Spring 2013

Wake Your Mind - Spring 2013
Spring 2013
What is science today:
the Popper v Kuhn
debate.
plus new poetry & art
Page 1
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Wake Your Mind - Spring 2013
Wake Your Mind Magazine
Editorial
Contents
Editorial3
What is science today:
the Popper v Kuhn debate.
4
Surveillance part 1
7
Surveillance part 2
8
Unhealthy Fascination
With Enclosed Spaces
9
Like Rifle Fire
9
Can religious experience be used
to justify belief in God? 10
Capitalist freaks13
Dollars13
A teenage political prisoner is
detained on wards x and y
during the 1970s.14
Citizen14
In The Air15
Poem to lost love
15
LATERS16
Open Book16
Eyes of Gaia17
A Bankers Warning.
18
The Narcissists18
A Meteorite hits Parliament
19
Mermaid20
Love Thy Neighbour 2013 Style
20
Too many late nights,
too many early mornings
21
The Manifesto from Psyroom 101
21
Skulldruggery22
Spring 2013.22
My Ex-Girlfriend’s House on Fire
23
The Animal Holocaust
24
Gender for Beginners
24
Helplines25
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Page 3
What is science today:
the Popper v Kuhn debate.
Experiment escorts us last –
His pungent company
Will not allow an Axiom
An Opportunity.
Dickenson, E (1975) p 715.
I would maintain that in order to explain Thomas Kuhn’s
critique of Karl Popper’s account of the scientific method it is
necessary to:
• place Popper’s account in the historical and theoretical
context in which it occurred,
• delineate Popper’s methodology in regard of the scientific
method,
• outline Kuhn’s perspective on the nature of scientific
inquiry and
• assess Kuhn’s criticism of Popper on scientific knowledge,
evaluate to what extent that criticism is successful and
finally
• to present my findings in regard of this philosophical
discourse.
Therefore my argument is that Karl Popper (1999 [1935] )
The Logic of Scientific Discovery was responding to a tradition which found in Logical Positivism, during the 1920s and
1930s, a claim to have proved the ‘verificationism’ of scientific
knowledge as attainable, an absolute ‘Truth’. That as a result
of this and Einstein’s advances on Newton ideas Popper
developed an alternative scientific method to the inductive and
traditional model which can be derived from Francis Bacon
where observations are generalized into theories. This mode
of science relied on ‘falsification’ and ‘demarcation criterion’
between ‘pseudo-science and science’ and between ‘dogmatic critical thinking’. This model then became dominant,
a ‘paradigm’ and was challenged by Thomas Kuhn (1996
[1962] ) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in which he
maintained that the practice of ‘normal science’ is both how
science was practiced with the exception of ‘scientific revolutions’ is practiced and indeed provides the correct practice
of science which has and does provide benefits for humanity.
My argument will follow these parameters to conclude that the
Emily Dickenson poem captures the essence of what science
is, that is Kuhn’s ‘normal science’. I shall illustrate my position
by arguing that Popper’s position on astrology as ‘pseudo-science’ was correctly answered by Kuhn when he said that
astrology was ‘falsifiable’ and therefore not ‘pseudo-science’
but by employing the concept of ‘incommensurability’ i.e. that
two theories can only be judged by different benchmarks in
the manner that Kuhn describes astrology is a ‘craft’ while he
asserts correctly that medicine correctly is a ‘science’.
Firstly, I will show that Popper can be seen as reacting against
the Logical Positivists ‘truth-claim’ when as he states in Conjectures and Refutations in (Cottingham 2011) p 454 ‘With
Einstein’s theory the situation was strikingly different’:
These considerations lead me in the winter of 1919-1920 to
conclusions which may be formulated as follows:
1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly
every theory. – if we look for confirmations.
2. Confirmation should count only if they are the result of
risky predictions that is to say, if, unenlightened by the
theory in question, we should have expected an event
which was incompatible with the theory – an event which
would have refuted the theory.
3. Every ‘good’ scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids
certain thing.
4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event
is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory…
but a vice.
5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to refute it.
Testability is flexibility; but there are degrees of testability:
some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
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6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is
the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means
that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful
attempt to falsify the theory…
7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false,
are still found to be true, are still upheld by their admirers - for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary
assumption.
Cottingham (2011) p 455.
Popper is advancing several concepts in regard of the scientific method here. He is making a claim for a ‘demarcation
criteria’ between ‘pseudo-science and science’ and also
describing his theory of ‘falsification’. These two areas represent the major contributions that he made to the account of
the scientific method. Therefore the differentiation between
‘pseudo-science’ and science and the necessity to falsify
ideas as part of the methodology of science were for Popper inherent components of the scientific process. Popper’s
‘eureka moment’ which Kuhn illustrates was in fact a moment
derived from the long practice of’ normal science’, was not
that Einstein disproved Newton theory itself, but rather that a
model which was dominant, and appeared almost unassailable,
had been disproved. Therefore falisability, the capacity for a
scientific theory to be refutable in order for it to be proven was
to become a central tenant of Popper’s scientific method. An
example Popper uses is astrology in which he claims that ‘confirmation data’ is used to prevent ‘falsification’, in other words
the astrologists can always add ‘auxiliary information’ to prove
their claims are in some way correct. I shall consider Kuhn’s
response to this and its weight in regard scientific method further in my argument. To encapsulate Popper on the scientific
method it is possible to say that he rejected empirical inductive
method in favour of one based on deduction as employed in
his method of conjectures and refutations whereby he creates
a hypothesis and then ‘severely’ subject the hypothesis to tests
in order to make a deductive inference. Essentially he has rejected induction and replaced it with a complexified deductive
process. I have outlined Karl Popper’s position on the scientific
method both in terms of its historical context and that of its
content.
Wake Your Mind - Spring 2013
To provide a description of Kuhn’s criticism of Popper on the
scientific method it is necessary to delineate the former's position, Thomas Kuhn view of the scientific method is illustrated
below in the paradigm shift figure below.
Phelan (2005) p. 132.
For Kuhn science is a cycle which accumulates data and is
characterized by long periods of ‘normal science’ which is
science as understood a being science in the tradition which
began with Bacon .This ‘normal science’ which Kuhn characterizes as ‘problem solving’ has brought humanity great
benefits such as new medicines and the ability to travel to the
moon. For Kuhn a scientific ‘paradigm’ is normally consistent
and stable, it is only replaced when two factors become
manifest
1. an ‘accumulation of anomalies’ within the present paradigm and
2. he existence of another improved ‘paradigm with which to
replace it’.
In these conditions a ‘scientific revolution’ takes place and
Kuhn draws parallels between these and the processes
involved in political revolutions. Kuhn makes a point about the
deferential relationship in the ‘incommensurability’ between
pre-paradigmatic revolutionary ‘crafts’ and post-revolutionary ‘science’. For Kuhn these cannot be measured by the
same yardstick. To illustrate the Kuhn’s point with a simple
‘thought-experiment’: cannot you measure Mozart and Motorhead, with the same yardstick because it is necessary and
appropriate to apply different criteria or measurements as they
existed in different periods and had different influences, they
belong to different paradigms. The former may be the music of
the spheres whilst the second is music to accompany amphetamine use, they cannot be measured by the same yardstick.
