The Black Crow, Gods and Ghosts

The Black Crow
In my life there’s a Crow, a big, black as pitch, special crow. Sometimes he’s in an oak tree, others he’s on a fence post. Sometimes he’s off doing what black crows do and other times, he’s sat on my shoulder screaming and squawking in my ear!
If you don’t know what a crow is, it’s a big black bird they get in the UK, like a raven. As you’ll read, I’m quite a grounded person and don’t subscribe to much in the way of conventional wisdom. I’m skeptical of luck and destiny and don’t really get off on the supernatural … BUT … there are things in life that we simply can’t explain.
How did this crow come into my life?
We were looking to move house and came across a property that was in the hands of the receiver. The owner had gone bankrupt and this looked like a fantastic opportunity. I tracked down the agent dealing with it and opened negotiations, looking forward to the moment we signed the deal of the decade.
I was ahead of the game, had got in before anyone else, the price was good … and things just started to fall apart!
One thing after another, inexplainable things that I’m not even going to attempt to explain! The more we pushed, the more the deal pushed back.My wife would often turn to me and say that “things aren’t right, this just isn’t normal”
In my heart I agreed but my head disagreed with both.
Then on the last visit, as we got out of the car, an old lady appeared at the fence from the field opposite. Cheery enough but just strange. “Hi, just wanted to say hello and see if I like you or not. If not I’ll be putting in a toilet block here in front of you” she chirped.
At that very moment my Crow appeared on an ancient oak branch right next to her head and began screaming at us. “Rarrrk, rarrk, rarrk”
That’s it! We agreed and decided it was all too much. We pulled out of the deal and forgot all about it.
A year later we passed the property again and were horrified to see what would have happened if we’d secured the house.
A retired lawyer lived some distance away and liked to ride out on the forest on his horse. He’d been studying old maps of the area and found an ancient bridleway that allowed him to access past the house to the woods beyond. He did his lawyer’s thing and got the path reopened.
It passed through the garden, under the kitchen window, through the garage and out of the garden on the other side!
I have listened to my Black Crow from that point forward.
When the Black Crow screams he’s telling me to walk away or is pushing me in a direction. My wife and I have a saying now when things go wrong for no reason we can fathom, “it’s a Black Crow”.
We learned to accept that when the ‘Crow’s a screamin’ … beware! We’ve learned to walk away, no matter how counter intuitive it may seem.
I grew through writing and practicing the things I put down on paper here and as my other businesses took off and life took over I put Omniscience on the back burner.
Things started to go bad with my business, my Black Crow has been squawking and I’ve not been listening. Everything failed, culminating in probably the darkest day of my life …
Later I write about locking horns, seeing the signs and learning to walk away at the right time. Making an enemy is the most time-consuming, energy-sapping, draining thing you can do.
We’d bought an amazing property here in New Zealand which used to be an old apple orchard. It came with three workers’ cottages. After we moved, the council changed the development zoning, which for us was a lottery ticket. It meant we could divide off the cottages, give them titles and sell them on.
All went well until close to the end. We’d sold a couple and just needed some driveways putting in. This is the most simple of jobs. We took on a small local landscaping firm and that must have been one of those days when the Black Crow was off in some Black Crow strip joint, smoking Black Crow ganja and getting thoroughly smashed on Black Crow cerveza, or something. Where ever he was, he wasn’t where he should have been … screaming at the top of his croupy voice: “Stay away from these motherfuckers, they are baaaaaaad news…”
I’m not going to bore you with the details but the subsequent two years have been what can only be described as utter insanity. These people made such a mess of the job that they caused us to miss the deadlines on the agreements and lose a sale. They then produced an invoice that appeared to have been penned by The Brothers Grim.
It’s ended up in court and caused so much upset and distress I can’t begin to describe … well I can but can’t be fucked!
This was only a small facet of things that were going wrong. Alone, I sank lower and lower and lower into a dank and dark place where all was black and all was cold and all was silent.
