Unless you’ve been living in a cave on a mountain top for the last couple of years, you have probably heard of The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne. Of course once you’ve read The Secret you realise that you are not bearing witness to a previously coveted truth, but offering readers the key to an age-old wisdom sees books flying off the shelves. When one of my Reiki students first mentioned The Secret, which I had not yet read at the time and explained its premise I was sorely tempted to roll my eyes and breathe a heavy sigh, because there are so many self-help books out there promising the world and failing to deliver. What’s more, these self-help books shouldn’t be offering up the world in the first place, firstly because we are not entitled to it, the world is not our oyster - it does not belong to us, secondly because it steers people away from their true purpose in life and encourages them to hanker after their physical desires rather than pursuing spiritual growth. The truth is, there is no secret, we all just need to listen to our intuition, succumb to the will of the universe and learn to want what we need, rather than pining after things we were never meant to have that won’t enrich our lives anyway. Below I have addressed a couple of points raised in The Secret and explained my own thoughts on the matter.

1) The Secret gives you anything you want: happiness, health and wealth

The Secret aka, The Law of Attraction, postulates that we create our own reality with our thoughts and by having negative thoughts we attract negativity into our lives and by having positive thoughts we attract positivity into our life. This is, of course, no secret and whilst it is true to an extent it is not entirely true. Scientific studies have demonstrated the power of positive thinking, visualisation, intention and even prayer, but there are limitations as to what we can realistically achieve. For instance, if you want to be healthy but sit around on your butt all day quaffing cakes and fast food, all the good intentions in the world are not going to make you healthy unless you actually take the appropriate action to restore your body to health. Wanting something does not mean that you are going to get it, or that you should get it.

Sometimes the experiences we go through are there to teach us a lesson about our lives. It’s only by taking the right action that our lives truly change. In addition, The Secret seems to suggest that we can entirely mould our own reality, but this concept, to me, embodies human arrogance. The universe can take this world away from us in a second and I believe that instead of chasing our physical desires to the detriment of everything else, we should learn to trust in our intuition. Instead of desperately trying to control our lives we should let go to the will of the universe.

Someone may well want a new Mercedes, a villa in the Algarve and a wallet full of cash, but a) it might not be wtihin their remit for their overall journey on earth, b) it won’t bring them spiritual happiness, only fleeting physical happiness and c) they may not deserve it! We need to forget about what we think we want for a second and ask ourselves, “What do we need? How can I contribute to this earth in a positive way instead of constantly taking from it?” This is far more constructive than attending workshops on how to become a billionaire or asking the universe to cough up some material wealth for us.

2) The Secret suggests that the Law of Attraction responds to whatever thoughts you are having and brings you that which you most desire

The universe doesn’t always give you what you most desire. In fact unless you are connected to your intuition and have learned to want what you need and follow your spiritual path, it will probably not give you very much of what you desire at all. If it does, you will have to suffer the consequences of that at some point in your life, depending on what it was that you wanted in the first place. Actions always have consequences and we all pay for making bad choices at some point during our lives. Sure, if you keep thinking, “I am going to die. I am so ill. I am going to be unhealthy for the rest of my life,” then you are setting yourself up for disaster because your body responds to chemical messages in the brain and that negative message is the one being constantly played to your body over and over again. Your cells and immune system will respond accordingly. It’s highly important to have positive thoughts about yourself and send loving messages to your body, and of course to look after and respect yourself. These are the kinds of messages you should be sending yourself. However, as I previously stated, just because you want something it does not mean that you will get it.

Millions of people have read The Secret and I wonder how many of those are now millionaires through reading the book. I doubt that it’s very many. If you want to be wealthy as The Secret promises you have to work damn hard to achieve that wealth and accept the consequences, which may mean working 12 hours or more a day, spending little time with family and friends, and feeling low in energy. Very few people win the lottery! Don’t assume that material wealth will bring your true happiness in itself and it should not be the ultimate goal in anything you do.

