NLP - "neurolinguistic programming" - is a modern fad in therapeutic psychology. It explores the relationship between neurology, linguistics and observable patterns ("programs") of behaviour. At the simplest level, it's about the concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Someone who uses positive, optimistic words and gestures all of the time will "program" themselves to be a positive, optimistic person. Conversely, if you consistently use pessimistic, negative, defeatist language, you will become all of those things. It's well established that if you are feeling down, you can make yourself feel better by nothing more strenuous than smiling. The act itself releases chemicals associated with pleasure.

NLP, like advertising with which it has many links, is also based on Mimetic Magic. Its defining idea is that you should find someone you admire - a person who is excellent at what they do - and then copy them. You should painstakingly study them, learn their secrets and then replicate what you've picked up. By using their words, their techniques, their way of putting things, you program yourself to match their success. You start projecting their power and charisma. People start responding to you as they would to them. You notice that people now react to you differently, more favourably, and this leads to increased confidence on your part, and thus an even greater effect, in a virtuous cycle. And for some people it actually works. Give it a try. You'll either like it or you won't. You'll either benefit from it or not as the case may be. But it's worth a shot.

Salespeople are particularly keen on NLP. They tend to concentrate on two phases of selling: the pitch and closing the deal. Of course, only a fool would be taken in by them, but there are  a great number of fools out there. "Boiler room" teams who deal in fake shares have a thing called a "sucker list" - the names of tens of thousands of people whom they consider prime material for their scam. Pray you're not the sort of person on the list!

Everyone receives messages from Nigerians. In bad English, they say things like, "From the Desk of Mr Mohammed Abu. I need to get ten million dollars out of the country. I will give you a million dollars if help me you do, beautiful Sir or Madam. I look forward to hear from you. First you must send me a thousand dollars so that I can get my people to link to your account. URGENT!"

And there are people who respond!!! Plenty of them. This type of scam has been going on for ten years and still many people haven't wised up.  

But the NLP gang haven't understood the first thing about greatness. You don't change the world through imitation. It's innovation that marks out the extraordinary from the also-rans. Those who excel don't follow the crowd - they lead. They are authentic, not fakes. They are creators. They live and breathe what they do. The imitators are just parrots; their motivation is entirely wrong. They want to be successful on someone else's terms because they can't manage it on their own.

NLP is worth studying, but not from the point of view of imitation. Instead, you should use it to find techniques that help you to release your true self, that higher part of you that can operate at a more effective level than your normal self. Don't copy others; find yourself. Be all that you can be, not a shadow of someone else. An aide to a Chinese Emperor once thought he could impress his master by letting him hear the wonderful impression that an entertainer could do of the song of a nightingale. The Emperor listened politely then turned to the aide and said, "But why would I want to hear a copy of the nightingale when I can hear the nightingale itself?"

Now we come to part II of this magic world of ours - close encounters of the third kind - physical contact!!!!!

People crave breathing the same air as their celebrity gods, being in the same arena, reaching out to touch them. They will scream and beg for the celebrity to look their way, to let them take a picture. They will pass out if the celebrity wafts by. They will pay any price to be in the presence of these divine beings. Autographs of the famous become treasured objects. Items they once wore or touched get auctioned for enormous prices. People like to stay in the same hotel room where a famous person once slept.

The credulous masses think that to be in the presence of divinity means that they can suck in some of that divinity. That they can impress their friends. That they can make themselves seem cooler.

A few hundred years ago, people believed that they could be cured of illness if they touched a monarch. Why? Because monarchs were God's chosen ones, hence imbued with divine powers. What a load of shit!!!!!!!!! People still believe this nonsense in the present day. If the people of Britain didn't think there was something "magical" about their rancid queen, they would surely have overthrown her.

Many rulers forbade people to even look at them. The same thing can be seen in the modern world with the Muslim masses who bow and scrape when saying their prayers to their God, never once raising their eyes.

Pythagoras was fascinated by the power of these prohibitions. They seemed to have a magical effect on people. So, when outsiders came to see him, he sat behind a curtain, ensuring that their only contact with him was with his disembodied voice. He always began in the same way: "I swear by the air that I breathe and the water that I drink that I will never suffer censure on account of that which I am about to say." As he anticipated, his godlike reputation grew with astonishing rapidity the more he restricted people's access to him. One person even claimed that he had caught a glimpse of Pythagoras and observed that he had a golden thigh!

Celebrities ration their contact with ordinary people. Elizabeth Hurley refers to regular folk as "civilians," as if she's some sort of super soldier in an alternative reality.

Monarchs, Presidents, Popes…they all play the same game. They make it almost impossible for ordinary people to breathe the same air. They surround themselves with enormous pomp and ceremony, all designed to impress and intimidate. And people fall for it.

It's all bullshit!!! Wake up.

The human race is under a deep and dark magic spell cast by the Old World Order. So powerful is the spell that it even powers the economy.

Where's the action? Is it where you're at? And, if it isn't, shouldn't you be doing something about it? One of the main themes of The Last Bling King by Mike Hockney is whether or not anyone would want to watch the movie of which you are assuredly the star - your own life. Would the audience be on the edge of their seats, or falling asleep? Are even you half-asleep? How can you have a meaningful life if you haven't woken up yet, if you haven't freed yourself from the spell of your "masters"? Why would anyone want to watch your movie when they could watch the movie of the masters instead? Hell, even you prefer their movie. That's why you want to be them. That's why their spell over you is unbreakable. Everyone who worships celebrities is confessing to the world that they'd rather be in any movie other than their own.

