Understanding Stress, Anxiety and Depression

The Modern Epidemic

Despite modern life offering unprecedented technological benefits, and medical science being able to cure or alleviate many more physical ailments than ever before, somehow "happiness" seems more elusive than ever for a growing number.

Stress, anxiety and depression are a modern epidemic affecting literally millions. The effects of these debilitating conditions are made even worse by the stigma they carry.

If you're unfortunate enough to suffer a physical problem friends, family, colleagues invariably rally around with offers of help. If you're unfortunate enough to suffer a mental problem those same people frequently keep their distance as though you're highly contagious or somehow responsible for your suffering. (more…)

Making Decisions with Logic and Intuition

Making decisions is often one of the toughest challenges we face as human beings. And yet having the ability to decide is one of our greatest causes to rejoice, since it proves we are more than mere automata controlled rigidly by inflexible physical laws.

We are each a unique and complex mix of values, drives and goals that are frequently uncorrelated, and sometimes conflicting. In making decisions we are essentially attempting to optimize our position in relation to these many factors. If we are fortunate, there will be a clear choice that benefits us on all counts. Life is rarely so simple, and decision-making is usually a case of finding the most favorable (or least unfavorable) compromise.

This article offers some advice on a number of decision making techniques that can be employed when faced with such an opportunity. Just as there is no universal right decision that would apply to everyone in a certain situation, so there is no singular technique that applies under all circumstances. (more…)

Know Yourself

Self Concept, Self Awareness

beware the man behind the mask, he hides the truth behind the mask

It is said that a major purpose of life is to learn, and also that we never stop learning.

In most human societies learning is institutionalized from a very early age in the form of compulsory schooling. In developed countries formal education can eat up the best part of two decades of an individual's life.

Furthermore, we are constantly reminded that we live in the information age or knowledge economy. Multiple TV channels, cell phones, the Internet... These days we need to continue absorbing knowledge just to survive.

One of the main rules of witchcraft is "know thyself", but for all the knowledge that surrounds us how many of us can claim to REALLY know ourselves?

It might seem like a no-brainer; after all we ARE ourselves, so how can we not know what makes us tick? But very often human beings function on autopilot. Our decisions are conditioned by our upbringing, our peers, the expectations of others... (more…)

Facing Difficulty

A Coping Strategy for Dealing with Life's Problems

The question of meaning, purpose, or why we are here is one we've all surely asked at one time or another. Given that physical death (and maybe taxes) is the only certainty of this incarnation it is a question without answer in a purely materialistic framework.

Instead we must seek a solution through Spirituality. If we accept that at essence we are immortal Spirit temporarily journeying the earth plane in a body of atoms and molecules then clearly it is in the Spiritual journey that our true purpose lies. (more…)

Business Basics – Finding Your Niche

This short article considers what is meant by business and provides advice on finding your own niche in the age of the Web.

What is Business?

Survival requires many inputs; food, shelter etc etc. Yet more inputs provide additional comforts of life. Humans developed division of labor as means of increasing efficiency and individual utility. Rather than everyone try to do everything themselves, we specialize in a particular function and do it for others in return for the benefit of their functions; the process is blurred somewhat by money.

Business, essentially, is the process identifying the function/niche(s) that you wish to perform, doing it (them) for other people and receiving payment (and using such payments to buy your own needs/wants). (more…)

The Power of Positive Thought

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars - Oscar Wilde.

Positive thought is about the recognition that we are empowered with a degree of control over our destiny. It is the realization that by doing our best along a pathway that is right we achieve as much as we possibly can. Doing this brings the knowledge and satisfaction that we could have done no more.

Positive thought is not about optimism or pessimism. These are related to future expectation. It’s easier for an optimist to think positively; but even a natural pessimist can adopt a positive attitude, though they expect the worst they can recognize that a positive approach in the here and now will affect the future and make it not so bad as it might have been. (more…)

Finding Happiness

Happiness and sorrow are two sides of the same coin. Without sorrow there would be no such thing as happiness. And vise versa. Both are emotions of the incarnate form, devoid of intrinsic Spiritual significance.

The Spiritual concept of life is as an opportunity for experiential growth. Pleasure is not its primary purpose. Buddhism teaches that life is suffering, with the cessation of that suffering as its goal. Perhaps it is the ability to recognize the ultimate insignificance of earthly trials and tribulations and to rise above them that is meant by divine happiness. As Kipling said, “If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same…” (more…)

Understanding the Unconscious

Your Key to Fulfillment

The human mind can be compared to an island in the ocean. The visible part, ie above the surface, is our consciousness – what we are aware of at any given time. But beneath the surface the island is really a mountain, the vast bulk of which is submerged. This hidden part is our unconscious, that huge mass of content of which we are unaware but which can, and frequently does, have a significant effect on our lives.

Unconscious or Subconscious – Terminology

The terms unconscious and subconscious are often used synonymously, however Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis preferred the use of “unconscious”, saying: “the only trustworthy antithesis is between conscious and unconscious.” [Sigmund Freud, The Question of Lay Analysis (Vienna 1926; English translation 1927)]

The term unconscious may be used to describe the entire content of the mind that is not conscious, whereas subconscious may describe that part of the unconscious that is closest to, or most easily brought into, consciousness. (more…)

Good Karma, Bad Karma

Karma is one of the West's best known Eastern Mystical concepts, even featuring in popular songs by John Lennon (Instant Karma), David Bowie (Karma Man), and Culture Club (Karma Chameleon) among others.

Some years ago the then England football manager Glenn Hoddle, a genuinely Spiritual man, was fired for an ill-considered remark that disabled people were paying for the sins of past lives.

A Definition of Karma

Karma is simply the process of cause and effect. If you do A, B will happen. If you plant tomato seeds, and water and look after them, tomatoes will grow.

whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap St Paul, Galatians 6-7 (more…)

Do What Thou Wilt

English occultist Aleister Crowley wrote "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" in his classic The Book of The Law forcibly dictated to him by the discarnate higher intelligence called Aiwaz.

What is meant by this "law"? Does it mean we are free to do whatever we please - in other words that there is no law? Or does it convey a deeper, more subtle, truth?

Compare "do what thou wilt" to Jesus' expression of "thy will be done", referring to God's will. Are the two teachings irreconcilably incompatible? As we shall see, maybe not… (more…)