In a similar way Kuhn argued that it is possible to separate
astrology and astronomy, they are examples of a pre-scientific
and post-scientific paradigm and ‘the underdetermination of
theory by data’.
What is wrong with Popper’s account of the scientific method
for Kuhn? Firstly, for the latter there are not spontaneous ‘scientific revolutions’ but they occur as the product of painstaking
Page 5
generations of ‘normal science’. Popper places too much
emphasis on the momentous transformations in science such
as the movement from a Newtonian to an Einstein paradigm.
This is a weakness in Popper’s account of the scientific method; major scientific advances are not conjured up in the mind
of a solitary genius but rather, following Kuhn, in the practice of
‘normal science’:
We should not lose sight of the fact that it
took two hundred years of detailed work
within the Newtonian paradigm and one
hundred years of work within theories of
electricity and magnetism to reveal the
problems that Einstein was to recognize and
solve with relativity.
Chalmers (2011) p 119-120.
Secondly, Popper would have to ‘square the circle’ in the
sense that there cannot be another paradigm until one becomes available. If Copernicus had not provided an alternative
heliocentric model of the universe to Ptolemy’s geocentric one,
there would not have been the paradigm available for Galileo
to have made his advances.
Thirdly, the logic conclusion to Popper's theory of falsification is that there cannot be stable logic knowledge on which
to found the scientific endeavour upon, for Popper there
is falsification ad infinitum. Science needs a stable base of
‘normal science’ to make meaningful scientific progress.
Thirdly for Kuhn the theory of scientific revolution represented
the ‘change’ of a ‘matrix of paradigms’ for another and this
is certainly a persuasive description of what happens when
outsider scientists become mainstream . This is in contrast to
Popper for falsification of one set of ideas and another arising
out of it as a revolutionary process is not in the same sense.
Fourthly, I would like to examine one of Popper’s key claims
i.e. the astrology is a ‘pseudo-science’, that it is therefore not
falsifiable as it must be in order to be a science. Kuhn correctly
directs us to ‘collaborationism’ here with pre and post-scientific
paradigms. Popper is in making a ‘valid’ deductive argument in
which he contradicts his overall position regarding the nature
of the scientific method by ‘denying the consequent’ or mundus tollens. Therefore:
If p then q
Not q
Therefore not p
Premise I: If science is true then all astrological predictions
must be proved to be wrong.
Premise 2 Not all astrological predictions are proved to be
wrong.
Conclusion. Therefore not all science is true.
This is an inherent defect in Popper’s own logic on scientific
methodology. Kuhn is correct in arguing that falsification is
possible in astrology and that scientific proof within a paradigm sometimes cannot be falsified, for example the human
genotype DNA is beyond falsification within our present
paradigm and there would have to be a ‘scientific revolution’
with a concomitant ‘paradigm shift’ to allow this. However I
think it is important to keep in mind his differentiation between
pre and post-revolutionary science as important here for Kuhn
was clear about this demarcation and argues that astrology
has the status of ‘a craft’ as opposed to medicine which is a
‘science’. He is also correct in arguing that Popper’s concept
of the ‘critical’ discourse as defined as the rediscovery of the
deductive tradition and inferring its empirical consequences is
mistaken and in arguing:
‘In a sense, to turn Sir Karl’s view on its
head, it is precisely the abandonment of
critical discourse that marks the transition
to science. Once a field has made that
transition, critical discourse recurs only at
moments of crisis when the bases of the
field are again in jeopardy. Only when then
must choose between competing theories
do scientists behave like philosophers’
- Kuhn (1970) pp. 6-9.
Kuhn’s ability to contrast scientists with philosophers here is
significant for philosophers ask the questions of epistemology
and the philosophy of science while scientists practice it.
I would conclude that the Logical Positivists required to be
answered theoretically but that Popper’s theory of falsification
denied science of its stable methodology, which is observation
and experiments, until general patterns become apparent and
then the formation of a hypothesis based on this process. I
would agree with Kuhn (Ibid) that Popper’s ‘demarcation criterion…are impossible to support.’ I maintain that Kuhn’s criticism
of Popper’s account of the scientific method is cogent and
the benefit of ‘normal science’ as a methodology within the
tradition emanating from Bacon is apparent in the experience
of humanity. I would agree with Emily Dickenson that indeed
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Wake Your Mind - Spring 2013
‘experiment’ is the best ‘escort’ for human endeavour and that
it proved itself to be so through the methodology of Inductivism which has been the paradigm of Western science since its
Scientific Revolution.
- N .S.Pearce.
Bibliography.
Chalmers, A.F (2011) What is this thing called Science? Maidenhead, The
Open University Press.
Chimisso, C (2011) Knowledge Book 4 Open University Exploring Philosophy, Milton Keynes, The Open University.
Surveillance
part 1
Dickenson, E (1975) The Complete Poems, London, Faber and Fader.
An Interpretation of Surveillance
A Historical Context
Kuhn, T. S (1970) ‘Logic of discovery of psychology of research? in
Lakatos, I. and Musgrave, A. (eds) Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. pp. 6-9.
An Interpretation of Surveillance
Cottingham, J (ed) Western Philosophy: An Anthology, Oxford, Blackwell
Kuhn, T.S (1996 [1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago,
University of Chicago Press.
Phelan, J.W (2005) Philosophy Themes and Thinkers. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Popper, K (1999 [1935]) The Logic of Scientific Discovery, London,
Routledge.
Popper, K (2002 [1963]) Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of
Scientific Knowledge, London, Routledge.
Surveillance is a term which attracts a wide variety of notions.
To survey something implies a kind of active looking with the
emphasis on gathering information; considered in this sense,
the concept could be (and indeed is) applied to an array of political and cultural appraisals and judgments. ‘Appraisals’ because
information is related to a system of values and ‘Judgments’
because the system of values belongs to that of the surveyors,
whose gathered information in conjunction with their value system allows the surveyors the authority to act upon the bodies
of the surveyed.
John Tagg in ‘Burden of Representation’ notes that “Photography arrives on the sense with a particular authority to arrest,
picture and transform everyday life; a power to see and record,
a power of surveillance”. Surveillance is inextricably linked with
notions of authority and power.
A Historical Context
The development of the use of surveillance images begins with
the anthropological systems of classification drawn from the
pseudo-sciences of Eugenics and Physiognomy; It’s here that
ideological framework emerges first between the recorded image and the systems of values and classifications.