All celebrity culture is toxic. In a celebrity culture, celebrities have infinite value and everyone else is valued at zero. Only morons would sign up for such a culture. If you're not a celebrity in a celebrity culture then you're a guaranteed loser. Just by participating in it, you've proved you're a second class citizen. You deserve to be treated with contempt because you chose that fate for yourself. The moment you cheer a celebrity is the moment you surrender your right to be regarded as anything of worth. If you don't rate yourself, why should anyone else rate you? If you yourself place so much value on the "A-list", doesn't that make you lower than the Z-list?

There's nothing to fear!!!!

Here's a video recommended by Pho' on his YouTube Channel.

Isn't it time to activate your superpowers? You'll never do it by being in the shadow of others.

Have you heard the latest leak, the most startling yet?

"Breaking news: strange cult that advocates human sacrifice has infiltrated the American Government to the highest levels."

Actually, that's not a WikiLeak. Nevertheless, it's completely true. The "strange cult" is Judaeo-Christianity, and everyone in the American Government belongs to it. All Abrahamists endorse the example of Abraham. This man was ordered by his God to commit human sacrifice. Not just any human sacrifice: that of a child. Not just any child: his own son. Abraham agreed unconditionally. So, the issue is this - is America safe in the hands of a Government that would slaughter their own children if their God ordered it? You either support Abraham's example or you repudiate it. If you don't repudiate it then you have acknowledged that you are prepared to engage in human sacrifice.

Shouldn't every member of the American Government be asked to stand up in Congress in front of all the cameras of the world and be asked to support human sacrifice by endorsing Abraham's example, or, alternatively, to reject Abraham and his God that demands unconditional obedience to the extent of killing children?

This is a question that literally cannot be asked because if it were it would destroy America. Those running America would have to publicly support human sacrifice, contrary to the American Constitution, the Declaration of Human Rights and common decency and morality, or reject Judaeo-Christianity and declare it unconstitutional, hence illegal. Civil war, holy war, would erupt.

So, you can see that WikiLeaks is trivial in comparison. What could be more shocking than that half the world endorses human sacrifice and child murder - providing it is sanctioned by "God"? The leaking of information is neither here nor there. What matters is who asks the questions, and who is compelled to answer them.

Every American should write to Obama and ask him the following question:

Dear Mr President,

I am an extremely concerned citizen. I understand that you are an advocate of human sacrifice. I say this because you are a self-professed Christian, and, as you know from your detailed study of the Torah, Old Testament and Koran, all Jews, Christians and Muslims agree with their patriarch Abraham that if God orders them to kill their own children then they should do so without question.

In my opinion, an American president who supports this position is unfit to hold any office, let alone the presidency. Please confirm as a matter of urgency whether you do indeed advocate God-sanctioned human sacrifice, or please state for the public record that you repudiate the example of Abraham, and the evil religions of Abrahamism to which he gave birth.

I am sure you can appreciate the gravity of this situation. There is no question that Abrahamism contradicts the American Constitution and the Declaration of Human Rights. By any standards, Abrahamism represents a crime against humanity, and its history has demonstrated that it is guilty of innumerable war crimes. The "God" of Abraham committed genocide against the human race when he caused the Great Flood that exterminated everyone other than Noah and his family. Should he therefore not be indicted for waging war against humanity? If human political leaders are to be held accountable for their crimes against humanity, why is God not similarly indicted?

I look forward to your prompt reply in this matter. If you refuse to reply, I will seek your removal from office on the grounds that your beliefs are anti-constitutional, and it will be up to the Supreme Court to adjudicate on whether it is legal for publicly elected American officials to be advocates of human sacrifice by virtue of their support of Abraham who did not hesitate to comply with God's order to kill his son. 

There is nothing in this letter that is factually false; there is nothing secret about Abraham's willingness to commit human sacrifice. Indeed, it is celebrated every year by hundreds of millions of Abrahamists, particularly Muslims.

As we have previously explained, Muslims believe that "Satan" three times pleaded for the life of Abraham's child and was three times driven away by a stone-throwing Abraham. On 9/11 when passengers on the hijacked planes were pleading for their lives, you can be sure that the Islamic terrorists thought to themselves: "Aha, these people are pleading with us just as Satan pleaded with Abraham, and we must surely drive them away just as Abraham did. Nothing will deflect us from obeying the will of God. Allah Akbar!!!" In other words, Muslims have been pre-programmed to reject any pleas for mercy and to carry out the most horrific acts conceivable. If a Muslim would not shirk from killing his own son, why would he hesitate for a moment to slaughter as many infidels as possible?

WikiLeaks has not yielded anything at all that anyone who watches the news or reads the newspapers would not already have known or suspected. The significance of WikiLeaks, and Julian Assange in particular, lies elsewhere. Assange's importance is that he has managed to seize control of the narrative. Because of him, the Elite are having to discuss matters they would prefer not to. Even worse for them, they don't know what's coming next. Maybe WikiLeaks will get their hands on something really juicy.

