Ben Fairhall

Ben writes a blog called "Battling the Behemoth," subtitled 'Exploring the Mysteries of Albion...' In this world, intelligence and conspiracy theory are not always partners.

Ben has agreed to share his thoughts on a variety of questions raised after reading his web site for several months.

Without further ado...

1. Many researchers have disclosed that they personally have been guided or drawn in some manner to their subject(s). Do you feel this is the case with you as well? If so, would you mind sharing one or two examples of what occurred?
 

Definitely, yes: but it was a long and twisted journey.  I've been on a spiritual pilgrimage, consciously, since I was a child: where I am today is the culmination, though by no means the destination.  Thus, it is certainly the case that 'conspiracies' can encompass the biggest and most important questions of them all. I was lucky to come across David Icke's work; that was the key to unlocking my present path. Before that it was a decade of despair in the most arid emotional desert I have ever encountered.  The Dark Night of the Soul, I believe it's called.  Icke was able to walk into my brain and switch a few of the lights back on; since then, I've simply been following my intuition and attempting to find connections.

 
2. In addition to your writing, what other writers or books would you recommend as the most valuable to arrive at your research with a common perspective?
 

I've already paid my dues to the big chap, of course.  In addition to him, I would finger Ellis Taylor's work as some of the most original; but the great thing about the conspiracy field is how quickly new faces appear.  Jake Kotze is a very talented seer and artist, in my opinion- then there's Tsarion, etc.  The individual books I have drawn on most in my research are Talisman by Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock, The Sun and the Serpent by Paul Broadhurst and Hamish Miller, and 'HBHG' by Baigent, Lincoln and Leigh.

3. How do you personally decipher truth from unintended mistakes and deliberate disinformation?
 

Usually by verification.  With disinfo, I tend to look at the broad strokes rather than the particulars.  What are the assumptions the writer is making?  What are his holy cows? I love writers like Knight & Lomas for these reasons.  Yes, they have revealed a lot of Freemasonic mysteries- and possibly invented one or two as well- but a sober analysis will reveal that their fundamental culture is most definitely Judeo-Christian, with the emphasis very much on the Judeo.  On the back of Uriel's Machine we read that Christopher Knight 'has always had a strong interest in social behaviour and belief systems and for many years has been a consumer psychologist involved in the planning of new products and their marketing.'  Considering that this glowing endorsement appears on the inside jacket of a book ostensibly about ancient conspiracies, I can only conclude that someone's having a laugh at our expense.

 

A new product (of the ages) is exactly what the entire 'mysteries genre' is trying to engineer.  It's called the survival of Christianity in Aquarius, and the guys to watch are the Mormons.

4. What is your concept of the connections, if any, between the western occult tradition and eastern philosophic traditions (Buddhism and Taoism, in particular)?
 

There is certainly a 'golden thread' which unites all the religious paths of the world in common; but this is rarely disclosed to the poor folk who make up the masses of the conregants.  I tend to distinguish, therefore, between any expression of Gnosis (esoteric) and the trappings of religion- whether western or eastern.  Eastern spirituality has benefitted from some very positive spin over the last fifty years; its philosophy underpins much New Age doctrine; and loosely counter-cultural figures such as Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) and Bhagavan Shree Rajneesh have very skilfully imported an east-west fusion which is deceptively attractive to many seekers.  When I look more closely at these movements, however, I see the same old thought forms regrouping.  If there is a single difference which, to my mind, illustrates the difference between the esoteric and exoteric traditions, it is in the role of sexuality.  The loosely eastern-influenced New Age has certainly lost its inhibitions; but, like everything else, sex is used by the New Age as a ransom for cash and a recruiting tool for the gullible.  Similarly, what passes for 'tantra' in Britain, for example, is surely a world apart from the true kama marga.

5. How do you think that psychedelic entheogens impart knowledge of 'cosmic consciousness'?
 

By offering a technological alternative to years of intense spiritual exercise, I would imagine.  There is no doubt in my mind that the advent of LSD- whoever was behind it- was a significant step in the world ascension process (if you'll excuse the phrase) but, equally, it's this same immediacy which can be problematic for the unprepared.  I expect that, for the entheogenic shaman, linking with forces behind the veil is easily accomplished.  The magician can do the same thing unassisted, of course, but is usually cognisent of the risks involved.  

 

It is certainly the case that, on certain psychedelics, the barriers between self and other are lifted, in some instances forcibly.  I liken it to the drop returning to the sea.  That such a sudden influx of radically new information can be potentially destabilising is, I would have thought, fairly obvious.

 

I don't believe the Gnosis- or Goddess- works in quite that way.  This is why, in Aquarius, the shift will be gradual and (I believe) almost imperceptible.

6. What is your understanding of geomancy? How does it impart power and where does this energy originate from?

It's important to differentiate between the classical definition of geomancy and what it has become in the eyes of various New Agers.  The occult art of geomancy was a form of divination using earth or stones thrown at random, to discover significant patterns- a rustic I-Ching, if you will.  The word has become somewhat muddied by associations with the New Age movement and so-called ley lines.