Early anthropological photography envisioned a seamless link
between photographic image and appearance. A photograph
was considered to actually be the image of the subject that it
represented. The photographic image becomes interchangeable with the true appearance. This apparent reality of the photograph seemed to justify its application as a tool of classification
in a system of physical differences, which was the obsession of
Page 7
the Eugenic recording of the body. The use of photographic
recording in Eugenics began with the documentation of people
seen as deviant. With Physiognomy considering behaviour as
being determined from physical appearance; the fields merged
under the umbrella of Social Darwinism which allowed ‘survival
of the fittest’ and ‘natural selection’ to become the theoretical
firmament. Clearly such notions as these are highly problematic
- apart from the glaringly obvious error of assuming that a photographic image can be considered as evidence of unfitness,
criminality or deviancy - such theories served to fuel and justify
social and economic inequalities.
and the judiciary. These are the institutions that Ralf Milliband
identifies as constituting the state system.
State surveillance is a prerogative of the police force - although it
is not the only medium through which state surveillance moves.
Other social institutions and state apparatus can be identified
as being ‘outside’ the state system such as mass media and
the medical institution. These organisations can be seen to influence the State system by the type of power that they wield.
They can be seen as elements of the political system.
The medical institution is of particular interest - as pointed out
on the previous page. Much of the classification techniques
within surveillance have been adopted from historic medical and
It seems wildly superficial to give credence to theories of Phys- anthropological theories; notably, the quasi-sciences of Eugeniognomy, Social Darwinism and Eugenics today. However, it is ics and Physiognomy.
from the use of surveyed photographic images in these fields
that the visual language developed for modern surveillance sys- Milliband argues that “...holders of state power are agents of
tems. It is the way certain styles of representation are given private economic power... [that those who wield power are also
that render the subject as ‘deviant’ or ‘criminal’; Police ‘mug- therefore]... an authentic ‘ruling class’...” Consider the memshots’ are a classic example of this process. Similarly, the ways bership of institutions within the sate system. We find that the
in which a CCTV camera represents the subject activates the elite groups of these organisations (the police force is a good
power system of assessing criminality. The styles that do this example) consist upon a primary base of family connections
are, for example: ‘zooming in’ to close up on the subject; low and the social milieu of a certain class. For an outsider to these
definition digital images; infrared images; juxtaposing date and groups entry can be exceedingly difficult. For a member of
time codes with portraits and so on. Seen through surveillance these groups desiring of advance to elite social and political
cameras, the subject is immediately criminal.
circles their concerns must be shaped by the economic interest
dominant in these circles. State power within the police force
When a piece of surveillance footage is shown as evidence, can be seen to hold close to the interests of capitalism and to
juries can be seduced and defendants intimidated by evidence the values of the ruling class.
which is very powerfully suggestive of guilt. Such evidence may
not stand up to closer scrutiny. The seductiveness of CCTV The power to survey the majority of society is a modern aid to
seems to stem from its voyeuristic nature, its empowerment of maintaining the traditional structures of power, wealth and the
the viewer (we are given the eyes of ‘Big Brother’) and its much class system. In a similar way, the majority of those who are
vaunted status as a panacea of crime.
placed under state surveillance are not criminals (who present
relatively little danger to the state system) but are people who
oppose the values of the ruling class. Proof of this can be seen
on the rare occasions where the Special Branch are forced to
reveal some of their files; the victims are most often people with
political sympathies with the left and people who are ‘politically
active.’
Surveillance
part 2
The State : The State System
Surveillance and Panopticism
A recent example of politically orientated surveillance is the evidence from sympathisers that a database of information on the
traveller movement is currently being complied.
Surveillance and the State.
The term ‘State’ is rather complex in interpretation: in particular
relevance to the subject surveillance, there are aspects of the
state system which are of interest.
The State system consists of institutions such as government
(and local government to a lesser extent), the military, the paramilitary, administrative elements, the security and police forces
The reasons why surveillance is carried out by the state upon
the population can be varied and obscure. One can only guess
the extent to which surveillance is carried out, but with the current level of technology it could be said that anyone could be
under surveillance without their knowledge at any time! ‘As an
US National Security officer indiscreetly put it in 1980, ‘there
are three satellites over the Atlantic, each capable of transmitting
on about 20,000 circuits. There are 8 transatlantic cables with
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Wake Your Mind - Spring 2013
about 5,000 circuits. We monitor them all.’ [BSSR / Technology
of Political Control Groups. Technocop]
Surveillance and Panopticism
Michel Foucault’s theories around the Panopticon are particularly relevant when considering surveillance issues. Foucault
coined the term ‘panopticism’ after the institution outlined by
Jeremy Bentham in 1791; the Panopticon. Panopticism is the
instrumental use of surveillance technologies in disciplinary societies, resulting in a psycho-political state of unremitting surveillance. Bentham’s Panopticon was a piece of revolutionary
prison architecture consisting of a cylindrical framework whose
cells, raising tier upon tier, gave out onto a centralised observation tower sunlight streaming through the open ended cells and
from the skylight, would result in dramatically back-lighting the
figures of the prisoners - making their every movement visible.
Wardens could disappear behind an elaborate system of blinds
and partitions, designed to prevent light or shadow from betraying their presence.
The Panopticon facilitated the management of the many - by
the centralised few. In fact, theoretically the Panopticon required
nobody to operate it as those imprisoned had no way of knowing if their overseers were present in the central observation
tower or not. The prisoners had to conclude, therefore, that they
could be being observed at any time. Foucault suggests that because of this uncertainty, prisoners began to survey themselves
- assuming the part of captor within their own psyche. ‘He who
is subjected to a field of visibility and knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation
in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the
principle of his own subjection.’
The Panopticon is the prototype of every modern office, school
building, factory, asylum, hospital and prison - with the effect,
Foucault argued, of altering the behaviour of the inhabitants by
unremitting surveillance through the notion of the individuals internalising power relationships and becoming self- surveying.
- Richard Proffitt
Next Issue:
Surveillance Technologies//part 1
Technological Advancement
Facial Recognition
Databases
Surveillance Technologies//part 2
The CCTV Revolution
The Dangers
Unhealthy Fascination With
Enclosed Spaces
Outside the Summer sun is shining
but in here it is shadowy and grey.
Let the others enjoy the holidays
while I alone waste all mine away.
I have no more need for the sun
my curtains are all closed tight.
I cannot wait for Winters return
to bring back the early dark nights.
I am living life like a vampire
my home’s the coffin where I rest.
There’s comfort in the darkness
only solitude shall be my guest.
© Paul Tristram 2010
Like Rifle Fire
The eyes cut through me like rifle fire
as I walk onwards through the crowd.
I can smell the heavy scent of disgust
quickly destroying my indifferent shroud.
Volcanic panic hits my throat like bile
as I bow my head down to the floor.
I gulp back the urgent desperation
I feel hunted right to my very core.
These people do not possess any souls
their insides are full of hatred instead.
Vindictiveness, spite and group anger
hold court within each and every head.
I glance between the different feet
looking for the quickest way through.