Assange has become a hero, a rallying point for all anti-establishment forces. He will never sell-out, that's for sure. He will certainly be pilloried and defamed. They will do everything to bring him down.

The Elite's main weapon is that they control the narrative. Once they lose that, they're finished. That's why the internet is potentially so important. It allows the official narrative to be bypassed. The content of this website would never have been sanctioned by the Elite's media gatekeepers, but in the age of the internet they are no longer relevant.

Social networking is an ingenious attempt by the Elite to make the internet as vapid and pointless as the rest of the media. Their main aim is to ensure that the people never ask difficult questions. Facebook is a circus of trivia, exactly as the Elite like it. The people, the Elite decree, must be prevented from challenging the legitimacy of their leaders.

Consider the Queen of the UK. She is the head of State and yet she is unelected and unaccountable to the British people. Not a single person is allowed to ask her a question. Do you realise how breathtaking that is? The British people are not citizens but "commoners" and "subjects" who are not entitled to change their head of state or even to ask them anything, and they are expected to walk backwards when they are withdrawing from the "royal presence". Why would any sane person agree to such an arrangement? Nor is it ever discussed. All voices in Britain that advocate the replacement of the monarchy with a republic are ignored. No mainstream political party supports a republic, nor any newspaper or well-known public figure. All debate concerning the monarchy is suppressed.

The Queen should be asked a single question: "Are you for or against meritocracy?" If she answers "for" then, as an unelected, anti-meritocratic hereditary monarch she would have to abdicate on the spot. If she says "against" then she has explicitly acknowledged that the UK is a society of privilege that actively works against the forces of meritocracy.

The fact is that if you don't already have the worst possible opinion of the ruling Elite then you obviously haven't been paying any attention to the world around you. There is NOTHING that WikiLeaks could reveal that would lower our opinion of the rulers of this world because it's already as low as it can get.

All of us have enormously more information than we could ever need to judge the rulers of the world. We don't need any more. We don't need any leaks. They simply provide more of the same data. They don't change the big picture one iota.

Look at the Zeitgeist movies. How often have you heard these being discussed in the mainstream media? Never. Every issue they raised is ignored. Why? Because the last thing the people in charge want is for these issues to become the heart of the political, economic and cultural debate. The Zeitgeist movies are freely available and millions have watched them, but enormously greater numbers haven't and aren't aware of any of this material. They are locked into the narrative of the Old World Order. They're happy with their X Factor television dross, their video games, Lady Gaga, and their Facebook lives that pose no challenge at all to the prevailing hegemony.  

What is the world waiting for? If the Credit Crunch didn't cause a revolution, why should WikiLeaks prove any more successful? We are confronted by endless scandals and abuses regarding the Elite. Everything they do is a provocation and an insult to the people. Britain has a Queen who refers to the people as her subjects. Why would anyone tolerate that? Yet the British do, in their legions. Why do so few people have any dignity and self-respect? Why don't they care? Why don't they think? Why do they have no standards and values?

These are the real issues. Everything else is mere distraction.

Those who control the narrative control the consciousness of the masses. While the Elite can provide bread and circuses just as they did in ancient Rome, their position remains practically impregnable, but the cracks are growing.

The real war is between a small group of super privileged on the one hand, and a growing number of radical and revolutionary opponents on the other. The masses in the middle are just flocks of sheep and herds of cows seeking guidance from whoever sets the narrative. They are sheeple, not people. They will happily watch American Idol or X Factor while Rome burns all around them. Yet as economies grind to a halt, dole queues lengthen, foreclosures rise, protests and demonstrations multiply, even the sheeple will start to ask questions.

WikiLeaks is part of the answer in terms of the embarrassment it causes the Establishment, but the complete solution is to make the Elite subject to the people. Heads of state must be accountable. They must answer to their people. They must be interrogated by the people regarding the tough issues of the day. No question can be off limits. If they call themselves Christians then they must justify their beliefs. If they hand over public money to private banks then the people must sit on the boards of those banks. The personal financial affairs of the richest 1% of the population should be subject to public scrutiny.          

Despite everything, the world is starting to change. The Tipping Point is approaching. Everyone can feel it. The "People Reactor" is reaching critical mass - 5% of the population is all that's needed: all of the dynamic, strong, determined tribunes of the people coming together in one great resistance movement. When the chain reaction begins, it will be unstoppable. All of the neutrals will be drawn into the vortex of energy. Look at these pictures of recent events in London where even the apathetic British are being roused to action. Schoolkids and students are leading the uprising. Congratulations to all of them. It's about time! If you won't fight for your future, why should anyone else?

"All the power's in the hands,

Of people rich enough to buy it.

While we walk the street,

Too chicken to even try it."

Are we heading for a new French Revolution, on a global scale? Are we just one spark away? The rancid edifice of the Elite has now reached an astoundingly precarious position. In Europe, the Euro currency is close to collapse, which would precipitate a global financial crisis and destabilise every stock market in the world. The financial system is already stretched to breaking point. If new trouble hits, big banks will certainly go under. Every debt will be called in. Foreclosures will rapidly increase; dole queues will grow spectacularly.