I was living life constantly below the happiness line. My moods rarely peaked above it. I went on tablets in the hope they’d at least even emotions out. Just to be able to have a life on the happiness line would be a start.
I couldn’t concentrate on my projects. I slept for too many hours and awoke tired and drained. I dreaded the morning and lived in abject fear of what Groundhog day would bring. If it was the same as yesterday, a day filled with rejection, I didn’t want to face today.
And it was during this time of crushing self-pity that I rediscovered The Omniscience Principle.
I began reading. I would read more and as it made more and more sense I read more and then I started to rewrite. I am older and wiser now and began to feel a spark as I rediscovered writing stuff in better ways. Something I found most amazing of all was just how good this shit was! Stuff I’d written those years ago was still so relevant and poignant.
As I wrote, the power returned and began coursing through my every cell … I’d forgotten how powerful it all is.
Nothing’s changed at this point except my perspective. I am still fixing a broken business, still battling demons and still fighting those unhinged landscaping people … But I am feeling good, really, really good.
And now the fog has cleared I see the colour returning. I can see the sun rising and the moon, like an obedient dog following. I can hear the bees working and the birds singing and loudest of all … Black Crow is squawking!
He was there all along … The things that failed were Black Crow. If any of a million things had gone differently, I’d not be writing this now!
I would have gone on without the benefit of these words, I would have gone on to be arrogant and unpleasant and narcissistic. I would have created wealth granted but I would not be wealthy, I would not be fulfilled.
When times are bad you feel like you’re stood in a hailstorm without an umbrella.
Worry no more, you’re not alone and now you too have discovered The Omniscience Principle, soon we’ll be powering your way towards something better.
A plane won’t fly without the wings. Bolt all the elements together and it’ll soar.
I want man to be like a never-falling Icarus — spreading the wings forever reaching new heights no matter the obstacles that may be in our way …
You only have a limited time here on this Earth … There’s a year, a month, a day and a second on your forehead and life is counting down. You can’t see it but as sure as night follows day, it’s counting down and once you’re gone, wherever you go, you’re gone from this world. The Sword of Damocles is real!
You’re going to attain freedom to think clearly in the shortest possible time and spend the remainder of your extraordinarily short life enjoying it!
“I started with nothing and I still have most of it left” Seasick Steve
Just a few years ago, at the age of 32, I couldn’t even turn on a computer, FACT!
I went to college and learned. After being virtually bankrupted once by The Machine I chose to explore the Internet as a vehicle to attaining wealth and freedom because I believed it offered the most opportunities for someone like me … actually it offers great opportunities for just about anybody!
Having said that I want to point out that The Omniscience Principle has nothing to do with how you choose to make your money and although the Internet has been good to me, I am well aware that it isn’t for everyone.
The Omniscience Principle is about attaining personal freedom and being ultimately successful at your chosen business or in your ambitions…
I say ‘business’ because unless you’re highly specialised, highly trained or highly sought-after, a job is time hungry, not leveragable and will simply never pay enough to do all the things you want to do!
Money is a necessary evil, even if your ultimate goal is to just do good. You can’t save the Polar Bears without money!
How much is enough? … Well that depends on the individual but take it from me, it’s bloody great fat number that very few jobs in the world will pay?
Stellios from Easy Jet (a highly successful European budget airline) suggests that anything over £10million net worth (@ $20M) is vanity.
I put a slightly more conservative figure to aim at, somewhere around … mmmmm!£4,000,000 (@$8M) free and clear … and if you think that’s going to be hard to attain … you’re damn, fucking right it is!
But whether that figure is a mind-blowing amount to you or something that simply seems ‘a lot’ … it is attainable …
The Omniscience Principle is about opening the door to Self, by doing so you open doors to a better world. Some of what I write is not particularly sensational or ground-breaking however, I’d like to think that I present in new and engaging ways … Some of what I write is sensational and ground-breaking.