I bob and weave just like a lost fox
as once again freedom is proven untrue.
I am suddenly blocked by two old ladies
checking their receipts for any fault.
I step sideways out into the crazy road
where a post office van screams to a halt.
“Why don’t you watch where you’re going!”
yells the nasty driver loudly over to me.
Passers-by shake their heads and mutter
happily approving this open hostility.
I run across the road and into a lane
follow it until I reach a public toilet.
I enter shaking, close and bolt the door
I will not leave until it’s dark and quiet.
© Paul Tristram 2010
Page 9
Can religious
experience be
used to justify
belief in God?
This thesis will attempt to answer the question of whether
religious belief can be used to justify belief in God by employing the method of deductive logic. I shall place this ‘argument’
in the context of two competing view of religious experience,
firstly William James who perceived it as generally positive
but then deploy Jean-Paul Sartre’s counter-argument of ‘bad
faith’ . I shall use a ‘thought-experiment’ of my own devising
to illustrate my positions. The ‘argument’ itself is similar to that
of David Hume (1990 [1779]) and in the tradition of British
Empiricism questions any form of a priori ‘truth from authority’
and therefore I utilise a methodology which originates in Hume
who I employ and quote but also attempt to make it contemporary using examples from Kierkegaard, Swinburne, Engels
and Marx. After my ‘argument’ has concluded that religious
experiences do occur but are contrary to the laws of the natural world and are rather the projected essence of an alienated
humanity I conclude with the protagonist of the ‘thought-experiment’ achieving an Aristotelian sense of eudemonia. Therefore
firstly I would like to examine two 20th century responses to
religious experience, its relationship to self and others and the
consequences of the respective positions in regard of these
experiences of God. I shall suggest that here the ramifications
of the perspectives has a very contemporary resonance i.e.
how do people behave ‘authentically’ in response to a religious
experience of a Deity or ‘Higher Power’. The contrast will
be illustrated by a ‘thought-experiment’. The term ‘religious
experience’ is used quite loosely in William James (1902)
The Varieties of Religious Experience. He defined this experience as a ‘proof’ but not in the way contemporary Catholic
theologian Alasdair Macintyre does when he argued: ‘Truth is
tradition- constituted’ (Chappell, 2011 p.151) for a particular
religion. Rather for James the ‘sign’ of genuine religious experience was a generalized ‘moral proof’ rather than embracing a
particular tradition. At broadly transformative experience which
leads to a state of consciousness in which:
A ‘thought-experiment’ could be an alcoholic going on the
programme prescribed by Alcoholics Anonymous and embracing a ‘Higher Power’ as a solution to their addiction and
thereby facilitating a personal and moral transformation. They
may be deceived and deceiving as a result of this experience
of the Divine. The ‘onus of proof’ is with those advocating
the ‘salvation’ of my subject to the detriment of their human
authenticity. Jean-Paul Sartre uses a term, ‘bad faith’. Sartre
defines ‘bad faith’ as a hiding of truth from self, an inauthenticity in the face of existential reality which is absurd because
there is no Deity, following Nietzsche and ‘the death of God’
(Nietzsche (1882 [1977] ) The Gay Science, Section 125).
Paradoxically for Sartre to belief in ‘bad faith’ one must belief it
to be true, it becomes dialectical, the victim is both the perpetrator of the deception yet also its victim because it denies him
or her existential ‘freedom’ So at the same time the liar, as liar,
believes the lie to be false, and as victim believes it to be true.
So there is a contradiction in that when a person acts in ‘bad
faith’ or self-deception believes something to be true and false
at the same time. In Being and Nothingness (1976) he writes:
‘Thus in order for bad faith to be possible,
sincerity itself must be bad faith’
Sartre (1976) p 67
To illustrate this Sartre uses a ‘thought- experiment’ of a waiter
who is too eager to please:
‘(as he carries the food) his movement is
quick and forward, a little too precise, a little
too rapid.’
Sartre (1993), pp. 167-169.
To return to my ‘thought-experiment’, the alcoholic may believe
in God or a ‘Higher Power’ but their zealousness may, if Sartre
is correct and I think he is, reveal that they have deceived
themselves, and because of the interdependent unity of opposites in dialectical formulations, others as well. I would suggest
that the first position in my ‘thought-experiment’ is based on
an enthymeme, the unstated assumption or premise being that
the religious experience is necessary beneficial and that for the
alcoholic to deceive themself and others is therefore simply a
non sequitur, it ‘does not follow’. Having explored the nature of
the religious perspective from these two contrasting perspectives I shall embark on the argument by using deductive logic
as understood here:
‘…one aim grows so stable as to expel definitively its previous rivals from the individual
life.’
James (1902), Lecture IX p, 191.
Page 10
‘Logic may be defined as the theory of the
conditions of valid inference, or more shortly,
as the theory of proof. Inference is a process
by which we pass from a belief in one or
Wake Your Mind - Spring 2013
interact. The key issue is Evidentialism in that it is necessary
to define what evidence is appropriate to make a claim for a
proof of a miracle and more pertinently to this thesis ‘religious
experience’. The counter-argument to Evidentialism is made by
Revelation ‘No one has ever seen God’ (John 1:18) [1962].
However following Hume I argue in a similar vein to him:
more statements (the premises) to a belief in
a further statement (the conclusion) whose
truth, if the inference is a good one, is either
guaranteed or at least made probable by the
truth of the premises.’
‘The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention)
Ree and Ormson (ed), (2005) p.211.
Hence the basic structure of my argument will be as follows:
Premise 1: A religious experience is transcendent and caused
by a Divine Being, it is subjective. But it is not a hallucination.
‘That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless
the testimony be of such kind that its falsehood would be
more miraculous than the fact which it attempts to follow.’
Hume (1748) in Cottingham p 373.
Premise 2: The material world exists and is governed by
objective laws.
Firstly as Swinburne argues:
If it seems to me that I have a glimpse of
Heaven, or a vision of God that is grounds
for me and others to suppose I have.’
Subconclusion 1: So if people have subjective experiences of
God these necessary transcend or ‘violate’ the material world
and its laws.
Premise 3: All that exists is this material world is governed by
its own laws and is not transformed by the intervention of a
Divine Being.
Subconclusion 2: So religious experiences are created by
a transcendental God intervening in the world and are not
caused by the laws of the material world.
Premise 4: As all that exists is the material world and is caused
by that physical world therefore religious experiences are
illusions.
Swinburne (1968) pp. 320-328.
So here we have an experience of a supernatural being or
entity being experienced by a Fellow of the British Academy
and therefore we may presume it is not a hallucination and he
is sane.
Secondly we have an account of a material world that is governed by objective laws. Engels presents the argument:
Conclusion: Therefore because religious experiences are
based on illusions they can be used to justify a belief in God
who cannot intervene in the material world because the Deity
itself is an illusion or a projection and thus it follows that objectively God does not exist.