By following your spiritual path, you may find that you find material wealth somewhere along the line but it should be a by-product of what you are doing, never the ultimate goal. Never assume that material wealth will fill the spiritual void in your life, because like sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and every other physical desire you can think of, it won’t. All these things bring temporary and fleeting pleasure but they will not quench that nagging feeling inside of you that says, “Surely there is more to life than this. What the hell am I here for?” Almost everyone poses these questions at some time during their life and genuine happiness comes from discovering what that ‘more to life’ is and understanding the universe and your own place in this universe.

Like so many other self-help books out there, I feel that The Secret is peddling easy answers, but the truth is that easy answers are not really answers at all. Be prepared to put hard work into discovering your spiritual purpose, finding yourself and attaining true happiness, because the effort we put in teaches us valuable lessons in life. I learned Reiki and it helped me to discover my purpose much faster than would have been the case had I not learned this healing art, but I had to dedicate myself to my path, to self-heal everyday, to give up many of my physical desires, to make bold moves in my life that I would never even have contemplated prior to discovering my spiritual purpose, and you too, have to be prepared to put in the hard work. Truly, there is no reward greater in this or any other life than choosing to follow your spiritual path, because nothing on this earth will bring you such peace, happiness and joy. No drugs, alcohol, sex, material possessions and conditional human love can compare to the unconditional love of your soul and the universe, or God, believe me I have experienced most of them. Even if you don’t believe in a higher power, you can still find happiness by learning to trust in your intuition and following your intuition implicitly. The key is hard work, letting go to the will of the universe and trusting in your intuition. The Secret? I don’t think so.

My third book, You Can Only Achieve What is Possible is out in July (available to pre-order from Amazon). So many self-help books try to kid us that we can achieve what ever we desire and even that we should want to! In contrast, I contest that we should follow the will of the universe, relinquish control and pursue our spiritual paths, instead learning to embrace what we need. Below is a section of one of the chapters in the book.

You Can Only Achieve What is Possible - There is No New Global Spiritual Consciousness

For those who believe that humanity as a whole is becoming more evolved and spiritually enlightened and conjecture that the world is becoming a better place, I present ten newspaper headlines from a range of UK newspapers, dated 6th March 2007:

1. Powerful earthquake hits Indonesia – The Times
2. $1 million-a-week crack king admits 30 murders – The Times
3. Nine civilians ‘killed’ in US-led air strike – The Times
4. Up to 90 dead in Iraq blast – The Guardian
5. Briton killed in Afghan Offensive – The Guardian
6. Asia Smog ‘will melt Arctic ice’ – The Guardian
7. UK plans to cut CO2 ‘doomed’ – The Guardian
8. Up to 30 people ‘planned’ killing of teenager – The Telegraph
9. Iran poised to strike in wealthy Gulf States – The Telegraph
10. Young father gunned down for standing up to gangs – The Daily Mail

These were just ten particularly unsavoury headlines that the press drummed up, but I had a great many more to choose from. The world is ricocheting out of control. Our belated meagre attempts at damage limitation are falling far short of the dramatic changes that are really needed. We are deluding ourselves, if we believe that a new world consciousness is overtaking the earth.

Without launching into a political debate about the reticence of our governments and big corporations to make any kind of decisive and radical changes, it is obvious to most of us, I think, that the planet is on a steady decline. We often complain about the consequences but we, as human beings, created them. In arrogance many of us have treated the world as our oyster. The danger is that we may swallow it whole. People tend to place such significance on history, but we have consistently failed to learn from it. The same mistakes are being replayed time and time again.

Indubitably, we have become more technologically and economically sophisticated. We are great at accumulating possessions and creating products but in spiritual terms, many people are distinctly lacking. In the Western world we are on a conveyor belt, rushing to work and back every day, locked into a daydream, with our eyes glazed over. In a mad commuter rush we get herded and squashed onto trains and buses. Mechanically, we trundle through each day, working more and more hours than ever before.

We live without thinking about the consequences. We buy our food and many of us do not stop to think where it came from, or how it was generated. We are desperate to achieve our physical desires and will go to enormous lengths to do so.