I’ve never had a job and at my age am thoroughly unemployable. To survive, I built my business one step at a time. For years the money refused to roll, but I stuck at it. I did whatever it would take to succeed … and through these modules I‘d like to share things I learned about myself along the way, with you.
I truly wish The Omniscience Principle was around when I started, as life would have been far easier for me!
I started right at the bottom, so don’t think for a second that YOU can’t achieve Personal and Financial Freedom … YOU CAN … and will, if you consider and implement what I share and most importantly, refuse to give up.
You will make it, maybe not overnight, but I promise, it will happen.
Well, I think you’ve worked out for yourself by know that I don’t beat around the bush and I say it like it is! I don’t suffer fools and get right to the point, so let’s get right down to it …
…
A Note From The Author
Omniscience (the state of knowing everything), is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, … and the realisation that you actually know bugger all about very little at all!
Everything we think we know, the teaching, doctrine, theories and facts are not all they seem, they are ephemeral. They are mostly other peoples’ ideas taken on board and re-presented as fact … until a new, better suited, better fitting proposal prevails.
For instance, Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher was so respected that his works formed the basis of most knowledge for nearly two thousand years.
No one thought to question his fact that flies had only four legs and that snot was brain matter! (Snot is the green slime that dribbles from your nostrils on a cold day if you’re not familiar with the word!).
Even Christmas and 25th December being the date of Jesus’ birth is not what we think!
His birth, which is the basis for the Anno Domini system of dating, has been determined by modern historians as having occurred between 7 and 2 BC. The date of celebration is not thought to be Jesus’ actual date of birth, and may have been chosen to coincide with ancient Roman solar festivals that were held on December 25 worshiping their sun God Mithras.
Now on the subject of Mithras, it appears that many stories attributed to Christianity are nothing of the sort and are actually adopted from older, pagan beliefs. It has been said that if the growth of Christianity had been arrested by some mortal malady, the world would have been Mithraic!
After the triumph of the church over paganism, artists continued to make use of stock images originally devised for Mithras in order to depict the new and unfamiliar stories of the bible. The way in which Mithras was depicted shooting arrows at rocks causing fountains to spring up was adapted to represent the biblical story of Moses striking Mount Horeb with his staff to release drinking water, according to Cumont. Likewise the Heavens, the Earth, the Ocean, the Sun, the Moon, the Planets, signs of the Zodiac, the Winds, the Seasons, and the Elements appear on sarcophagi, mosaics, and miniatures in the fourth to fifth centuries using the same sort of iconography used for Mithras earlier.
The scene of Mithras ascending into the heavens was apparently incorporated into Christian art: after Mithras had accomplished a series of miraculous deeds, he ascended into the heavens in a chariot, which in various depictions is drawn by horses being controlled by Helios-Sol, the pagan sun god.
In other depictions a chariot of fire belonging to Helios is led into the water, surrounded by the God Oceanus and sea nymphs. Vermaseren argues that Christian portrayals on sarcophagi of the soul’s ascension into heaven, though ostensibly referencing the biblical scene of Elijah being led into heaven by fiery chariots and horses, were in fact inspired by representations of Mithras’ ascent into the heavens in Helios’ chariot. The sun god, provided inspiration for the flames on Elijah’s chariot and the Jordan River is personified by a figure resembling the God Oceanus.
And this is often the way!
Columbus didn’t discover America, it has been there since the beginning of time and merchants had been plying the oceans for hundreds of years before he trundled up their established trade routes and began torturing and slaughtering natives.
Apparently, the Indian Squanto who met the first Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, Massachusetts asked them if they “wanted a beer!”
He spoke perfect English having been to England several times!
The fact that he spoke to them at all is is remarkable because he was actually thrice kidnapped and enslaved in Europe before returning to America to find that his entire tribe had been wiped out by a plague brought by the European explorers.