‘the great basic question of all philosophy…
is that of thinking to being
…Thus the question of the relation of
thinking to being, the relation of the spirit to
nature is the paramount religious question.’
Engels (1975) pp13-14.
Maurice Cornforth reinforces two points:
It is necessary to contrast Natural Theology which maintains
that knowledge of the Divine can be achieved through Reason
1. Materialism teaches that the world is by its very nature
and observation of the world, as in the teleological argument,
in order to ascertain the existence of the Deity and another
material that everything which exists comes into being on
branch of the philosophy of religion which is founded in Revethe basis of material causes, rises and develops in accorlation and seeks knowledge of Divinity in miracles and sacred
dance with the laws of matter.
scripture. A reliance on the later leads to fideism or a belief
2. Materialism teaches that matter is objective reality existing
in ‘justification by faith alone’ and possibly found its highest
outside and independent of the mind; and that far from
manifestation in the philosophy of Kierkegaard who argued that
people must simply make ‘a leap of faith’ this I would argue
the mental existing in separation from the material,
is another example of Sartre’s ‘bad faith’. However Natural
everything mental or spiritual is the product of material
Theology and Revelation are not mutually exclusive and it in
processes.
the area of miracles and religious experience they overlap and
Cornforth (1977) p 25.
Page 11
Therefore I have established the first premise
manity ‘projecting’ its essence or what the young Marx called
its ‘species-being; into the heavens.
1) That religious experience exists in a definable sense and the
second, a position for a material analysis of reality.
In the ‘thought experiment’ my alcoholic subject may have
had a religious experience through a ‘Higher Power’ and
Hence the Subconclusion inferred from these is that if religious conquered his addiction, but after meeting a existentialist phiexperience exists it must violate the laws of the material world losophy student who introduced him to Sartre starts drinking
in the same way Hume says a miracle:
again but lives ‘authentically’. He then goes through a ‘dry’
spell and has a ‘genuine’ spiritual experience and decides to
‘may be accurately defined, a transgression
work in a shelter for the homeless. Here he meets an old man
of the law of nature by a particular violation
who introduces him to Marxist philosophy. He then realizes that
of the Deity, or by the interposition of some
he was alienated from his ‘true’ humanity, joins a revolutionary
invisible agent.’
group in order to attempt to transform the social conditions
Hume (2000) p.87. that give rise to illusions such as religion. He finally as an old
man is content after reading Aristotle on eudemonia.
It must be experienced subjectively but not be a product of
insanity it must also be accompanied by a ‘sense’ of the Divine
The argument is although people have religious experiencwhich is verifiable by other member of the person’s culture.
es, they paradoxically disproof a Divinity by their illusionary
Premise 3 is defined by Cornforth (1977) p.27
nature. That a fideism based on Kierkegaard or a claim to
‘justification by faith alone’ must disprove what it attempts to
Materialism teaches that the world and its laws are knowable,
proof. Natural theology is more balanced but its argument from
and that while much in the material world may not be known
analogy requires if not a ‘leap of faith’ too far but too greater a
there is no sphere of reality which lies outside of the material
leap of logic.
world. Marxist philosophy is characterised by it’s absolutely
consistently materialism.’
- N . S. Pearce.
Thus I arrive at a second Subconclusion here inferred from
above that if religious experience exists and cannot be the
product of the material world then it must be derived from a
transcendental being revealed by revelation.
Bibliography.
My fourth premise is articulated by Marx:
‘Religion is the sigh of the oppressed
creature…It is the opium of the people. The
abolition of religion as the illusory happiness
of the people is the demand for their real
happiness. To call on them to give up their
illusions about their condition is to call on
them to give up a condition that requires
illusions.’
Marx. (1975). p2
My argument is essentially that religious experiences are illusory and a product of alienation.
This lead to my conclusion that if religious experiences occur
which they do and the world is governed by material laws
which it is, then these experiences must be illusions and by
extrapolation God is a delusion, a product of an alienated hu-
Bible (1962) Revised Standard Version, American Bible Society.
Chappell, T (2011) The Philosophy of Religion, Book 2, A222 Exploring
Philosophy, Milton Keynes, The Open University.
Cornforth, M (1977) Materialism and the Dialectical Method, London,
Lawrence and Wishart.
Cottingham, J (ed) (2008) Western Philosophy: An Anthology, Blackwell
Publishing.
Davies, B (2004) An Introduction To The Philosophy Of Religion, New York,
Oxford University Press.
Engels, F (1975) Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German
Philosophy, Moscow, Progress Publishers.
Hume, D (2000) (ed) Tom.L.Beauchamp, An Enquiry concerning Human
Understanding, New York, Oxford University Press.
Hume, D (1990 [1776]) Discourses concerning Natural Religion (ed Martin
Bell), London, Penguin Classics
James, W (1902) The Varieties of Religious Experience, New York, Modern
Library.
Marx, K (1975) Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law,
Moscow, Progress Publishers.
Ree, J and Urmson, O.R (ed) (2005) The Concise Encyclopaedia of Western Philosophy, New York, Routledge.
Nietzsche, F (1977(1882]) A Nietzsche Reader, (ed) R.J.Hollingdale,
London, Penguin Classics.
Sartre, J, P (1976) Being and Nothingness, London, Methuen & Co Ltd.
Sartre, J.P (1993) Essays in Existentialism, New York, Citadel Press.
Swinburne, R (1968) ‘Miracles’, Philosophy Quarterly. Philosophical Quarterly 18 (73).
Page 12
Capitalist freaks
Wake Your Mind - Spring 2013
Dollars
The rulers the elite the capitalist freaks,
How says this is part of me, my shadow self,
I would not Poisson babies, for glory and wealth,
And dumb down innocence, in a plight for control,
While crushing dreams, and belittling are very soul,
Is this my shadow self, a part of me,
I tell you then me, I will gladly ripe it out,
Even in great pain, I would shout, yes there out
I would not test on animals, or stick needles in babies,
Don’t tell me to give u an alternative, I like to give u rabies,
I tell u something there are loads of other ways to live
Without murder torture pollution and making people sick,
Try healing, try sharing, try anything, and just give.
Let’s get away from, these, elite, these, blood thirsty ticks,
Were like abused people, how have excepted pain and suffering to be good,
I don’t know about you, I am not going to wait for the flood
My anger my rage its hit all peeks,
I’ve got to fight these capitalist freaks.
In the light universe we be, we are the sun the moon
and the earth, we will transcend,
For the love of the planets that did love the souls of
the people there creatures and there beings, they set
course to take the souls with them, so the journey is
on its way,
Some souls some creatures arrogance got the better
of them, saw themselves the controllers of the souls
and material, so they have inhibited the journey, so
the planets have sent for evolution to rise in a way
the controllers cannot stop, so the journey will continue, and we all feel the love off are many guiders,
for are journey is as one.
