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Spiritual Illumination

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Edited by Martin Cadwell, Wednesday 6 May 2026 at 10:24

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[ 6 minute read ]

Something can see something in my home

Yesterday, I found the PIR (Passive Infra-Red) solar-charged security light I hid away two years ago. My neighbour gave it to me when I moved in ten years ago; no explanation and no conversational preamble. Certainly, I had never expressed a desire to light up anywhere when someone came near to somewhere. It's haunted. Well, it  isn't haunted; it just picks up hauntings or maybe aliens. I think it might have picked up Harrari, the abandoned alien who helped me when I lived in some woods for a Summer, or maybe it was Hakim, my personal avatar protector, whom I created when I was sixteen and severely brutalised by my brother. In any case, I have had some suspicion that there were movements in my home ever since I moved in.

Thanking my neighbour for the security light, I wondered what to do with it. I had never considered that any persons would approach my front door and needed to be illuminated to prevent them doing harm to me or my property, so I just tucked the light away. I suppose it was a few weeks later that I had the idea of lighting up my front garden when the badgers or foxes turned up. At the time, I didn't know there were strolling, now marauding, Muntjac deer around. I left the light laying among the flowers and heavy rain made sure that mud splashed back onto it. It has quite a long wire between the solar panel and the actual lamp (Think of the size of a small portable digital radio for each component connected by about twelve feet of wire) so I rapidly grew fed up with untangling the muddy wire and cleaning everything. Project failed; if it could be called one since I was still just fooling around with something I had no need for, or want of. I brought the light inside and after testing it in a random fashion grew bored of it. Then one evening, I have no idea why, I set the solar panel, which is also the detector part, in the hall and the lamp in my living room, and shut the door. Any movement in the darkened hall, it has no windows and all the doors were shut, would be detected and I would be alerted while the warm-bodied person would be unaware of being 'seen' by their heat signature or any light source they had with them, or was reflected from who knows where. 

After half an hour the light came on. It was about nine in the evening in Autumn. Something was outside my living room door. Swiftly, I leapt to the door and opened it; nobody there. An anomaly, I thought. After about an hour the light came on again. I crept to the door and opened it; nobody there. I gathered the whole device and barricaded the door. At the same time, I was aware that Harrari sometimes moved invisibly through my home. She is out of phase with our world and we can't see her, or hear her for that matter. In fact, nobody knows she is there unless she wants them to know. She does, however, 'guide' people's thinking; not as a guru or philosopher or something, more as an entity that directs thinking, such as, 'Turn around and walk the other way'; making people forget what they were about to do; and in my case on one occasion, soothing my troubled thoughts. I supposed that the PIR security light somehow picked her up as she moved around in the hall, bedroom, bathroom and up and down the stairs. Quite how she passes through shut doors is beyond me so I sometimes hold them open a bit longer than is necessary for me to pass through, in case she wants to sneak through after me.

Hakim, my personal avatar protector, with me since I manifested 'him' when I was sixteen, can pass through doors and walls and simply 'arrives' wherever he or, I suppose 'I' decide he ought to be. His role is to look out for threats to me. He would move around my home as part of his surveillance strategy. I make things easier for him and Harrari by never having visitors, hence there is no trace of their scent or any wisps of stale presence, so, like a camel thirsty in an arid desert, Hakim and Harrari can 'smell' people like the camel smells water.

I wasn't entirely sure that the security light was picking up friendly entities or not, so I put the whole thing away. Knowing that things could be super-safe or about to be ultra-ugly didn't help me relax. Having recently found the device, I am not about to test whether there are things that go bump in the night again. The chill of finding out too much and discovering I am ill-equipped to deal with whatever is happening is just too much for me. It is recharging on my bedroom window-sill and the reactive lamp is switched off.