Our Brave New World soma is drugs (recreational and pharmaceutical) and alcohol. It serves to keep the masses stupefied and in a state of subservience. It prevents them from questioning the way they live their lives. Binge drinking in both the United Kingdom and in the United States is a monumental problem. It often leads to reckless behaviour, a dramatic increase in violence and promiscuous unprotected sex and elevates the number of people with psychological issues.

Our enduring gluttony and drinking habits are costing our national health service billions. According to one study by Professor Barry Popkin, of the Department of Nutrition and Economics at the University of North Carolina, the world’s obese population now outnumber the starving. What a terribly sad indictment of the state of humanity.

There are more people with no spiritual connection who will think nothing of sticking a knife in someone for a few pound coins, or even just for the sheer hell of it. We are obsessed with fame, celebrity and models. Many teenagers do not want to be policeman, fireman, doctors or nurses. They want to be catwalk models, reality television contestants and famous hip-hop artists. They want adulation, glory, to rap about guns, drugs and loose women and a shed load of hard cash.

We have become so desensitised to the travesties in the world because we see it so often. We have cast ourselves into self-imposed isolation. Our information is fed to us through a straw called the media and many of us trust it implicitly as being subjective and in our best interests. The horrors and lessons of world disasters are briefly entertained, but even more swiftly forgotten. Many people make token efforts, but the gestures are without meaning and too small to make a real significance.

Our planet is getting hotter every year, the polar ice caps are melting and still we keep chugging out the CO2 emissions. Nature and the Universe is showing us how easy it can take it all away from us, but we are not really listening, because we will not believe in it until it actually happens. When it does we will beg and pray for forgiveness, for the world to be restored, but will it be too late?

For everything we have in the Western world many of us are feeling like we are struggling to survive, to keep up with the Jones’ or just to pay the bills. Some of us think we are being rebellious by indulging in hedonistic pursuits, but in reality, we are in servitude to our own human desires.

We have carefully crafted our very own little Sodom and Gomorrah and most of us are completely oblivious to it as we trundle along in our own little dream world. “It is not so bad,” we say. “When has the world ever been perfect?” Never. I am not going to harp on about a bygone era when everything was wonderful. It has become much worse over the years, but it was never perfect, which emphasises my point that we have failed to learn the lessons of history and what makes anyone think that we ever will?

That has cheered you up hasn’t it? The doomsayer has called. She is only five foot, two inches and prophesises calamity for us all. It is true that I have painted a very bleak picture but the picture is not a painting, it is our own reality. Now I am going to backtrack a bit. There are people who are making massive endeavours to make this world a better one. They do it with sincerity and love and they truly understand the truth of what I have just said. These people do look beyond the painted picture to the inner reality. They are the real rebels because they hover outside the mainstream quietly trying to make progress in their own significant ways.

More of society is waking up to see the truth. More people are searching for their spirituality and searching for a better way of life. People have had enough of city dwelling and they are escaping in their droves to the countryside to live more simplistic and healthier lifestyles. There are some genuine efforts to protect the planet, to protect each other and make this fragile earth a more liveable place. The organic product industry is booming. Some of this is due to people who really want to make a difference; some is due to big businesses seeing the potential to corner a tidy profit. It has almost become cool to be seen as being ‘green.’

However, it may just be too little too late. For all the people who are endeavouring to make a real difference to this world, for all the people who are trying to become better human beings, there are billions more who are not and may never even try.

Hugging a tree, dressing like a hippy and smoking a spliff might be fun, but it is not going to radically change our world, only governments and the populace en masse can achieve that. We as consumers can make conscious choices that force governments and big businesses to bow to our demands, but whether we all will or not, is another matter. Many of us are still being brainwashed and it is hard to break free from our deluded reverie.

By the way, I do not have a problem with people that hug trees or hippies, but there are a whole load of do-gooder new-agers who make out that everything is going to be hunky dory, who resolutely try to convince themselves and others that a wonderful new spiritual consciousness is dawning. In their defence, they would most likely call me a miserable pessimist but am I, or are they in denial? You decide.