Sista k
Page 13
Another day another dollar
Another day living in squalor
Getting hot around my collar
Hot rooms make me angry
I’m holding on to my sanity
Ready for them to say one word
Just going to get on with my bird
Mayhem could continue
Violence could brew
Everyone watching their backs
We are so tired we could take break time naps
People are hoping for the cold snap
Because the hot sun brings out crap
Short skirts birds flirt
Men drink barrels they sink
Noisy nights are in daylight
Women screaming obscenities
On the street they shout
I wonder how the youngsters are
As violence has spread so far
- Dominic Mulgrew.
Citizen
A teenage
political
prisoner is
detained on
wards x and y
during the 1970s.
A model citizen,
No prison,
I’m a gent,
My story is sticking like cement,
From the avon,
To Trent,
To knowle,
My time has been spent,
The new hospital is nearer my home town,
I won’t escape,
I won’t refuse some leave down,
Sitting on a bench,
Wanting to wench,
On the square,
With out door air,
Out of the hole,
Let the good times roll.
- Dominic Mulgrew.
Just play bingo pleads Janus therapist while he
winks towards some wincing nurses,
An older monk on a secure ward also talked of
Tim Leary and Che so we colluded,
No take over the asylum and make it your
The nurse without eyes just a film covered One
campus howls that interned revolutionary,
presumed in purveyor of darker art,
The patients rise-up like tigers but then the
A poet wrote in metaphor not grasped by
panzer squad prepare a chemical Cosh,
those who had embalmed patients’ minds,
As electro-convulsive therapy was had by all in
Children are born in a bell-jar of discontent but
the aftermath, the wires just buzzed,
do not worry doctor has the thorium,
But the clientele spat sputum into cardboard
Not forgotten were those whose deaths in
spittoons not emptied but flung in rage,
Stammheim Prison left us all a bitter taste,
So we were hidden on wards with sycophants, Bitter is the taste of lemon, lemon is yellow that
faces like brick and mortar monotone,
will colour us if cancer strikes in liver,
A nurse wanted patients to be aborted cherubs
But red will be funeral shroud as jaundiced
of heaven, some were like banshees,
eyes never glazed by cowardice of heart.
No one commented until the ritual burial of a
demon because things are hot in a hell, Red Army Faction.
Page 14
Wake Your Mind - Spring 2013
In The Air
.
Anticipation in the air, without concern or care,
As if no-one is really there, but masses of
people,
Frowns and stares, as if alien to what is theirs,
Humanity, - a family, a co-existing species,
With Theory, with Perception,
I try to embrace the crowd, but their energy,
Their restlessness, it all seems too loud.
Trying to be Proud, and look after myself,
But who I am inside has to be put on a shelf.
Using Stealth, in the best way I know,
Want to fit in, but still want to grow, inside,
I just have to hide, and try to abide,
To this Order, this order of Society,
Don’t want to be locked in thy Heart,
But being too different is tearing me apart.
Play me the Fool, but I learn little on my way,
Play me the Tower, and may I topple down
from my mountain,
I am the king of Hearts, but this Heart is so
broken,
My Defences weakened, My Protection
fading,
I am wading through the Marsh, Through
the swamp of this Perception,
Through this Mindset, Through this Rotten
deception.
Illusions, Reality, I have known both of them,
As I try to understand, from where they both
stem,
As I sow back the fabric, of this torn and Lucid World,
I try to gain some Reality,
But lose both instead.
- Whitecrow
Poem to lost love
An intellectual is
someone whose mind
watches itself.
I am happy to be both
halves, the watcher
and the watched.’
Albert Camus.
The worms are in her hair and creep like crazy symmetry of
slurred syllogisms,
Her black and translucent pupils are the corridor back into the
infinity of inferno,
The nymphets were left broken like alabaster dolls sacrificed to
a dumb phallus,
Some gathered their skirts and stole the microdots hidden in
haste but now lost,
Camus stands alone a pillar of stone and utters his words of
wisdom but weeps,
Back in sputnik I spin trying to keep the letters of R. D. Laing
‘Knots’ on a page,
Tumble into a purple zone through a rose garlanded window
etched in her mind,
Put the harpsichord concertos on again please I love them
much Hermes sighs,
The statue of Camus vaporized, Hermes levitated and we went
weaving waves.
I write these words about those days of dreams and wish my
love not died in vain,
We were children of ether who were not of this world, entombed within its bounds.
- N.S. Pearce.
6th/10th/11th January 2013.
Note.
Hermes was a god of transitions and boundaries. He was quick and
cunning, and moved freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine, as
emissary and messenger of the gods, the intercessor between mortals and
the divine, and conductor of souls into the afterlife. He was protector and
patron of travellers, herdsmen, thieves, orators and wit, literature and poets.
Page 15
Open Book
LATERS
Speak to you later
No one is greater
What a fighter
What a writer
A maestro
In your presence
A warm glow
Put your talent to use
You are gallant
Let him loose
Many a paper back
A good chap
Words are wise
Words surprise
From a biro
To a parker
From a fountain
A book marker
Sell out or not
Your book is great man
It’s got the lot
Like an open Book you read me, Far too easily
for my liking,
I am a mere cowardly boy in your presence,
with nought to stand on or call my own,
I have no personality with the crowds of onlookers, seeing directly into my inferior nature,
Only Great fear shrouds my Being,
While they are all starring intensely into my
Shadows,
These Internal Demons keep me at bay,
For I may have something to share that threatens their Stronghold.
But me, I lurk in the Shadows of humanity’s
Ego,
With no way of Fighting back,
I cannot join them, their Light poisons me,
It is the Gods of Man they follow,
Not much these Gods do I Trust,
But Cling and hold onto I do, to the Spirits of
Old and of the Elements,
In some Realms called the Valar.
- Dominic Mulgrew.
“Don’t bend; don’t water it
down; don’t try to make it
logical; don’t edit your own
soul according to the fashion.
Rather, follow your most
intense obsessions mercilessly.”
Franz Kafka
Yet an old Soul needn’t explain theirself, for it is
the Justice of a Traveller to Journey the many
fringes of the Human Soul, the mainstream
appeals less,
When one has already tasted the Fruits of the
Tree,
And the Inner Reality of fantasy,
The Collective Pool of Consciousness and Dimension,
Somehow pulls me In and back and Resonates with my Complete Core,
Enables me to See past the Chaos that Humanity creates,
And for me, in this ‘modern’ Society, I am an
Open Book,
Please Read with love and care,
For these pages are Wearing thin, The Rain is
pooring In, and the Ink is Starting to Run.
-
- Whitecrow
Page 16
Wake Your Mind - Spring 2013
Eyes of Gaia - Denny Reader 2013
Page 17
The Narcissists
A Bankers Warning.
