still be seen in Weeley churchyard, with the inscription “late soldier in the First Battalion 79th Regt who in the prime of life was inhumanly murdered near Little Clacton”.
Little Clacton’s St James Church itself hasa macabre history:
Prudence Lambert (1582): Prudence remarried two months after her first husband died in mysterious circumstances. Consumed by guilt, she hanged herself the morning after the wedding. As suicide was considered a grave sin, she was buried in unsanctified ground at the furthest edge of the churchyard. Legend holds this specific corner of the grounds is haunted by her restless spirit.
The Witch Trial Executions (1645): During the notorious Essex Witch Trials, local rector Henry Waite’s wife was executed for witchcraft, despite being said to be extremely pious.
Additionally, other Little Clacton women were accused of using "imps" to carry out their designs, causing long-lasting dark folklore to imprint the parish.
Nearby St Osyth's Priory is steeped in paranormal lore, most famously haunted by the ghost of its namesake, the Saxon Princess Osyth. She wanders the ancient grounds carrying her severed head after being decapitated by Viking raiders in AD 653.
St Osyth’Priory Gatehouse
St Osyth's Priory Gatehouse by Marathon, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Other paranormal sightings at the priory include a hooded white monk and a phantom nun who peers into local windows.
A short distance from the Priory sits a 16th-century cottage known as ‘The Cage’, which once acted as the local prison for accused witches. In 1582, Ursula Kempe and others were detained there before being tried for witchcraft. The Cage has gained modern notoriety as one of the most haunted houses in Britain. Investigations have cited both poltergeist activity (former owners reported being pushed, and CCTV has recorded slamming doors and disembodied voices) and apparitions of shadowy figures and sudden temperature drops.
Clacton itself boasts as variety of supernatural phenomena that continue to defy explanation, including the following:
West Cliff Theatre Tower Road: Both Staff and performers at West Cliff Theatre have spoken of unexplained eerie noises backstage, footfall in empty parts of the building and the feeling that they are not alone after audiences have gone home.
Wilson House, Leas Road (no longer standing): In the late-twentieth century, a ghostly white lady was said to have been seen by several schoolgirls when this building was a dorm. Sounds of heavy footsteps could also be heard walking along the corridors late at night.
The Kingscliff Hotel: A woman in old-fashioned clothes has reportedly been seen walking through the corridors then disappearing without trace. Unexplained footsteps, doors opening by themselves and an uneasy feeling when parts of the hotel are empty have also been reported.
The old ballroom at former Butlin’s holiday camp: Butlin's Clacton was used as a training base when the Second World War broke out. A soldier was supposedly stabbed and killed in a fight which occurred at the ballroom and took to haunting the area. The camp was demolished and the area redeveloped in the mid-1980s; the ghost left at the same time. There are no official police or historical records of a stabbing in the Butlin's ballroom in Clacton during the 1940s.
St Johns Road: Phantom monks seen drifting along the roads in this area of Clacton.
Clacton Pier: Spooky figures have been seen on Clacton Pier after dark, vanishing as people get closer. Workers have claimed to hear footsteps and unexplained voices when the pier is usually deserted. Probably drunk.
Old Kinema: Local history accounts say a fire was started by a projectionist who perished in the building in a suspected suicide in the 1940s. His damned shade disturbed cinemagoers and staff. The cinema was closed and demolished in early 1962.
Thornbury Road private house: In 2003, after a period of experiencing disembodied footsteps, doors opening and closing and electrical items working independently, the occupier saw the manifestation of a young girl. The occupiers were then dragged across the floor by their ankles and creeped out by the appearance of an evil old crone in the box room bed. I couldn’t find much, if any, supporting evidence.
Jaywick Martello Tower: Visitors to this defensive tower, constructed to combat Napoleon, have reported hearing footsteps echoing through the empty fort, along with strange voices, and the feeling that someone is watching them. Sudden cold spots have also been reported.
Old Lifeboat House: During the late twentieth century, a shopkeeper who hired a room to store surplus stock reported that items would rearrange themselves overnight.
Private house along St Osyth Road: From 1975 until the building was exorcised in 1978, the family living at the house reported spectral singing, ghostly footsteps, and a wee girl, who all could hear but only their four year old son could see. No online supporting material aside from The Paranormal Database.
St John's Church: Ghostly figures have reportedly been seen strolling through the churchyard, whilst whispers and footsteps are heard when nobody else is nearby. The church dates back to the twelfth century and has inspired local ghost stories for generations. Smugglers apparently used the locale, adding to its unsavoury reputation.
Ghosts of monks, the victims of a homicidal innkeeper, a cavalier, a highwayman, and a man torn apart by a mob have all been reported at what are now the environs of the quaint Treasure Holt Garden Centre.
