[Mike 5]

Remember, remember the fifth of November

Gunpowder Treason and Plot

In the UK 5 November is Fireworks night, and when I was a child, eveyone celebrated the brutal torture and killing of a "soldier of faith" called Guy Fawkes. I married on 5 November. Our first child was born on 5 November.

400 years ago, 5 November 1605, a Catholic plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament was discovered. Those were dark times. Over in Spain the Spanish Inquisition used vile tortures in the name of holy Catholicism. Here in the UK, vile tortures were used on Catholics, such as the man found with the gunpowder, Guy Fawkes.

British TV this year featured Derek Acorah, a psychic medium, who has done a lot of rubbish recently but some years back was stupendous on a daytime TV show, really impressive stuff, live phone in, just too mundane and amateur to be scripted. This year Derek used psychic powers to bring the Gunpowder Plot back to life, culminating with a séance where the spirit of Guy Fawkes revealed who actually betrayed him and how he felt about the torture and why he went ahead knowing the plot was betrayed.

Spooky TV. Lot of this recently in the UK. For whatever reason, the "Living TV" channel (more like Living Dead TV!) makes all this seem trite and moronic, the production is really appalling and designed to ridicule Derek. I however have an open mind.

I had a lot to say on this topic for TOE quest on November 5. It got buried in the melting grey snow of another project, sadly, and now, I will just echo, that the TOE might ignore or embrace this whole concept of mediums, or not. But we all die, we all are born, and this needs some better model than any religion depending on faith and ritual.