The Anglo-Russian Antagonism Part 2 : The 19th Century ‘Great Game’
The two largest empires, the two greatest imperial rivals in the world for most of the 19th century were the British and the Russian. In the middle of that century their rivalry led to a major military conflict between them in Russia’s Crimea, a region thousands of miles from Britain and France, which those two allies invaded in 1854. Since the Crimean War, the Anglo-Russian antagonism has continued, on and off, until today in other forms than direct military conflict between the two countries. What is really behind it? Where are its roots...
read moreThe Anglo-Russian Antagonism Part 1
To heal an illness, we must first diagnose it correctly; we must understand what is causing it. What then are the roots of the Anglo-Russian antagonism that we see going on related to the conflict in Ukraine? For while the local conflict there appears to be one between Russians and Ukrainians that has its own history in the decades and centuries of uneasy relations between those two Slavic peoples, it is also part of a much larger conflict between English-speaking culture – or rather between the elites who have been steering...
read more2022 – War in Ukraine
This article was first published in New View magazine No.103 April-June 2022 This year, which happens to be the Year of the Tiger in the traditional Chinese calendar, the month of March (in the western calendar) was dominated by the movements of the planet after which the month is named – Mars. When Vladimir Putin sent his troops into Ukraine on 24 February, Mars (lower aspect: aggression; higher aspect: courage and daring) was conjoined with Venus, and the two fast-moving planets were approaching conjunction with the very slow-moving...
read moreBinaries, Triads, War or Peace between China & the West?
This article was first published in The Present Age magazine Vol. 5 No. 11, July 2020 If we contemplate the number 23, we can recall that the most famous Psalm in the Bible – Psalm 23 – speaks of man’s confidence in his trust in God’s support. The Koran was revealed to Mohammed over a period of 23 years. Biologists will tell us that normal human sex cells have 23 chromosomes, and astronomers will remind us that the earth is tilted at an angle of about 23 degrees to the Sun (actually 23.5). Without that tilting at 23 degrees, the...
read moreWuhan 武 漢, Then and Now: Some Observations
2020: Wu of Han, the 140s BC, China, Rome – Then and Now (April 2020) The following thoughts are offered simply as a stimulus for your own thinking about the present COVID-19 crisis. Please bear with me through some numbers in the first part until we get to the main point, which has to do with WUHAN and China in our time. If we think of an astrological Age e.g. the Age of Pisces, known in Anthroposophy as the 5th Post-Atlantean Epoch or the Age of the Consciousness Soul (1413-3573), which lasts 2160 years, then we recognise it...
read moreBrexit as a Spiritual Question (3) A Personal View
This article was first published in New View magazine Issue 92 July-Sept. 2019 Chester, a city in the northwest of England on the border with Wales and some 17 miles from Liverpool, was the largest base of the Roman army in Britannia during the Roman occupation. The name Chester comes from the Latin castrum, which means fortified military base, camp or fortress. The city, which the Romans called Deva Victrix, was founded by the Roman Army in 79 AD, 46 years after the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. That was also the year of the...
read moreEchoes of the 9th Century in Our Time
This article was first published in New View magazine Issue 81 Autumn 2016 “Matthew was an angel as a young child – sensitive, well-behaved, affectionate, often joyful, and often dreaming away on another plane. After turning nine, however, he soon changed into quite a different person. He was sometimes rude and critical, and often moody if not downright wretched…. Prior to age seven or eight, most children are sunny, smiling, exuberant, joyful beings – little angels, for the most part. Around the ninth birthday, however, a tinge of...
read moreBritain and Japan: “Wolf Hall” and “The War of Flowers”
This article was first published in The Present Age magazine Vol.1 No.2 May 2015 Britain and Japan, the two major island states at the opposite ends of the great Eurasian continent, have played crucial roles in the accelerated modernisation of both West and East. They have both made many varied contributions to modern cultural life, but it can also be said that they have been the major conduits of materialism in Europe and Asia. The...
read moreBack to Buccaneering and the Jolly Roger?
This article was first published in New View magazine 3rd Quarter Summer 2015 I am myself. I “identify” with myself and am responsible to and for myself and my actions and for the care of my body. I am also a member of the human race, the extended human family or community, and identify as such. I am aware of the body of the world, which supports my earthly existence, and I also feel a responsibility to that. I know that I have responsibilities to the rest of the human race and to the planet’s environment through my...
read moreWilliam Shakespear – Saudi Arabian Pilgrim
This article was first published in New View magazine No.75 April-June 2015 Canterbury - the capital of the English shire of Kent, the shire closest to the European Continent. It was an ancient Celtic and then Roman settlement, where St Augustine arrived from Rome in 597 to convert the Anglo-saxons, beginning with King Aethelbert of Kent, whose Christian wife Bertha was a Frank (another Germanic people). Against the odds perhaps, Augustine succeeded and so Canterbury became not only the part of England most associated with Rome and the Roman...
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