The Elite have no credit left. One final heave and they are gone for good. More and more, 2012 looks like the year when the Old World Order will perish. Will they go quietly or will they call out their puppets in the police and army, those perpetual class traitors and lackeys of the rich, to attack the people? We already know the answer:

The people at the top of the pyramid aren't the geniuses they make themselves out to be. Quite the reverse, in fact. The credit crunch originated in risk models created by "brilliant" groups of PhD scientists, mathematicians and economists. They were so complex that no one understood them, just as no one understood derivatives. It was discovered after the crash that the risk models were, in effect, all predicated on a single premise that even the biggest moron on earth would have known was laughably bogus. This was none other than the belief that house prices always rise. The whole world economy started to revolve around this single axis, and while house prices went up, the risk model worked perfectly and everything boomed. But then banks started giving mortgages to people who did not have jobs nor any income - this was the infamous "sub-prime" market. This didn't matter in the slightest while house prices were rising because people could simply keep borrowing against the rising price of their houses, and use this to keep paying their mortgages. But then the music stopped. House prices began to falter, stall and, finally, fall. The sub-primes couldn't borrow any more. They couldn't meet their liabilities. House prices started to collapse. And thus the whole house of cards imploded. The fatal assumption that house prices could never fall was hideously refuted.

But the real question is why something so staggeringly obvious was ignored by all of the "geniuses" at the top of the tree who pay themselves such enormous sums of money for their supremely rare "talents". Was it perhaps because they were blinded by sheer greed, that they personally raked in enormous amounts of money and they knew that if anything went wrong they could simply turn to the taxpayers and get them to bail out the system?

The chief executives who made their banks insolvent were allowed to "leave" with vast golden goodbyes - at taxpayers' expense, though no taxpayer was ever consulted. Why weren't they dismissed in disgrace and escorted off the premises without a cent? That never happens in a society of privilege where the Elite are always protected.

The people at the top of the pyramid know nothing about computer security. The control of data on a system as vast as the internet is simply impossible. There are endless ways to extract enormous amounts of data. Any "secure" data on the internet is inherently at risk. Everything can be hacked. There are no secrets in cyberspace.

The Information War is here. This is the Third World War, but it doesn't involve nation states with marching armies but sedentary armies of cyber-geeks. Russia and China have recruited enormous forces of hackers to disrupt the West, to commit espionage, to steal data.

The Third World War will not involve bombing civilian populations. It will be about cyber attacks on governments, institutions, agencies, private corporations, and super rich private individuals.

The group known as Anonymous is potentially much more powerful than WikiLeaks. When they attacked financial institutions that had tried to strangle WikiLeaks' operations, they showed how the Third World War will be fought.

In the future, the people will identify companies and institutions that they despise and Anonymous will set out to put those companies and institutions out of business by sabotaging their computing infrastructures, by preventing them from using the internet, by grabbing all of their data. As in The Matrix, computer hackers will be the Resistance, the new Knights Templar fighting the good fight.

He who controls the information controls the world. That control must be wrested from the Privileged Elite.

The Hour of Decision is coming ever closer. One spark, just one spark, and everything changes. Are you ready to take control? Are you ready for a New World Order?

The clowns running the circus have run out of jokes. No one's laughing anymore.

David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, has a leafy, affluent constituency in Oxfordshire in England. A 12-year-old boy in his constituency was infuriated when he heard that the popular local youth club was going to be closed because of financial cut backs. Via Facebook, he arranged for a protest outside Cameron's constituency office. Shortly afterwards, police visited his school, hauled him out of class and warned him that he would be arrested if any trouble broke out at the protest, whether or not he was present at the demo! Anti-terrorism officers had monitored his Facebook campaign. Britain is becoming a police state in front of our eyes.

Cameron  enjoyed the finest education money can buy. He attended the most elite private school in the world - Eton College - then went onto one of the world's most elite universities: Oxford, where he was a member of the ultra-elite Bullingdon Club.

As his Government implements savage cuts throughout the British economy, this multi-millionaire says, "We're all in it together."

Does he really think we're that stupid? As the cuts hit, it won't be him or his family that suffer a single blip in their lives of extreme privilege. But when a Meritocratic Government replaces his and implements a 100% inheritance tax then he'll be right that we're all in it together.

There's only one way to reboot the world, to change it forever, and that is to bring an end to private wealth staying in the hands of elite families generation after generation, allowing the rich to keep getting richer and defying the law of the regression to the mean.

Generational private wealth = the Society of Privilege = the Old World Order = monarchs and Zionist bankers and nobility and aristocracy and heirs and heiresses and trust funds and elite private schools and colleges, bribery and corruption, cartels, exclusive clubs and societies for the rich, rigged markets, an in-crowd, an A-list, a fast-track for the well-connected, and the world being owned by banks, private corporations and a few thousand individuals.

100% inheritance tax = the end of all of that.

A 100% inheritance tax will create a Commonwealth where all of the money is continually recycled and is available to the whole population, and none of it remains locked forever in private hands.

Private dynastic wealth is the curse under which humanity toils. That curse is lifted by the Commonwealth. There is no other cure.

A new world. 

A new beginning.

Everyone setting out on the race of life from the same starting line.

No masters. No slaves. No privilege. No underprivilege.

Meritocracy. Justice. Freedom. Equality before the Law. Equality of Opportunity.

Isn't it time to create the world we should have had all along?

Only one thing stands in our way - the supporters of privilege and private wealth. They control the agenda of the world. They have brainwashed the world with their toxic message. They have made us their slaves. They have subjugated us with their Devil religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam that advocate total submission to the powers-that-be, even to the extent of human sacrifice.