Everyone has the potential to grow and evolve, to become more conscious, aware, thoughtful, enlightened and spiritual individuals, whether they would deem themselves to be spiritual or not. Yet, not everyone will, as I have said previously, because not everyone wants to. The next door neighbours who keep playing their music really loud, who verbally abuse the old man at the end of the street, who bully their bull dog to make it aggressive. They do not want to be spiritual, to grow, to make the world a better place. They are slaves to their physical desires. They are cut off from their spiritual nature and their emotions. They live only by their ego.

The gang who shot a seven year kid down the road, do not want to make the world a greener and happier place, they have no compassion. They get kicks out of showing off to their friends and the pain of others affords them immense pleasure.

A despotic world leader does not care a jot about nurturing society and acting for the good of the people. They want their mammoth egos massaged and everything that a physical lifestyle can afford: money, power, praise, cheap thrills, aggression and so the list goes on.

Somewhere, inside some of these sorts of people there may be potential, a slight flicker of compassion and love, but it may never turn into a flame. They may never become enlightened, not because they do not have potential, but because they do not chase after Enlightenment or the most Divine aspects of our human emotions. Instead, they chase after the deepest, darkest side of our human emotions and know nowhere in between.

For others, there is no flicker inside to turn into a flame. Remember. Some people will never be good, so there is no use trying to draw any good out of them. You cannot find what is not, and was never, there.

This is not to say that we should completely give up trying. Worthy causes are always worth fighting for, if we do it with genuine love and sincerity. We are here to nurture our souls and steer them towards the Divine. Our thoughts and actions are fundamental to the paths of our souls. We are all unconsciously choosing our destinations with every single step we take in life. If we can make footprints in the sand and at least try to make a difference, that is fantastic. The key is to make a difference where we can, to help the people that we can genuinely help, rather than wasting our time on those we cannot.

The most important thing we can do on this earth is to follow the guidance of our souls, to trust in our intuition. It sounds so damn obvious, but for so many of us it is not an easy task. We cannot quieten the other voices that occupy our busy minds and we cannot decipher our rational reasoning from our emotions or our emotions from our intuition. We fool ourselves into believing that we are working based on intuition, when we are not even sure what our intuition sounds like. We blame human actions on animal instincts, screaming, “They are behaving like animals.”

You have probably guessed by now that I do not subscribe to evolution theory. It is, after all, a theory and we have many of those. I cannot see that it would be possible for fish to one day crawl out of the sea and if they did, why are they not doing it right now? Why are monkeys not still evolving and why are we not evolving?
Big Bang theory is just another theory. Much of science is based on human hypothesis and no human being alive today was there at the beginning of the formation of our planet to provide any unquestionable scientific validity to these sorts of theories.

There are some scientists who believe and who have believed in God, or a supreme force, in one form or another. These have included: Nicholas Copernicus, Robert Boyle, Sir Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Max Planck, Galileo Galilei, Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, Gregor Mendel and Albert Einstein. Although Einstein could not conceive of a personal God, he could neither conceive of a Universe that had not been created.

Isaac Newton believed that the beauty, intricacy and order of the Universe could, “Only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.” He also stated that, “The Supreme God exists necessarily, and by the same necessity, he exists always and everywhere.”

I cannot believe that anyone can look up at the stars, at the beauty and elegance of the Universe and not consider that they may be a greater force at work, a force that is too great for us to comprehend. In our human arrogance, we see ourselves as being at the top of the chain, but the choices we make put us right at the bottom. Animals and humans differ in a fundamental way and that phenomenal difference is that we have the ability to make choices. Animals act on their instincts for survival. We squander ours.

We have wisdom, knowledge, awareness and choices. We can choose not to act on our anger, not to rely purely on our base physical desires. We can choose to steer ourselves towards real spiritual evolution, but instead, many of us choose to wallow in the mud, when the heavens are shining down on us to show us a way out of the quagmire. If we are not careful the mud will turn into quick sand and we will not have the choice of escaping.