 

The latter I follow Paul Broadhurst in regarding as 'sun lines'- significant alignments based primarily on solar and stellar phenomena, particularly at solsticial and equinoctial points.  This is in general keeping with Alfred Watkins' early researches.  As for the (possibly) separate issue of energy lines, there is much more that needs to be discovered.  I like to regard them as the macrocosmic equivalent of the sephirothic paths; or certain fiducials.  That they may relate to the spirit lines of shamanism- as Paul Devereux maintains- makes good intuitive sense also.  The key thing is to get out amidst the sacred places and experience them.

7. What is your understanding of the significance of the prohibition in religion against images and idols? Do you agree that it was not the word that came first, but in fact, the image of divinity? How might idolatry and graven images be more offensive than murder, as laid out in the ten commandments?
 

You certainly ask big questions!  My intuition says that sound was the primal force- 'In the beginning was the Word.'  That note has, or is in the process, of retuning itself: the Divine is breathing in.  Images and 'idols' might suggest a crude polytheism, when all religions are monotheistic in spirit; and idols are merely aspects of the One.  Their purpose is solely to provide a focus for the supplicant; to meet the very human need to project.  All part of the lubridium we're all engaged upon- the game of pretending to be individuals detached from the All.  All good fun.

8. Please explain your opinion on serpent symbology, or share with us any information that may clear the fog. Serpentine symbology is highly significant, but there seems to be a divide amongst researchers as to whether these serpent references are more than metaphorical symbolism. Is it possible that there are humans who shape-shift? Is it that there are other non-human entities who have the ability to only appear to us as human? Or is it all just an unintended misunderstanding or deliberate disinformation and the serpent only represents wisdom, high magick, genetic science, kundalini energies and the human nervous system, etc.?
 

The symbol is multi-dimensional, and comfortably encompasses all the 'decryptions' you've offered.  But I prefer to remain in the realm of symbol and metaphor, rather than get lost in ancient astronauts or shape-shifters.  I'll take the easy way out now and quote from a recent post by the aforementioned Jake Kotze:

 

'I don't like to give scenarios that disempower the individual or society at large much credit. Ideas like a group or family having "special" DNA or godlike heritage seem like control memes, perhaps even premeditatedly so. I prefer to think the ability to contact the 'gods' (or the the god inside) or become like gods are the provenance of every one who should happen to choose such a role.'

 

The 'reptilian madness' which has overtaken a large swathe of the truth community may well be an attempt at a 'premeditated control meme'.  The ideas which gave birth to it- in some cases- clearly were. Lots of researchers have dissected the Merovingian mythos, for example, and the Priory of Sion material which stemmed from that (in the 1960s.)  But the Holy Blood-Holy Grail is by no means the first (or even the latest) example of a royal bloodline myth hoisted to great effect upon a spiritually-bereft public.  My research into British-Israelism would regard it as an earlier attempt at the same thing; and considering its importance to the birth of the modern state of Israel, it is clear that these and similar ideas can have powerful (and deleterious) consequences.

 

Yes, I expect there are rare examples of human beings who can 'shape-shift.'  Inter-dimensional entities with the ability to 'hold' an apparently human form may also exist: life and the cosmos is too vast to rule the possibility out.  But I have met far too many flakey New Agers with Pleiadian complexes to take the whole matter very seriously.  Of far greater importance to me is why people credit these sort of belief systems, and who is behind them.

 
9. Do you believe that there are any occult undercurrents with regard to the recent war in Iraq? I ask after seeing some evidence that indicates to me that there may be: attack commenced on 3/22, end of "major combat operations" declared on May 1 - both highly significant dates to occultists, and as related by Freeman: the shock & awe (Shekinah), use of MOAB (mother of all bombs and reference to Moabites in the scriptures), and Saddam's claims re. his reincarnation as king of Sumer. If you agree that there is a connection, do you think that there is any goal aside from strategic / political / military / financial? And what might that goal be?

This is a great question to which I can only begin to do justice.  The entire 'war on terror' is amenable to occult decryption.  I think immediately of 9/11, and the obvious symbolic and numerological significance.  The London bombings of July 7th 2005 inadvertently (perhaps) echo the title of one of Aleister Crowley's most famous works.

 

And the square where the (re-routed) number 30 bus exploded- Tavistock- will have great significance to readers of Dr. John Coleman.

 

We do well to remember that the 'war on terror' is being conducted, primarily, by and on behalf of Israel; so the targets 'we' have thus far selected make best sense in the light of the Old Testament.  The recent (33-day) conflict with Lebanon is another case in point.  An example, perhaps, of Edom going back to her Phoenician-Aryan roots... and destroying the evidence?  (EDOM- apparently- is also used as an acronym for non-lethal mind control weaponry: Electronic Dissolution Of Memory.)

 

My aim, as a researcher, is to illuminate some of the sagas- historical and otherwise- which inform current affairs; and to show, if I can, that the vastness of the canvas is much greater than mainstream news would have us believe.

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