We’re taught that Captain cook was a gentleman hero who discovered the New World. Pacific tribes had made this their home two thousand years ago. Then I see on the History Channel that he was nothing but a murdering pirate, ultimately responsible for the death of tens of thousands of Maori!
Apparently, the romantic Hollywood version of the West being won by cowboys shooting Indians is nonsense, it was won with blankets infested with smallpox … and the original cowboys were in fact Scottish farmers thrown off their lands by the aristocracy.
The Santa we know and love is a character from a Coke advertising campaign.
The Crusades were state-sponsored terrorism. King Arthur and Merlin didn’t actually exist and man didn’t land on the moon, which is actually made of cheese!
The point is, that our knowledge base seems increasingly fragile doesn’t it? All that we think we know is not always the way it is.
Every day we argue with someone on some level and a settlement is generally brokered by the mighty Google. “I’m right, you’re wrong”… the opponent hooks into the entire knowledge of man and will pull out information to support their point of view. Immediately, the argument is settled. Yet how do we know that information is correct? If we took the time, we would find information to support both sides of the argument in equal measure.
The information that settles often fractious arguments is written by others, it is of the moment, it is often wrong or biased. Yet we treat it is fact and it forms the basis for all we hold dear.
For years there were authoritative papers written by clever men in white coats presenting conclusive argument that smoking was not harmful … reports that were commissioned by tobacco companies!
And this is repeated time and time again.
I recently refurbished a cast iron pan because the Teflon was flaking. I looked up to see if it was harmful and found a very convincing video to say that it was not … the video was made by Dupont, the company that make Teflon!
I did a bit more digging and found a wealth of information reporting that Teflon in my food is bad! The only way to know for sure would be to commission my own scientific study.
I am often surprised at how my knowledge and the facts I hold dear are contradicted …
The date December 25th is apparently not even in the Bible! (I maybe proven wrong as I’ve never read it!)
Isaac Newton argued that the date was chosen to correspond with the winter solstice. Although the modern solstice date is December 21 or 22, the Romans marked it on December 25.
Who knows!
What I do know is that some will have read the last few paragraphs as fact and be jumping up and down, confident in their opinion that I’ve got it all wrong.
I’m beginning to think I should have called my book Anti-Omniscience!
Much of the work is written from the way I see the world because that’s the only thing I know to be true, and even then there are cracks. There’s a ton of research gone into The Omniscience Principle and that’s an issue because I’m relying on what I’ve read and watched and I have no clue if it’s all good and correct. I cover many things and present them as fact or knowledge of the moment … but I don’t know!
Just because it’s on the net, in a book or relayed verbally does not mean it happened that way or is even correct … as you’ll learn!
I was born in the UK and went to school, college and then Polytechnic, finally graduating with a HND in Art Direction and Advertising. After being forced to move to London in search of a work placement because this was where the agencies were based, I soon decided that ‘The Smog’ was not where I was going to spend the rest of my life!
So … after years getting educated at the tender age of 20 I left the UK. After various non- advertising related jobs in the Canary Islands I ended up in Greece where I set up as a sign writer and was introduced to sailing. This was to become a lifelong passion as I accumulated many thousands of sea miles cruising, racing and delivering yachts as a freelance skipper … and that would have been that, spending my years sailing the seven seas but something was stirring within, I felt I needed something more fulfilling.
I chose direct marketing and publishing as this catered to my skill set and fitted into my transient lifestyle. I came up with the ideas and outsourced the work, which was all managed from a laptop whilst sipping Sangria in Spain or Rum Punch in the Caribbean.
The first venture into publishing was in 1999 with a series of wholesale related directories known as Sourcebook. These detailed trade sources worldwide. During this time I built other websites that would hone my Internet Marketing skills; skills that contribute to the success of the site today in these increasingly competitive times.
I found I have a natural talent for copywriting and design and over the years I’ve has helped create extremely busy sites for my own portfolio and on behalf of clients.
Government Auctions UK was described as an experiment. Originally, it could be bought as a printed document or downloaded as an ebook.