I am not a saint, some people from my past would no doubt testify to that. I have lived my life very thoughtlessly, recklessly and irresponsibly in the past, but I realised the error of my ways. I found the real meaning of happiness and I clawed back a connection with my intuition. It was not easy but I did it and there is no reason why you cannot do it too.

We are not expected to be perfect, just to take steps in the right direction. We need to see what is genuinely there, rather than what our eyes want to see. We need to hear what is there, rather than what our ears want to hear and we need to do what we should do, rather than just what we want to do.

The world is exquisitely beautiful and you only need to hear a bird sing or watch a flower bloom to know that, but stick your head out of the car window and listen hard to the police sirens roaring and breathe in the smoggy air. We had something so perfect, but we have broken it and day by day, we destroy it even more. The world is not ours to destroy and if we ravage it, it will in turn ravage us.

So, I say kick the utopian wishful thinking, wake up and smell the truth. We are turning our once beautiful world into a dystopian nightmare. We might not be able to save it completely but we do have choices to make, we can make an effort. Even if we cannot save the world in the end, some of us can rescue our poor beleaguered souls and surely that is worth the effort.

I know it all sounds so bleak but the truth often is. We can sit down depressed and do absolutely nothing about it, wallowing in our own self-pity or we can get up and make our lives better, helping others in the process. Yeah the truth is harsh, but it is also wonderful in so many ways. Blind resignation is causing so many catastrophes in the world but if we take some positive action, we can shed some light for others, give more people greater choices and cultivate our personal growth for the benefit of our souls and for the good of humanity.

“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”

Albert Einstein

Author, spiritual teacher and Reiki teacher Dawn Mellowship explores our intuition and her theory on the circles of life.

We enter this world in a state of oneness, with ourselves and with the universe. At this time we have a profound connection with our intuition. Recent research from a Yale University team has discovered that babies have a sense of morality, which is an instinct rather than a learned behaviour. The study, which was published in the journal Nature, demonstrated that infants of 6 and 10 months old can distinguish between helpful and unhelpful individuals. Already at this tender age we have an understanding of our external environment, which I would predict is the product of our intuition, a strong and powerful connection with our souls that has not yet been tainted or modified by human interaction, our upbringing, environment and the pressures of socialisation. Babies have a wonderful sense of innocence about them. The world has not corrupted their sense of self.

It is not long before babies mimic the traits of their parents and as they grow older into children, teenagers and then adults, their sense of self and purpose is derived, not from the strong intuitive connection they possessed at birth, but from processing external information, from parents, friends, work colleagues, the media and other walks of society. Children are rarely encouraged to embrace their intuition and are instead persuaded to shirk inner knowledge in favour of external answers. We find it hard when someone presents us with insight that is devoid of physical evidence. Have you ever spoken to someone about a matter that you were sure about but could not explain? When they question you, asking, “How do you know this?” the only answer you can provide is, “Because I just do.” We are not programmed to compute that response, longing for the answer to be backed up with solid proof, but science has not yet caught up with our intuition. Humanity might think that it is mastering nature and learning to tailor the universe to its needs, but the universe can swallow the world up in a second and humanity would have absolutely no control over that. Global warming is proof of that.

All scientists have to accept that they are fallible as human beings and there are many occurrences that they cannot yet explain. If they could truly decipher our intuition as a connection with our souls and discover the mechanisms behind that, I wonder if people would look to their intuition for the wrong reasons, not because they believed in it and wanted to grow spiritually and emotionally, but because experts had told them to do so. Of course, it would be unfair to say that science has discovered nothing about our intuition. Researchers at Washington University in 2005, found that the anterior cingulate (ACC) part of the brain is more active when an individual is about to experience something potentially harmful. It is believed to serve as an early warning system, helping the individual to avoid hazardous situations on a subconscious level. It is also recognised that the brain generates its own electromagnetic (EM) field. Professor Johnjoe McFadden at the University of Reading has suggested that this field might be “the seat of consciousness.” I would call it our intuition.