What Happened To Clacton-On-Sea? A Town Stuck in Time
The Parish Church of Saint James, Little Clacton
Little Clacton church by Robin Webster, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Fun Fact: The "Clacton Spear", a Neanderthal yew spear found near Clacton-on-Sea in 1911 is the world's oldest known wooden spear at approximately 420,00-450,000 years of age.
Tales abound that the legendary King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table never actually died, but lie sleeping in a cave, waiting for the moment of Britain’s greatest peril to wake and defend their island home. Or alternatively, to either sally out as part of the Wild Huntand/or complete an annual supernatural circuit around the mountain or hill they reside in.
Some maintain Arthur was an historical figure who had been turned into a legendary hero; others say the precise opposite – he was a protective Celtic deity who was transformed into a ‘real’, ‘historical’ character. So where to find the Pendragon? There are plenty of places in Great Britain rumoured to house ‘The King of the Mountain’, many with similar provenance.
And here they are, those that I could find that is. There may well be more.
Glastonbury Tor
Arthur and his knights are said to be sleeping beneath Glastonbury Tor, often considered the mythical ‘Isle of Avalon’. Monks attempting to cash in on the legend claimed to have discovered the tomb of Arthur and faithless wife Guinevere at the nearby Glastonbury Abbey in 1191.
Glastonbury Tor
MundoSalvajeMedia, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sewingshields
In the 1800s, a knitting shepherd dropped his ball of wool near the overgrown ruins of Sewingshields Castle (no longer visible); following it he stumbled upon a hidden passageway to a great subterranean hall, with a massive round table in the centre. King Arthur, Guinevere and the Knights of the Round Table sat around it in a deep slumber. On the table lay a bugle, a garter and the sword Excalibur. The yokel instinctively picked up Excalibur and cut the garter, upon which moment Arthur and company awoke. Arthur in cold fury said, “O, woe betide the evil day On which this witless wight was born, Who drew the sword, the garter cut, But never blew the bugle horn.”
The Arthurian entourage then went back to sleep and the shepherd scampered away, to an uncertain fate.
Eildon Hills (Melrose, Scotland)
Sir Walter Scott tells of a horse dealer paid in ‘ancient coin’ by an elderly, archaically-garbed buyer who for some reason then takes him inside the hill that evening. As is by now expected, King Arthur and his knights are snoozing; shown the obligatory horn and a sword, the dealer blows the horn. The knights awaken and a loud voice (Arthur’s) bellows he is a coward for not grabbing the sword first.
Richmond Castle
Richmond Castle, Scollands Hall
Tilman2007, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
According to legend, the castle is built over a cavern where King Arthur and his knights sleep, waiting to rise from their slumber to defend England in her hour of need. Local potter Peter Thompson found his way by chance into the cave. The curious Thompson picked up Excalibur and was suddenly deafened by the sound of clattering armour, so he speedily replaced the sword. All was then still. But as he legged it, he heard a melancholic voice, “Potter Thompson, Potter Thompson Hadst thou blown the Horn Thou hadst been the greatest man That ever was born.”
The potter stopped only to seal the entrance so no-one else would disturb the sleeping knights. Or in another version, searched frantically for it, but never discovered it again.
Dunstanburgh Castle
Earl Thomas of Lancaster (cousin of King Edward II), built the Dunstanburgh edifice between 1313 and 1322, apparently to emulate Camelot, so no ‘Sleeping King’, just the story of a noble known to his allies as ‘Roi Arthur’ in opposition to the feckless Edward, who was famously said to have later died by red hot poker insertion.
In yet another iteration of the Sleeping Knight story, a knight named Guy the Seeker was led to a subterranean hall at the castle by Merlin. There he beholds a beautiful woman (Guinevere?) in a crystal tomb, surrounded by knights – but no mention of King Arthur. Sir Guy faces the tiresome sword and horn challenge and tries blowing the horn first, but forgetting to unsheathe the sword first, fails.
Dinas Rock
Craig-y-dinas boasts a 45m sheer vertical limestone face crowned by an Iron Age hillfort; a sleeping King Arthur and his army biding their time for a counteroffensive against any invaders. They also guard a heap of gold and silver, all protected by bells that will wake them from their kip should any miscreants enter the cave.
King Arthur's Cave - near The Doward
King Arthur’s Cave
Dave.Dunford, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
King Arthur's Cave lies at the foot of a low cliff at the north-western end of Lord's Wood in The Doward, Herefordshire. Shrouded in local superstition, it the cave is connected with Vortigern, the foolish British king who invited Anglo Saxon brothers Hengist and Horsa in as his mercenaries.
Big mistake.
Arthur and his knights apparently once sheltered in the cave, but only for a short time, when on the run from the Saxons. Merlin may have hidden some treasure there though.
The Doward (Welsh: Deuarth Fach, lit. "two small hills"), boasted cave dwellings which were inhabited until relatively recently.