In the bedroom, there are three tomato plants that I over-wintered. They are bearing fruits already; early in the year, no? I use an artists paintbrush to act as an insect to pollinate them. I think it works but I never see any pollen on the brush. Every day, I have to feel the soil or feel the weight of the soil to make sure the plants are properly watered. Because the soil originally came from outside and has been mixed with cutting compost there are, inevitably, creatures in the soil. Mostly, I come across the prehistoric wood-louse. I think it has not evolved any further from hundreds of millions of years ago. I suppose one climbed on my fingers and I touched my head shortly after. Usually, I wash my hands after playing with plants and soil and especially when the water in the bucket outside my front door for the outside plants gets on my hands. Yesterday, I must have just touched the soil and then came back to my lap-top to write or fill in spreadsheets. A series of tickles on my head drew my hand to the areas affected. Eventually, after about six visits by my hand the woodlouse, crushed, stuck to my fingers. I had killed it and repeatedly smeared it across my forehead.

If you are like me, you enjoy the satisfaction of removing a splinter for a lot longer than the moment of realisation that it has gone. I even look for more, hoping I will find one. The knowledge of the smeared woodlouse stayed with me until the afternoon, some hours later. I am no stranger to insects and creepy-crawlies; living in the woods for six months is a good way to get introduced to insects that bite, sting, tickle and scratch. I have even been bitten by two spiders (think mild bee sting or fifty ants).

I suppose I am waking up again after a quite long period of mental and spiritual slumber. The awakening has been brought on by having to consider the real world more often and for longer in the most recent days. If I could bottle the motivation from this, that is really instinct, I would make millions and I could go back to sleep. Hakim and Harrari would prowl around and insects would crawl on my face and I wouldn't care.

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Begrudgement

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Edited by Martin Cadwell, Monday 2 February 2026 at 11:02

All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

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[ 9 minute read ]

You break me

Passive voice or passive aggression?

Is it possible to hate someone just because they hate you, but having never been the recipient of their distaste?

Well, I can hate every mobile telecommunication business I have yet to be a customer with, based on my experiences of their competitors, with which I have been a customer. That though, is like hating my wife's brother because I hate her other brother; isn't it? Not in this case, I think.

Heuristics and forecasting would allow us to make judgement calls on who or whom to leave well alone, and who or whom to allow some time to prove themselves. However, I propose that this is not so with mobile telecommunication businesses. When you set up a contract with one, you open yourself up to confusion and chaos. Why? Because they want you to change the contract and/or because they have an expectation that you, the customer, wants to change the contract; you know, weirdly, the customer has decided to upgrade or downgrade their prior decision, or decisions. 

So, this is an example of a relationship based on distrust or more accurately, based on a probability that you (the customer) will be unreliable and capricious in the relationship. 

     'Can I pay for the whole two year contract upfront, please?'

     'No.'

Well, their 'no' means because they don't have a system that can deal with an honest person who knows what their needs are, and will be for the duration of the contract, and we, meaning them and also most of us, are certain that no such person exists, so we will never implement such a system.

Money-minded people might think, 'Why would you pay £720 (£30 x 24 months) and not want to get the interest on some of it instead? Quite simply, because you don't get interest on money you don't have. Many of us run our bank accounts dry and so there is no £720 minus £30 every month for interest to ever be applied. If you think about it: saving up the £720 at £30 per month over two years would actually allow interest to accrue (not much though).

Incidentally, I pay a total of £28.80 for two SIMS with different phone numbers on separate contracts; one of which is 'Unlimited Everything', and the other 'Unlimited Texts and Calls and 20GB data'. I don't phone Premium numbers. If my needs change, the balance in my bank account should not. It may be surprising to some people, that my SIM with Unlimited Data never gets used for calls or texts, and my SIM with only 20GB data but with Unlimited Calls and Texts, never gets used for data up and down loads; unless something goes wrong. I never need to change any plan though, because I have a contingency plan. Shock! Horror! Scream! 

I hate telecommunication businesses because they insist on Direct Debit payments. If something goes wrong and there is no money in the account that month (financial scam or digital glitch or even illness), the phone bill does not get paid. What could go wrong? Nothing, if you fall within the group of customers wanting to upgrade or suddenly go roaming because you are the target customer the telecommunication businesses are constantly talking to. They don't want people like me, who just pay to be left alone. No modern business wants customers with no needs to fulfill between one contract and the next.

They hate me. I am an irritation to them. 