Albert Einstein once said “the only real valuable thing is intuition.” In my view his statement is absolutely right. Indeed, Einstein believed in God, not a God that served as a moral guiding compass for society but a creator. The word God strikes abject terror into many people who associate God with the dogmatic and punishing God of religion. For me God is a creative intelligent and loving energy.

Rather than dismissing spirituality and perceiving intuition as the product of evolution, I think we should be looking to something much more ethereal. Personally, I feel that it is impossible to look up at the stars, to see the intricate and complex nature of the universe and believe that this just happened by itself. I neither subscribe to big bang theory, evolution theory or the creation theory of the bible. In my opinion, science is too hooked up on technological advances and their vision of the future involves manipulating nature and rejecting our souls. It is a vision driven by physical desires rather than intuition, which brings me onto my next point.

As we traverse through this life, we very often allow our physical desires and our emotional longings to control us. It is hard not to, the society we live in is geared towards the pursuit of our physical desires. Many scientists clearly do not believe in the soul because if they did, they would not genetically modify anything they can get their hands on, they would not be working to create microchips to furnish us with ‘superhuman’ powers and prolong our human existence, they would not be producing nanomachines driven by bacteria to transport drugs around our bodies. They would not be flagrantly ignoring death and failing to explore its aftermath for those who have departed from this world. Instead they would be looking to discover why we are here as souls and they would be motivated by unconditional love instead of money and power. Humankind cannot master nature. It can learn from it or modify and destroy it. I fear that it has chosen the latter.

Capitalism is about making a profit and we are too far into it for any other system to take its place. We wouldn’t know where to start. Largely speaking, the people who control this world do not want us to trust in our intuition, because if we did, they would no longer be in a position of power. We would lose all faith in their words and actions and no longer allow them to dictate our lives. Our apathy would be replaced with direct action on the part of everyone.

In the current climate it is so hard for people to be intuitive. The wonderfully strong intuition we have at birth is quickly shattered and replaced with a confused combination of physical desire and emotional yearning. In energetic terms I believe that we have three bodies, which I compare to three circles, a physical body, an emotional body and a spiritual body. When we are born these circles are as one and our intuition guides our physical and emotional bodies. As our lifestyles, interactions and society impinge upon us, these three bodies drift apart.

Our physical bodies direct us towards fulfilling our physical desires. They want money, power, possessions, sex, drugs, alcohol, and so on. Our emotional bodies long to be loved, but in the absence of our spiritual guidance they latch onto conditional love, but it never quite meets our expectations and we very often feel that something is missing. We look for love in the wrong places and feel that we need certain things that are deemed to be social ‘norms,’ such as marriage, having children, being with a partner. Sometimes our emotional bodies become attached to our physical desires and we convince ourselves that we need to have a big house, a big car, a myriad of possessions and personal power and glory.

The happiness we derive from any of these things is fleeting and so we accumulate more and more, we become desensitised to certain pursuits because they rapidly move from being a taboo to normal modes of behaviour. We are swimming without a paddle because we don’t have that intuitive connection; we instead rely on the inherently flawed guidance of our physical and emotional bodies.

Our spiritual bodies desperately try to pull us in the right direction, but their guidance falls on deaf ears. We are utterly oblivious. Perhaps there are fleeting moments where we hear our intuition and think, “should I listen,” but it isn’t long before we reject its guidance and pursue a different path. Our lives take a turn for the worst because we ignore our intuition. All the pain and suffering on this earth is bred by humanity and we chose to endure that pain and suffering. It can end if we make different choices, ones that are based on intuition.

There is a way out, even if not for everyone, then for some. You need to discover who you are, why you are here and learn to distinguish your physical and emotional desires from your intuition. We can all do this if we choose to. George Eliot said that “the strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.” Choose your destiny. Search until you find the answer. Look beyond the words that are presented to you and see the real message, the real person and the real world. I have written several books and my current book exposes the dangers of certain cosmetic constituents. When I think about the beauty industry, I don’t see beauty but an industry that is out to make a profit by fostering anxiety about our physical appearance. Think about what you see when you consider what is happening around you. Forget the charm that powerful figures present and look for the truth. It’s not a secret. It is there for the taking.