Adam Weishaupt devoted his life to the overthrow of the old religions, the old power structures, the old elites. He achieved great things, but he failed to liberate the world once and for all. Has the time come at last for Weishaupt's vision of a New World Order where the People righteously rise up and cast off the chains that have bound them for so long?

All it takes is a single spark.

"The Ancien Régime is a Satanic Order. The Illuminati's noble and historic mission is to release man's higher self by destroying the archons - the princes of the world - who prosecute Satan's will and hold mankind in their thrall. Their corruption has reached its zenith in France. That diabolical tyranny is ripe for destruction. All that is required is a spark. We are the spark."

Adam Weishaupt (Grand Master of the Illuminati), 1789

In the days of ancient Rome, the great pagan festival of late December was called the Saturnalia in honour of Saturn, the god of agriculture, who was said to have long ago presided over the fabled Golden Age of the world when food and wine were plentiful and of the highest quality, when peace and tranquility reigned, when all property was held in common. There were no masters and no slaves. But, without warning, Saturn disappeared and the world fell into ruin, discord and evil.

The festivities of Saturnalia were designed to summon the beautiful memory of the carefree paradise of the past. They lasted for a full week, ending on the winter solstice (considered the 25^th of December in the Julian calendar, the birthday of the sun and all gods of light).

It was a time of freedom from all the usual routines of life. Law courts were closed and no criminals punished. All public business was suspended. Schools were shut.

Merrymaking and riotous fun were the rule of the day. It wasn't unusual for violent disorder to break out or mass orgies. Debauchery was everywhere. The whole city let it all hang out. Every dark passion was vented: a true vision of Sin for Salvation.

Female slaves were allowed to dress up and go around mocking and jeering at everyone they met, and bitching and throwing stones at each other.

In the Saturnalia, slaves reversed places with their masters and the masters were duty bound to attend to every need of their slaves. A King of Misrule was appointed, and given a crown, a robe, a sceptre and a throne. It was his task to oversee and urge on the feasting, revelry and abandoned behaviour. All moral codes were ignored.

The Christians were clever enough to realise that they couldn't deprive the people of their fun, so they simply superimposed their own special celebration over the usual festivities. They imitated the example of the many pagan gods born at the winter solstice and invented a birthday of December 25 for Jesus Christ.

Thus we have the uncomfortable dichotomy that persists to the present day of decadence, debauchery, gluttony, lust and party-time coexisting with carol singing, holy mass and a reverential day in honour of the birth of the "Son of God".  None of it makes sense. It breeds hypocrisy and double-think. Sanctimonious fools make a great display of going to church and then, as soon as they get back home, they tuck into mountains of food and knock back the booze as if there were no tomorrow. You would think they would fast and pray all day, but, no, they join in the Saturnalian excess like everyone else.

"Christmas" is about capitalist consumption in overdrive, about wallowing in objects (called "presents"), about cloying sentimentality and nostalgia, about fake brotherhood, about materialism, about competition regarding how impressive your Christmas lights are. It's one of the saddest days of the year, fully exposing the human proclivity for being neither one thing nor another, for making no commitment. Either Christmas is a holy day or it's a day of debauchery. How can it be both?

It's time to bring back the original pagan Saturnalia and get rid of all the phoney Christmas trimmings. They were fake the day they were invented and they've remained fake ever since. Let's make the Saturnalia an honest festival - honestly devoted to getting out of our heads for a week!!!!!! Get rid of "Baby Jesus" and all the rest of the ludicrous God Squad shit.  

Consider the absurd tale of a virgin giving birth to the Son of God in a stable in Judea. It's such a staggeringly ludicrous concoction that it beggars belief that this nonsense has been peddled for two thousand years and is still going strong. If ever you wanted proof that a good story beats the truth every time then the Nativity story is surely it. People want to believe it so they do. In order to believe it, they have to disengage their rational minds, so they do. Unfortunately they start disengaging their reason and logic permanently and thus they became credulous fools, able to be conned by any charismatic snakeoil salesman. Christianity is the greatest con job in history, a masterpiece of exploiting the gullible.  

It even manages to pull off the impossible trick of presenting Jesus Christ as the humblest of people - born in a lowly stable, and visited by poor shepherds - and yet with a heavenly star overhead (how many "ordinary" people are born under a star sent from God?), and visited by three "kings" of the East who proclaim him King of the World. He is even explicitly described as belonging to the  royal house of King David. Throughout his life, Jesus is presented as just another person and yet also as a king, a messiah and a God. Talk about having your cake and eating it.

Consider this. The whole point of Christ's "atonement" for the sins and crimes of the human race was that he suffered horrific agony on a cross. Yet did he really suffer? If he was God, as he was purported to be, then how could he suffer? It's impossible. God isn't tormented about his personal fate, about what comes next, about how he will be judged, so it's ridiculous to talk of the "Passion of Christ". When you "become God" you transcend the human condition. You no longer suffer the agonies of mortals. You have escaped from all of that. It's ridiculous to say that a man-god has the same experiences as an ordinary person. They are the complete opposite. Anyone who has attained divinity has gone infinitely far beyond the human condition and it's meaningless to refer to them as an ordinary person. The whole basis of Christianity - that "God" fully entered into human existence as an ordinary mortal while nevertheless remaining God and all that entails - is preposterous.

Reverse Christmas

Shit.

Every year Jake got his timing wrong. When the annual Christmas Eve blackout came, he was always Mister Wrong-Place-Wrong-Time. He'd just started to take a leak against Agnes Smith's fence, and now the blackout ensured he couldn't see a frigging thing. The piss was alternately running down his leg and splashing off his shoes into the powdery snow.

He was in big trouble. Home was still a whole street away. Why did he agree to that last, fatal drink? Madness. Every year, the same dumb bravado: 'Oh, they'll never catch me.'

He zipped himself up and stood perfectly still, praying he wouldn't hear the high-pitched sound of doom. Last year, the ten-strong choir had sung Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody. Two broken ribs were the outcome. He was particularly dreading Wizzard's I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day. He'd probably be hospitalised for weeks. He felt so fragile. Who wants to be in Emergency on Christmas Day?

Could he melt into the shadows, cover that final couple of hundred metres like the stealthiest cat?

Then - Christ Almighty - a loud cough. Jake spun round and there they were - the multi-ethnic choir of orphans, each resembling a perfect angel. Monsters. They were holding their torches at chest level, pointing the beams straight upwards so that their faces looked otherworldly. What torture did they have in mind this year? Of course, like all angels, they were messengers, but no one wanted to receive the message they were here to deliver. Yet it wasn't these choristers in their white, winged costumes and cute halos who would land the crippling blows. Where were They?

Jake glanced around in desperation. Flickering candles that cast the softest of festive light illuminated the windows of the surrounding homes. He longed to be safely inside. His Mum would be standing at the bay window, wondering where he was, praying he was safe. Why did he have to get involved? From eleven o'clock until midnight everyone knew there was only one place to be - indoors. Because the streets were Their territory for one hour on Christmas Eve. The Dark Hour.

The angelic choir broke into their first song. God spare us - Greg Lake's I Believe in Father Christmas.

They said there'll be snow at Christmas

They said there'll be peace on Earth

A violent shudder racked Jake's body. Only one song could have spelt bigger trouble - Bing Crosby and David Bowie's deadly duet: Peace on Earth/The Little Drummer Boy. You had to be thinking body bags if you were unlucky enough to hear that one.

Jake fell to his knees. 'Please, no, I'm begging.'

But the choir simply sang more loudly. He was a goner. They would be alerted to where he was. They'd emerge from the shadows, full of their Christmas Eve mulled wine followed by the inevitable peach schnapps shooters to sharpen their aggression.

He wanted to push the angels to the ground. Grind their faces into the snow then rain snowballs packed with ice down on their haloed heads. They were the heralds of…

And there They were - finally - wearing those new bright-glo, orange zoot suits with luminous-green night cravats. There were five of them; real bloated like they'd been in a hi-flab, anti-health farm in London for the last week. The word Millionaire was stamped in electric-blue shine writing on every inch of their suits.

Gold Sacks boys.

Every year their blood-sucking Merchant Bank gave them a leather sack full to the brim with Krugerrand and told them to go out and make sure the world knew exactly who they were. 'Light up the Dark Hour, boys and girls. Show the poor what they're missing. Restore the natural order of masters and slaves.'

'Guess what, dosser?' the leader of the Gold Sackers said over the strains of Greg Lake's lyrics, aggro-max style, taking no prisoners and all that. 'This is a reverse mugging.'

Jake, standing up straight, took a slurp from his can of Stomach Pump™ extra strong lager and laughed nervously. He decided he had no option but to give it the big bluff. 'I thought for a moment you ponces said you were going to mug me.'

'Not a mugging, numb balls,' the fattest of the millionaires came back ten four, cool and creepy, 'a reverse mugging.'

Jake was seeing stacks of puzzle cubes in his mind. 'What do you, um, mean?' His mouth was going into stutter action. 'I've never heard of a, er, you know, em, a reverse mugging.'

'That's because we've only just invented it, prick.' The Gold Sackers all sniggered and pointed at the shine-writing on their suits to emphasise their fat-catness.

Jake's brain was booking serious overtime. 'Let me get this, um, straight. I'm the poor guy without any money and you're the rich guys and you want, er, me to give you my money?'

'Good try, muppet, but one hundred and eighty degrees in the negative,' the head honcho hard-talked and signalled to his colleagues as the choristers sang even more lustily.

And I believed in Father Christmas

And I looked at the sky with excited eyes

The five millionaires surrounded Jake. Act One - knuckleduster punch to the solar plexus. Doubling up, agony drill. Act Two - karate chop to the neck. Swinging brogues, parabolic trajectory, multiple direct hits in the groin. Tears and fears. Going down, all the way. Blackout curtains closing round his eyes.

The millionaires lifted Jake off his feet and launched him headfirst into a puddle, where three glow-in-the-dark used-condoms were floating on the surface. The Gold Sackers formed a circle around their victim, their orange bodies inflating and deflating like bad wheezes, and put the boot in. Afterwards, they unzipped themselves and urinated over him. Then came the final touch, the piece de resistance. They took out their bags of gold, counted out five coins each and threw them at Jake's prostrate body.

'So, now you know, dumb arse,' the fattest man hissed. 'A reverse mugging is when the rich guys kick the blue bells out of the poor guy, then give him their money. Now go find a job, cunt. Oh, and Merry Christmas.'

The attack was over. The reverse muggers left, laughing all the way to their parked flash cars.

The snow was falling more heavily, swirling in the wind. The angelic choir reached its crescendo.

They said there'll be snow at Christmas

They said there'll be peace on Earth

Hallelujah Noel be it Heaven or Hell

The Christmas you get you deserve

With that, they turned and walked away, searching for fresh prey for their Dark Paymasters.

Bastards.

Jake lay still in the water, too bruised to move, strapped to an aches and pains matrix, all scratchy and Heath Robinson. His mouth had been burst open and he spat out some blood.

'Merry Christmas,' he repeated as snow peppered the water. He imagined he could see ice crystals forming in the little pool. Would he be encased in a block of glittering ice, shining from the inside with its gorgeous gold treasure? At least he could afford to buy his Mum a nice present in the Boxing Day sales now.

The truth hit him like a slap in the face. He was in a shit-forsaken world and he'd just reached rock bottom, or rather the particularly nasty crap under the rock at the very bottom.

That was when it happened, the beginning of the strangest thing.

Screw the feel-good factor, a voice whispered. The time has come for something different. The world is crying out for our medicine.

Jake raised his head, fearing the millionaires and their evil choir of familiars had returned, but no one was there.

Don't you see? the strange voice continued. It's time to spread the feel-bad factor. Feeling like shit is going to be the ultimate fashion statement for next year.

Jake groaned and pushed his face closer to the surface of the puddle. He saw a little chunk of red shimmer-light falling from a candle in the window of a hooker's apartment. The image wavered and was replaced by that of two well-scrubbed faces. He looked up and found himself in the unmistakable presence of two do-gooders, Jehovah's Witnesses by the look of them, carrying neon Bibles.

'Hello, have you had a personal crisis recently?' The taller of the clean-cut young men stretched out a hand towards Jake.

Jake declined the offer and continued to lie in the puddle, watching flicker-trick red water entering the opening of the can of lager he'd drunk from earlier.

'We can help.' The second well-dressed young man crouched down, shining his torch straight into Jake's face. 'We're part of the world's largest family. You can be part of that family too. A problem shared…'

'Is a problem multiplied.' Jake wondered what had happened to the strange voice he'd heard earlier. 'I've heard the tune before. It's the words I don't get.' Fresh, and much more intense, pains began. It was as if someone had switched on an electric circuit linking every nerve-ending in his body. He was a lit-up Christmas tree short of the Christmas.

'You shouldn't look at it that way.' The Witnesses introduced themselves as Oliver and Theodore.

'Do you believe in the End of the World?' Jake said. He rolled onto his back and stared at the black sky.

'The End is a lot closer than most people imagine.' Theodore had a knowing look in his eye. 'Most people have no idea.'

'No idea at all,' Jake stated flatly.

'It could be today,' Oliver added.

For you, it certainly will be. It was the voice again.

'Christ, did you hear that?' Jake squealed.

'Hear what?' The Witnesses looked around, confused.

'That whiney little voice. It's threatening me.'

'We heard nothing. Perhaps it's an after-effect of your injuries.'

'Maybe you're right.' Jake wondered if one of his ribs was broken. Jesus, maybe it was much worse…brain damage? He hauled himself out of the puddle and struggled to his feet. The streets of Newcastle were wet and dark, dime-detective-novel sleazy. A lot nicer than Jake's native Glasgow, right enough, but lacking the fond fellow feeling inspired by all of that famous fraternal Glasgow kissing.

'We must get you out of those wet clothes,' Oliver said. 'You're soaked through.'

Jake brushed off a condom that had become entangled with the belt of his jeans. 'You're Jevvies, aren't you?'

'If you mean Jehovah's Witnesses then we certainly are,' Theodore answered. 'Would you like to read some of our literature?' He fished in his satchel then thrust a copy of Watchtower at Jake.

Jake waved it away. He wasn't sure why he was even talking to God Squadders. Normally he'd have told them to fuck right off, no matter what condition he was in. Maybe he was feeling vulnerable because of that nasty little voice.

As soon as he thought that, the voice spoke again. You might believe you have a degree of control over what's happening, but you couldn't be more wrong.

'What the fuck is happening?' Jake moaned.

The two Jevvies exchanged curious glances. They'd seen demonic possession before.

'Who's talking to me?' Jake shouted. 'I demand to know.'

Tonight's the night, Jakey boy, the voice replied. The stranger within becomes the stranger without.

'I don't frigging believe this.' Jake cradled his wet head.

You're finished, Jake, the voice continued. You had your chance and you blew it. Look at you. All washed up; a nobody going nowhere. For fuck's sake, fat millionaires have beaten you up and now you're talking to Jevvies. You couldn't sink any lower. So, you see, it's time for a new outfit to run the show. Get the picture?

'Why don't you pick on someone else, you bastard,' Jake ranted.

You've been chosen, Jake, my boy. There's nothing you can do about it. Just tell yourself it was written in the stars or some astrological bollocks like that.

'Why me?'

Why not, you shitty cunt?

'Get out of my head!' Jake screamed.

I'll be doing more than that. I'll be getting you out of your head.

And, with that, Jake knew he was in the biggest trouble of his life.

All of the lights came back on…Midnight.