The Tories have ruined people’s lives,
Now I can’t afford the wife,
I left her in a skip
‘Cause I fancied a bag of chips
She’s on Jobstreakers Allowance
She can only get money if she gets her kit off,
For Ian Duncan Smith, he doesn’t give a shit
‘Cause the Tories are getting greedier
Big fat bankers, merchant plonkers getting greedier
Bankers Bankers Bankers Out Out Out
Banker Bankers Bankers Out Out Out
In shit creek without a paddle
Talking economic twaddle
Confusing all the public with obfuscating lies
Because you fat bankers have eaten all the pies
More and more people at the food banks
While you fat bankers have been robbing all the banks
Now you owe us all 1 and a half trillion pounds
Every day another billion owe
While people are getting down
The poor now have little left to give
They slouch deadlike to the beat of the bankers, the
media., the rich and powerful
Headlight to tailight into the Dark Satanic Mill every morn
at the hour of eight
Debt slaves, party people, mindless, fucked up joined
together to keep the flow of money
from poor to rich, north to south east from Belfast to the
Square Mile of spivs charlied off their faces
whoring chavs in suits monkeys fresh from hanging in
branches
Meanwhile back in the mill...
The team leader shouts “Who wants overtime this Saturday?” The slaves rise to the bait
Not wanting to appear ungrateful even though they would
sell their souls to have a day off
Now it’s time you bankers, Give Give Give
So give us all a break
And give the money back
You greedy Tory t***s
You greedy Tory t***s
You greedy Tory t***s
And the moral of the poem is for as they say in the bankers Bible:
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
in Thread needle Street*
Then it is for greedy bankers to go to the Kingdom of
Heaven in a tax haven
And give the money back cos the greedier are becoming
needy.
Skippy
2013
(* where the bank of England is located)
The young reality TV metrosexual fashion fuckwit plays it
for laughs
vying for the attention of his tart of a team leader
The me me me generation young girl shacked up with
her boyfriend can’t help saying his
name in every sentence “John did this John said this
John thinks this blah fucking blah”
to her single mother friend.
The only distraction from the boredom is the tap tap
tapping of finger on keyboard,
Such is the dull, crushing, brain sucking, deathly passing
of time in the Dark Satanic Mill of 2013.
Copyright Craig N Davenport 01/04/2013
Page 18
Wake Your Mind - Spring 2013
A Meterorite hits Parliament - Richard Proffitt 2013
“
“
If I can’t dance to it, it’s not my revolution.
Emma Goldman
”
Everything the State says is a lie,
and everything it has it has stolen.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Page 19
”
mermaid - thomas taylor
Love Thy
Neighbour 2013 Style
All this talk of benefit scroungers,
They’re taking the piss, the lazy loungers,
With their flat screen tv’s, fags and booze,
Austerities fight, our country will lose.
They can’t find work? There’s jobs out there,
Let’s just face it, they don’t really care,
They’re only a bit disabled and they’re not really
sick,
They just can’t be arsed, they’re taking the mick.
We have to pay for their daily bread,
It would be cheaper if they were all dead!
-
“
Freiheit ist immer
die Freiheit des
Andersdenkenden
Freedom is always, and
exclusively, freedom for
the one who thinks
differently.
”
Rosa Luxemburg
Satirical Poem by Brown Buzzard
Page 20
Wake Your Mind - Spring 2013
Too many late nights, too
many early mornings
Early to drink, late to sleep
the roller coaster
takes you to excruciating highs
and the depths of a bottomless hole.
Standing up,
nearly falling
to the floor
and anxious thoughts
at every knock at the door.
The drift in
and drift away
to strange, fuzzy
corridors of the mind-forged
vice grips that confuse and ensnare.
Patterns alter their shape
to be developed
as signposts
to anywhere, but this.....
It`s morning now
I hear the birds
and their morning call.
Time becomes an irrelevance
when you are facing the wall.
John Yates
- ju harriman
“
Man was made for joy and woe
Then when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.
Joy and woe are woven fine
A clothing for the soul to bind.
William Blake
Page 21
”
Spring 2013.
Skulldruggery
How the hell did I survive my twenties?
it is amazing that I am still here.
All of those times of self abuse
all of those nights forever a blur.
Sometimes an almost suicidal hunger
pushed me right up to the very edge.
Mood swings, bad nerves and paranoia
personality split by a narcotic wedge.
The craziness I put myself through
just so I could get out of my head.
Was fuelled on by a burning anger
every day and night I was seeing red.
But it was more than mere partying
there was a hole there in my soul.
My insides a yearning gulf of nothing
I’d become damaged, I wasn’t whole.
Today I still dance with danger
but the peddles not to the floor.
I still have not exactly limitations
yet now I don’t always ask for more.
I am glad not to be so desperate
as desperate as I was for so long.
People predicted my death years ago
I would like to prove them wrong.
Spring aches in their heart of embers,
serpents do glide through Time,
The apple blossom is not impregnated
artificially with resin to fall down,
Do silicone petals have the same
thirst for Sun the organic one claims?
The world has transmogrified it is no
longer carbon based but concrete,
Trees of luminous green Plasticine are
still sensitive to the tender touch,
Whose touch, Midas touch, no gold
finger is on the run from the masses.
© Paul Tristram 2010
22/04/2013.
Children gaze with eyes of Eve far too
early? Know polar ice is melting,
Ice melts in a deluge and a hurricane
howls today’s star crossed lovers,
A revelation? Juliet was but thirteen
and Friar Lawrence an apothecary,
Do the planets rotate in a different
way today, tides of lovers unmoved?
Poet knows lovers will lie with the
curse of the elders chiselled in stone,
The sage can hand a phial to numb
the pain or the pen to write in blood.
N.S.Pearce
Page 22
Wake Your Mind - Spring 2013
My Ex-Girlfriend’s House on Fire - Jarred Allison 2012
Artist’s Statement:
This is a painting that deals with the emotion of jelousy. The realisation of my ex-girlfriend ‘moving
on’ with her new boyfriend created a tremendous sence of pain and jelousy within me. Whilst she
was enjoying life - I was feeling destroyed by my life situation, I wanted to actualise this feeling of
distruction symbollicly in art to bring about a catharsis of feeling.
J.Allison 2013
Page 23
The Animal Holochaust
- Transvestite: This is someone who enjoys wearing the clothing designed for someone of the opposite gender (such as a male that wears dresses
intended for females), often for sexual pleasure.
Incase you havn’t noticed these a holocaust
going on - of Animals
In fact it’s worse than the Natzi holocaust - and I
can say that having been through hell myself
But No, nobody cares - People around here
just carry on pleasuring themselves and winging about losing £20 quid off their dole.
If anyone wants to help stop the horror, get in
touch.
You probably know who I am - one of the
only people that really cares about animals
around here.
Here’s your chance to help!
- Intersex: Intersex has to do with biological sex
- Genderqueer: Someone who is genderqueer
- ‘The Wizard of Waz’
does not associate themselves with either male or
female as a gender identity, but as something entirely
different. Some people think of it as an in-between,
or androgyny, others think of it as being a ‘third gender’ that is unrelated to male or female. Some other
words people use are pangender, agender, bigender,
or genderfluid.