By opening your eyes and your mind to the wisdom of your intuition you can come to have all the spiritual answers you need, you can bring those three disparate circles into a united trinity of wholeness. If science has no answer for your knowledge, it doesn’t matter; have faith in what you know. The founder of the Japanese healing therapy I practice, Mikao Usui, said in the 1920s that science had no explanation for energy healing, but that one day it would, and sure enough science has explored healing and found answers. Many studies have shown the healing effects of electromagnetic energy, whether from a machine or from a healer. There are even some very good theories as to how it actually works at a cellular level. Perhaps one day there will be answers to explain your inner wisdom, but don’t wait for them to appear, trust in yourself enough to not need that physical form of validation. Be more like an infant and see the world with untainted and intuitive eyes.

Dawn Mellowship is an author, journalist, ethical stylist, spiritual teacher and a Reiki practitioner and teacher based in the UK. Her first book, Passage to Freedom (O Books) is available from Amazon and all good book stores. For more information see www.dawnmellowship.com.

Vegetarians and Vegans may not yet be passe but Freegans are hot on their heels encouraging a less consumer driven, more community orientated society. Dawn Mellowship investigates the Freegan ethics.

The Macmillan English Dictionary defines a freegan as “a person who consumes food that has been thrown away, especially someone who wants to protect the environment by reducing waste.”

Whilst this defines a minute aspect of freegan activities it leaves out the core principles and many other freegan practices. U.S. freegan representative Adam Weissman sheds some light on the matter,

“A common misunderstanding perpetuated by the media is that freeganism is this act of dumpster diving, of going into trash and pulling out things that people can use. The media have focused on recovering food from the rubbish and whilst that is certainly something that freegans do it is like saying vegetarians eat asparagus. They may do but that is not the definition of vegetarianism.”

The Freegan Dilemma

“Similar to vegans freegans share a concern about world consumption. However we extend the argument to realise that under an economic model where profit is the only overriding consideration for anyone in business, we as consumers are complicit in a form of exploitation. Every product we buy is implicated in various forms of exploitation from worker abuse to environmental destruction to cruelty to animals.

Freegans believe that since none of us individually would want to support these kinds of injustices we have a moral responsibility to the greatest degree we are able to step outside of this ruthless and destructive economic model. Instead we field cooperative community projects and live a lifestyle based around ecological sustainability, sharing resources and living ethically without being dependent on the capitalist economy to provide for our needs.”

Freegans maintain that on a planet of finite resources we cannot sustain our current competitive economy indefinitely. This is not really a cutting edge concept as the reality is that ‘freegan activities’ have existed for thousands of years. UK based freegans Martin and Alf elaborate.

“Most people in developing countries re-use what they can, and recycle even such things as cardboard, plastic packaging and timber throw-outs. Most of these people have had very little consumer media conditioning and have a deep understanding of working for the good of society and are content to live on very little and place much higher emphasis on social values and the importance of family and friends.”

An Inequitable society

Freegans also aim to reassume their time, refusing to be ‘enslaved’ in jobs that only serve to fuel the capitalist profit driven economy and instead devoting their time to what they consider to be truly important in life. By opting out of a consumer society they diminish their financial needs and live off what others dismiss as refuse, recycling and repairing materials to avoid the need for constant purchasing. They find this to be more fulfilling and less taxing on an already overburdened natural environment.

Freegans consider one of the most detrimental components of our contemporary Western lifestyles to be the enormous amount of waste we accumulate courtesy of our disposable goods society. Their worries are not unfounded. According to Defra on average each of us produces around half a tonne of household waste per year, with the UK as whole producing over 100 million tonnes a year. Less than 20% of the waste we create in the UK is recycled.

Freegans identify innumerable injustices within our society that they believe to be damaging to society and the environment as a whole. Adam Weissman says, “Our advertising culture gives us an inflated sense of what we actually need.”