Tintagel - Merlin’s Cave
OK, not a resting place, but worth a mention, the cave is located beneath Tintagel Castle in Cornwall. In Idylls of the King, Tennyson described waves bringing the baby Arthur to the shore and the mage Merlin then carrying the infant lad to safety.
Alderley Edge
The link between the caves at Alderley Edge and Arthur only dates to the Victorian period. In 1838, Mrs Gaskell wrote insisting that Arthur and his court lay sleeping there until England’s extremis roused them. J Roscoe’s 1839 poem ‘The Iron Gate: A Legend of Alderley’ fleshed out a fuller version of the story, but much earlier Cheshire tales spoke of warriors and wizards in the caves, ready for war, and a mysterious man (presumably Merlin) trying to buy white horses from a local farm for the reawakened knights.
Author and Cheshire local Alan Garner used this and other legends, in his novels The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath.
Cadbury Castle
Said to be hollow, King Arthur and his Knights sleep waiting to be called upon by Britain again in times of dire need. It’s said that on Midsummer's Eve (or every seven years in another version) a hole appears in the hillside and the Knights ride their horses down to drink the water from a spring near Sutton Montis Holy Trinity church (pictured), or maybe the Church of St Thomas à Becket in South Cadbury.
Freebrough Hill
A small peak south of the village of Moorsholm, in Redcar and Cleveland, England; legend says a local farmer, chasing a lost lamb, found an opening into the hill, thence a tunnel that led to an oak door, discovering the King and his knights asleep seated by the Round Table.
Arthur’s Seat
According to legend, King Arthur sleeps beneath the lion-shaped rocks on Edinburgh’s Arthur's Seat, the craggy remains of an extinct volcano close to the city centre. Others claim without evidence it was the site of Camelot.
And, an easily disproved myth, Merlin’s Cave in Clerkenwell, barely two minutes from where I used to live in Amwell Street.
Incidentally, there is anotherMerlin’s Cave - a pub in the Hertfordshire village of Chalfont Saint Giles, close to the appropriately named Seer Green, where Merlin and would stop off for a break on the way to London when conducting chores for the King.
There are many supposed burial places for Merlin, including Merlin's Grave, Drumelzier (Scottish Borders), The Marlborough Mound (Wiltshire), Bardsey Island (North Wales), and Merlin's Tomb, Brocéliande Forest (Brittany).
According to legend, Sir Lancelot is buried at ‘Joyous Gard’, which could be in France, or Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland:
In Meigle, Scotland there is a site named Guinevere's Grave; apparently, the former queen made her way to Scotland after King Arthur’s supposed death, changing her name to Vanora. There she went back to her old naughty ways, provoking the townsfolk to kill her. Other tales speak of Guinevere becoming a nun at either Caerleon or ‘The Mound's Marker’ at Amesbury .
King Arthur TV shows and movies
King Arthur is of course, the subject of numerous novels, TV series and movies. Here’s the first episode of an interesting one from 1977, ITV’s Raven (all episodes currently available on YouTube). An orphan/former borstal inmate (Phil Daniels) assists a Merlin-esque archaeology professor (Michael Aldridge) in his excavation of a system of caves beneath an ancient stone circle, containing 5th-century rock carvings related to the legend of King Arthur.
C. S. Lewis ’ 1945 novel That Hideous Strength (’A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups’), in which Arthur is said to be living in the land of ‘Abhalljin’ on the planet Venus.
Camelot (1967): I Wonder What The King Is Doing Tonight? Changed to, “I Wonder Who The King Is Screwing Tonight? by a bored Richard Burton during the long-running, first stage version of the show.
Arthur is not unique in the legendarium; there are many other examples of slumbering monarchs, heroes, religious leaders, the odd dupe (Van Winkle) and villains across the globe, including the following, some illustrated with clips.
Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa
Rip Van Winkle
Brân the Blessed
Thomas the Rhymer
Typhon and Enceladus in Mount Etna
The demon Hobbomock, sealed in Sleeping Giant mountain in Connecticut
Bernardo Carpio, the ‘King of the Tagalogs’
Ogier/Holger the Dane
And quite a few more, including I guess, Jesus, as he was laid to rest in a cave on a hill.
Also... Kay Khosrow, Shah of Persia, Alexander Suvorov, St. Wenceslas (Václav) of Bohemia, Stephen I of Hungary, Loki, King David, Artavazd I of Armenia, Queen Tamar of Georgia, St. John the Evangelist, Kind Dunmail, King Harold II, Owain Glyndŵr, William Tell, Csaba, the son of Attila the Hun, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Kūkai, founder of Shingon Buddhism, Charlemagne
Stephen Arnell’s novel THE GREAT ONE is available on Amazon Kindle:
