International Investigative Magazine 
Founded 1995 -one of first on the net. - Writer and Compiler Janine Roberts Click Buttons above for latest investigations
Home Page - Too
much seriousness kills. So this is our inital Self-Conservation Area, a Homely Page
for hobbits, for relaxation, warm slippers and hot drinks; a comfortable armchair
for deeper thinking, for matters of the spirit, of poetry, imagination and
myth - and for regaining strength for the battle.
This page is dedicated to those who want to fly, even if they are penguins!
On the more serioius side - my work on the world of blood diamonds started when Aborigines took me to see what is now the world's largest producer of diamonds - a mine that has destroyed an ancient sacred ritual place for women.. Just for once, let them be valued for themselves, not for rarity, not because of spin, but as part of our world. An Aboriginal man told me they were the scales of the sacred fish, the barramundi - the salmon of tropical Australian rivers.
I also celebrate the people of muli-hued gender, those born between the worlds - the hermaphrodite, intersexed, transsexed - different words for much the same human experience. In many ancient cultures, such people were valued for having a valuable experience of life. I was born among them - this gave me a very hard time in my youth. I was however fortunate to be able to sort it out long ago, in the early 1970s . It was now, looking back on that time, a very valuable experience from which I have learnt much. Since then I have continued to have a rich life -and carried out by far the more dangerous of my investigations.
There are many such experiences behind the stories in these pages. I worked with Australian Elders for some 15 years on social justice issues - and that time when I travelled vast distances over dirt tracks with them also greatly enriched me. More recently I have worked on medical issues - my return gift for the privilege of meeting strong and determined parents who are caring for vaccine-damaged chiildren. In both cases, I met the people then felt called to do something to help. More recently, I have worked with the farmers of Palestine in their struggle to retain what is only a fragment of their homeland - and on the medical problems of Africa - in particular the asbestos contaminated dust that destorys the lungs of diamond miners - but is blamed on AIDS in Aferica.
And then, on the other side, the are the mysteries and stories of the spiritual life. I do not have two worlds, one heavenly, one worldly. For me all is one. I see contradictions in our society's materialist science,its understanding of the world. We study matter, energy, gravity seeking the ultimate theories that unify them -but leave out of the equation most of the elements that make us who we are. We know ourselves as alive, as conscious, as intelligent and imaginative - but materialist science talk of nature as if all this is outside it, as if we are spectators, not participants. For me it is the very opposite. Life, consciousness and intelligence are properties of our marvellous universe, manifested when conditions are right - thus all is ultimately alive and conscious and intelligent - and in this greater whole, I see our Parent God or Goddess, giving birth to us in Her own image.
I see our ultimate Parent - as having a dream, a destiny, for each of her children. It starts to speak to us in childhood. It is in the whispers of our instincts, in our waking dreams, - but it is a destiny that we have to chose to embrace or reject. We may have to leave all to follow this dream. We may have to desert what others want us to do. But if we do follow it, then we will discover our fulfilment, the path to peace, to knowing ourselves, to being ourselves, to finding our given role in life.
I am now a woman of 62 - and I see this as now my time to teach, to support the young and to be there for them as they strive to find their way. But next to my computer I keep a sword. It is my way to remind myself that my path is also that of the sacred warrior.Thus my work on medical fraud and good health, on corporate crime, freedom, justice and honesty.
I honour the gifts of my more recent Christian ancestors and of my Pagan ancestors,of all who helped make me whom I am. I learnt from the Aborgines I once lived, of how the earth itself is sacred, of the ethics of people who live close to the earth. I live in the British Isles where the Deity was once called Bride. It is in Her honour that women are still known as Brides when they wed, for on that day in ancient times the woman was seen as symbolising the Goddess. Bride's traditional colour is white - and thus brides today wear white. Her symbol was the White Horse -and many such horses have been carved into our chalk hills from ancient times. Thus also the man she weds is called the Groom as he is to tend her.
The Beatles in the 1960s went off to India to find spiritual wisdom, but it is here in our own woods, in our trees and birds - and inside each one of us - that we can find wisdom. There is in Europe, my greater homeland, the Western Mystical Tradition. It never has died. It has ancient origins - and it is not the unique to any one church, temple, people or race. It is essentially an inner path, one learnt by experience and dedication, rather than from books.
Much of our world is dominated by three religions born in the Middle East, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All three are, on the surface, dedicated to following a Sacred Book. But all Sacred Books are only a path and guide, as many of the greatest of their leaders taught.
Deep below the surface of all three there are mystical traditions. In Islam there are the Sufi, who mediated with a whirling dance. In Judaism, its mystical path gave rise to the honouring of Sophia -and the creation of the kabbalah, an ancient meditation and teaching tool. In Christianity we have such mystics as St Francis of Assisi, John of the Cross, Hildegard of Bingen, Marguerite Porete - but we in the West have not honoured our mystics as much as is done in many other paths. That is, perhaps, why the Beatles felt they had to go to India.
At the heart of Mysticism, is the learning of a Mystery, a Wonder in our heart, something that cannot be captured in words. It is like falling in love. This mystery encompasses a wondrous relationship between ourselves and a Person or Entity that we know as Divinity, as the Ineffable, Beyond Words, the Creator, the Sacred Parent - whom we may visualise under varying aspects, under different sacred names.
I believe in the sacred path that all humans have, in the way that is beyond all creeds, all denominations, that is ultimately a relationship between each of us and a creating God.
To a Page on the Mystics of the West
A mystic of Lebanon - K. Gibran
-- and more is coming --
On Fighting the Idols of the Dark. - coming...