Gender for Beginners
Our society generally operates within a gender binary,
that is, with two genders (like a bicycle has two
wheels). However, there are actually more than two
genders, and even more than two sexes! If you’re
confused, read on for some key definitions to help
you understand of the difference between sex and
gender and about some different types of gender and
sex variance.
- Sex: What someone is biologically defined as,
generally male, female, or intersex (more on this one
later).
- Gender: What’s between your ears, not between
your legs, and how you present that to the world
(and how the world perceives you) through clothes,
mannerisms, etc.
- Transgender: This is an umbrella term for anyone
who identifies as a gender other than what they were
assigned at birth.
transitioning from their assigned birth sex to something other than their assigned birth sex.
that is done in character and does not necessarily reflect someone’s gender when they aren’t in costume.
Generally, it’s someone male-identified dressing as a
female (drag queen) or female-identified dressing as a
male (drag king), but not always.
(i.e. what’s in your pants), not with gender. It can
mean one of several types of chromosomal or other
birth conditions affecting one’s sexual organs. Being
intersex doesn’t make you look any different from
someone that isn’t intersex, except sometimes in the
pants. Not all types of intersex conditions change the
external look of people’s parts though, so from the
outside, an intersex person can look exactly the same
as a non-intersex person. (NOTE: The term ‘hermaphrodite’ is an offensive word often confused with this,
but hermaphrodites don’t really exist in humans.
That means that one has complete male and female
sex organs, like a banana slug.)
And if I sound bitter - that’s because we are.
Thank God for me/US!
- Transsexual: This is someone who is physically
- Drag queen/king: Drag is a type of performance
Some terms that are offensive to transgender folks
are words like “she-male” or “tranny” and should not
be used, ever! (Unless, of course, you’re referring to
the transmission of a car ;) )
Another point of confusion for some people that are
unfamiliar with transgender is how pronouns work. In
case you slept through grammar class, pronouns are
those little words we use to assign gender to folks,
such as he, she, him, and her. In general, people who
are transgender use the pronoun for the gender they
are transitioning into. For example, your friend Emily, who was assigned female at birth, tells you one
day that they are transgender and wants to be called
Ethan and referred to as he. To be respectful of your
friend, you would no longer use the name Emily, only
Ethan, and you would only use male (he/him/his)
pronouns.
Naturally, there are exceptions to every rule, so please
ask, “What is your preferred pronoun?” if you aren’t
sure which one to use! That is a far more polite way
than asking, “Are you a boy or a girl?” because as
you learned above, the answer could be neither! ;)
Taken From: http://equalizeit.org/
Page 24
Helplines
»» Abuse (child, sexual, domestic violence)
NSPCC
Children's charity dedicated to ending child
abuse and child cruelty.
Phone: 0800 1111 for Childline for children
»» Depression, anxiety, obsession and 0808 800 5000 for adults concerned about
mental health
a child
Website: www.nspcc.org.uk
Rethink
Support and advice for people living with
Refuge
mental illness.
Advice on dealing with domestic violence.
Phone: 0300 5000 927
Phone: 0808 2000 247
Website: www.rethink.org
Website: www.refuge.org.uk
Depression Alliance
Charity for sufferers of depression. Has a
network of self-help groups.
Website: www.depressionalliance.org
CALM
CALM is The Campaign against Living
Miserably, for men aged 15-35.
Website: www.thecalmzone.net
»» Addiction (drugs, alcohol, gambling)
Alcoholics Anonymous
Phone: 0845 769 7555
Website: www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk
Narcotics Anonymous
Phone: 0300 999 1212
Website: www.ukna.org
MDF: the bipolar organisation
A charity helping people living with manic
depression or bipolar disorder.
Website: www.mdf.org.uk
Gamblers Anonymous
Website: www.gamblersanonymous.org.uk
Samaritans
Confidential support for people experiencing
feelings of distress or despair.
Phone: 08457 90 90 90 (24-hour helpline)
Website: www.samaritans.org.uk
Alzheimer's Society
Provides information on dementia, including
factsheets and helplines.
Phone: 0845 300 0336
Website: www.alzheimers.org.uk
Sane
Charity offering support and carrying out
research into mental illness.
Phone: 0845 767 8000 (daily, 6pm-11pm)
SANEmail email: sanemail@org.uk
Website: www.sane.org.uk
»» Bereavement
Mind
Promotes the views and needs of people
with mental health problems.
Phone: 0300 123 3393
Website: www.mind.org.uk
The Mental Health Foundation
Provides information and support for everyone with mental health problems or learning
disabilities.
Website: www.mentalhealth.org.uk
YoungMinds
Information on child and adolescent mental
health. Services for parents and professionals.
Phone: Parents' helpline 0808 802 5544
Website: www.youngminds.org.uk
PAPYRUS
Young suicide prevention society.
Phone: HOPElineUK 0800 068 4141
Website: www.papyrus-uk.org
»» Alzheimer's
Cruse Bereavement Care
Phone: 0844 477 9400
Website: www.crusebereavementcare.org.uk
»» Crime victims
Find your local helpline at:
Rape Crisis
Website: www.rapecrisis.org.uk
Victim Support
Phone: 0845 30 30 900
Website: www.victimsupport.org
»» Eating disorders
Beat
Phone: 0845 634 1414
Website: www.b-eat.co.uk
»» Learning disabilities
Mencap
Charity working with people with a learning
disability, their families and carers.
Phone: 0300 333 1111
Website: www.mencap.org.uk
»» LGBT
London Gay Switchboard
Providing free & confidential support & information to lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgendered communities throughout the UK
0300 330 0630 (DAILY 10AM - 11PM)
»» Obsessions
OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) Action
Support for people with obsessive compulsive disorder. Includes information on
treatment and online resources.
Phone: 0845 390 6232
Website: www.ocdaction.org.uk
OCD UK
Charity website run by obsessive compulsives. Includes facts, news and treatments.
Phone: 0845 120 3778
Website: www.ocduk.org
»» Panic and anxiety
Panic attacks
Website offering free online course for
people who suffer from panic attacks.
Phone: 01273 776 770 (to enrol only)
Website: www.panic-attacks.co.uk
No Panic
Voluntary charity offering support for
sufferers of panic attacks and OCD. Offers a
course to help overcome your phobia/OCD.
Includes a helpline.
Phone: 0808 808 0545
Website: www.nopanic.org.uk
No more panic
Information for sufferers and carers of
people with panic, anxiety or phobias (OCD).
Has a discussion forum.
Website: www.nomorepanic.co.uk
»» Parenting
Family Lives
Phone: 0808 800 2222
Website: http://familylives.org.uk
»» Phobias
Anxiety UK
Charity providing support if you've been
diagnosed with an anxiety condition.
Phone: 08444 775 774
Website: www.anxietyuk.org.uk
»» Relationships
Relate
Phone: 0300 100 1234 (for information on
their services)
Website: www.relate.org.uk
Underground Mind
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