Christmas.

Instantly, a huge hologram appeared in the night sky, showing breathtaking festive images. Grottoes and elves and cribs; snowy castles and cosy families and dining tables crammed with mouth-watering dishes. Parcels galore wrapped in the most expensive Christmas gift paper. Wine and song and merriment. Everyone laughing. A million bright smiles. A great, shining, dazzling, brilliant, multi-coloured star in the sky.

Three men wearing gaudy Christmas paper crowns emerged from a Speak-Easy. They were guffawing, patting each other on the back and wishing each other a Merry Christmas.

'Merry Christmas to you too,' they shouted to the Jevvies, but Theodore and Oliver scowled.

'We may be Christians,' the Jevvies said, 'but we don't celebrate Christmas.'

'Eh?' one of the three drunks said. 'We're professors of philosophy from East University. How can you be Christians if you hate Christmas?'

A little girl wandered by, clutching a handbag shaped like a sheep.

Jake glanced at the dilapidated building directly opposite: a closed-down wine bar called The Stables. The truth dawned. None of this was any accident. Here he was on Christmas Day, with a strange voice inside him trying to get out, with three wise men from the East - or Kings if you preferred - standing in front of him. There was a little shepherdess too. Throw in a couple of doubting Thomas's, for good measure, and unjust persecution (well, a good beating up) by rich folk. Last and not least, a spectacular star in the sky. What did it all add up to?

Jesus Christ, Jake thought, I'm turning into Jesus Christ!!!

Cunt! the voice snarled.

Correction, Jake reconsidered: I'm turning into the Antichrist.

The hairs on his body stood on end. His hands shook. Colours and sounds ran into each other. Long-forgotten faces reappeared in his mind. Snippets of thousands of dimly remembered conversations strolled in and out of his consciousness as though they were promenading though Leazes Park. He had the feeling his mind was being emptied in preparation for being filled anew, with the memories of someone, or something, else.

Jake was getting desperate. Maybe the Jevvies' Jehovah was just the guy he needed to help him fight back against the voice. Whatever it was doing to him, the process was well under way, and accelerating. He didn't have much time left.

'When the end comes, only Jehovah's Witnesses will be saved,' Theodore said.

'Everyone else?' Jake winced involuntarily as fresh pains convulsed through him.

'We need only concern ourselves with the Saved.'

'Saved from what?'

'From ourselves.'

Jake understood perfectly. He sure as hell needed to be saved from the voice in his head. It was pushing him out of the driving seat. Adrenaline surged through his body and he started to sway.

'The word of Jehovah can be overpowering,' Oliver whispered. 'We understand how you feel. It was the same my first time.'

Jake didn't answer. He had an army of worker ants toiling away inside him, rearranging his molecular structure. The voice was gaining the upper hand and he was powerless to prevent it.

You're on your way out, bozo, the voice mocked. Say hello to the dinosaurs 'cos you'll soon be every bit as extinct.

Jake futilely tried to comprehend the incomprehensible.

You don't understand, do you? the voice said. I am a voice that hasn't been heard for an Eternity. If you said, like those trashy newspapers you enjoy reading, that I was a god and that I had a taste for late-night beach crawling on the golden sands of ancient Greece, you'd be either bang on the mark or off your fucking trolley. Not that I intend to confirm the rumours either way.

What I'm prepared to say is this. I'm all strange things. I'm strangeness itself. Think of me as a kind of sickness; a sickness, I might add - and indeed I shall since I'm that sort of guy - that once it has touched you, can only be purged by an eruption. You may ejaculate, but not over the carpet, for fuck's sake. Or vomit. Ditto. Maybe you'll scream until the top detaches itself from your head, and so much the better.

The voice's takeover was nearing completion. Jake ought to have been appalled, yet somehow he scarcely minded now. Maybe it was the best thing that had ever happened to him. At last - someone in charge who actually knew what he was doing.

Showtime, the voice declared. It had won. It prepared to declare its first audible words to a quaking world. Oh, how the fools would suffer.

'My God, what's happening to you?' Theodore said to the former Jake.

The former Jake smiled, knowing his transformation must have rendered him a sight terrible to behold, striking fear into every heart. He attempted to speak aloud to the world for the very first time, but strange - wrong - words were in his mouth. What the hell was going on? He caught sight of his reflection in a window and vomited, making a nice Jackson Pollock mess on the snow.

He wasn't the young, slim, godlike creature, in the most stylish of clothes, that he was expecting. Instead, he was tubby, old - with a thick white beard - and a large sack over his shoulder containing what felt like hard-edged, boxy parcels. And why on Earth was he wearing red, his least favourite colour?

'Ho, ho, ho,' he blurted involuntarily.

Then the realisation - the horrific, cold, unadulterated truth - struck home. He knew exactly what he'd become, and the terrible, appalling first words that were sure to spew from his mouth, mocking everything he stood for.

'Merry Christmas everybody,' he bellowed in a ridiculously jolly voice.

Bored by Christmas already? Here's something to distract you from the Christian horror - God's calculator, no less. Master484 has kindly offered a fascinating insight into this mystical instrument. Do you believe that words conceal secret mathematical codes that can reveal hidden patterns and connections? Here's your chance to test out your speculations. 

You can download it from here:

And finally some death metal for Saturnalia.

Have a great pagan festival!