Modern 'business' means implementing marketing strategies that are progressively suited to individuals. It is no surprise to me that the UK Government wants everyone to use A.I. or that they will implement Facial Recognition technology in the High Street. It's a bifurcated approach; catch criminals through both their physical and digital presence; and allow British businesses to profile UK citizens and apply targeted marketing strategies, the use of A.I. assistive technology.

The British Government hates me, because my voice on one SIM contract is not available on my other SIM contract. Likewise, my online digital footprint is not matched with my voice or texts or any of my two phone numbers. Worse, I don't even use the same device to send and receive emails as the one I use to look at YouTube or any other web site. I am not hiding from any Governments; I am merely not mindless. You would be right to assume that I also do not use a SmartPhone to access the internet or for emails. And you would be right to guess that I have a spare device for accessing the internet AND an emergency phone.

Why? You might ask, do I go to such lengths to obfuscate any profiling of me? Because almost everyone allows themselves to be profiled; that is why modern marketing relies on profiling - because it can! 

Of course, businesses need to follow a strategy of averages. The average person changes their phone quite often, I think. The average person consumes more and more data, I think. Newer phones do things for you. My phone, which is fairly old, tells me how long it will remain charged, according to my past usage. Thanks - I already know. 

I 'hate' most people even though I haven't met them. I have to set up security protocols that get destroyed by the new safety protocols that businesses set up to protect their customers because their customers have no security protocols of their own. An example: I don't store passwords on any digital device so I need to type them in whenever I go to some websites. The two step security check of sending an email with a security number in it, means I have to type my password for my email account. (This is why I have a different digital device for emails than the one I access websites with - 'cookies!') There are cookies on websites that can read your password as you type it on another website because they tracked you there.

My laptops have microphones on them that can detect not only the speed at which I press the keys but also my typos and that means which keys are pressed. Realistically, this means that I can demonstrate that I know a complicated password because I am not reading it as I type, proving it to be me typing. I digress. The password can be read by the sound of the keys being pressed because they each have different sounds according to where they are on the keyboard AND the speed they are tapped. The quickness between two key strokes and the similar sound of the double 'e' in 'speed' will indicate a repeated letter AND the frequency of the sound in this post reveals it to be the most commonly used letter in the English language 'e'. So, the two-step security protocol reduces my level of security if I use only a single device. Hence, my password for my email account is entered on a device that has not yet downloaded any cookies (fresh start).

It is tremendously worse than that: The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has recently personally informed me that despite the GDPR stating that only personal information pertinent to actually carrying out a task should be requested or passed on to a third party, a business is not in breach of the GDPR if they request an email address and pass it on to a third party delivery business for the delivery of a tangible item. No-one needs an email address to send, carry, or deliver a parcel. However, it has become the norm for businesses to email and text recipients of 'parcel and tangible packages' to tell them where their parcel is. Many people accepted this breach of the GDPR as normal business practice; in fact it is an 'Added Service' (economic value added service).

Your personal details should never be given to a third party without your consent under ANY circumstances. If you order an item to be delivered, your phone number and email address does not need to be known.

Why do businesses want to tell you that they will deliver your package? So they look like they are being friendly and helpful (added value), but importantly, so they don't have to return the next day if you were away. 'We told you we would deliver at this time and date - tough on you if we didn't come back, or it got stolen!' In terms of policing, there is no case to answer.

     'I am sorry Madam / Sir, but by agreeing to receive a text message or email you agreed to accept responsibility of the package once it was delivered.'

Thanks a bunch everyone! I never agreed!

Why did the ICO find that this routine breach of the GDPR is not a breach? Practically every business in the UK would be in court and be fined. If it was a criminal case - 'It is not in the public interest.'

Is it possible to hate someone just because they hate you? Maybe not, but our personal defences utilise any available hormone and enzyme in the body to elicit a similar response to hatred; perhaps 'begrudgement'.

Is it possible to hate people you have never met? I might hate the motorway workmen who build a motorway that just goes over a cliff and have never provided any signs that say so, absolutely! If I tail-gate the driver in front of me, I might not see the cliff edge. If the driver in front of me brakes hard, I will hate that driver for spoiling my journey. Hate the driver who suddenly stops? No, I can't hate a cautious person who responds to a threat by stopping their actions that drive them towards danger.

I hate 'them' because I am reminded of my faults.

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