Along with this we are constantly being encouraged to replace our goods and many products are manufactured with a shelf live to ensure that we do this. Fashion trends are fleeting and we are persuaded to go out with the old style in with the new creating more unnecessary waste. Heather Rogers, journalist, filmmaker and author of Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage (The New Press 2005) explains that the volume of waste overflowing landfills pollutes our environment and compromises our health as landfills exude potentially cancer causing chemicals. Incinerators pour out heavy metals linked to asthma.

Freegan’s see our economy as being dominated by the petroleum industry, an eco-disaster and inseparable from warfare, as third world countries are forced to bow to the United States to suit the demands of oil conglomerates.

These are just a tiny smattering of the world’s hundreds of environmental and social issues that freegans are concerned about.

Freegan Roots

For New Jersey based freegan Adam Weissman becoming a freegan was a logical extension of his life’s commitment to ethical consumption.

“I became vegetarian at about 8 or 9 years old out of concerns for the life of animals and by 12 I was vegan. As a teenager I would eat only organic foods concerned about the environment and the impact on wildlife of pesticide use and a range of other chemicals used in agriculture. The more I researched even organic farming I came to realise that in a profit driven system even local organic farmers cut corners when it came to being able to produce a profitable product. So, I decided that I would need to find another means for producing my food.

Originally that would be just growing my own food thus being directly responsible for everything. Then largely by accident I came to realise the huge volume of food that is being wasted. I recognised that in reclaiming that food not only was I contributing to no further consumption of resources and no further harm to living beings but I was actually taking a positive step in reclaiming waste and diverting it from landfills. Over the years I have just found more ways to not be a part of the purchasing economy. I don’t have a car or drivers license and don’t buy all manner of consumer goods. I am mindful of the broader impacts of all the decisions of my life.”

A Day In the Life

So what does a freegan do on a typical day? Obviously freegans have differing practises and some are more pro-actively involved in promoting their lifestyle than others but Martin and Alf give us an idea of their particular routine.

“We try to practise our ideals by using our time and effort to serve others in love. It can take the form of doing free labour for anyone who asks, or talking with people about freeganism and the higher ideals of life. Our friend has produced some literature on these topics and for the last few years we have been travelling throughout the UK and handing these books to whoever would like to read them.

We live simply, and act according to our conscience. In the evening when we see a supermarket we sometimes stop to do some bin raiding and then do some creative cooking for our dinner. We spend the evenings socialising with one another, reading and visiting people who would like to discuss these issues further. We also spend time maintaining and improving our camper which is fully decked out with a kitchen and storage space.”

Freegan Practices

There are many ways that Freegans seek to ameliorate their consumption levels and preserve precious resources. Adam says

“What is vital about freeganism is renewing and building community on a local level and starting to build some of these perspectives in a practical way. I think some of the projects we are doing can help that path to transition.”

A few common freegan practices are listed below:

Wild Foraging - foragers locate and harvest foods “finding edible plants that grow all around us naturally within our eco systems and using these as food sources instead of shipping products from half a world away that are produced under environmentally exploitative conditions,” says Adam.

Free Markets - “where people bring all manner of items that they might otherwise throw away and give them away to others. People offer free services and workshops, everything from massage to free haircuts. Really trying to create a ‘Gift Economy’ that is not based around the exchange of currency or barter but around the idea that if everyone provides freely for the common good of society then everyone’s needs will be met.”

Freecycle - an internet swapping community where you can exchange, get free items or announce unwanted items for free that others can utilise.

Guerilla and Community Gardens - “growing community gardens in abandoned lots of land, turning them into food bases that help to renew communities.” This allows us to be self-sustaining by producing our own food rather than relying on global supermarket chains to provide it by ‘exploitative’ means.

Urban Foraging / Dumpster Diving - Recovering useable discarded items from dumpsters whether food or otherwise.

Not everyone is going to jump feet first down the freegan route but many are happy to take elements on board and Adam is encouraged by the response of some individuals.

“People approach us all the time wanting to share their skills. We have a guy who wants to teach people to grow gardens on their windowsills using empty milk crates for example. That is the nature of mutual aid, building this web of connections and mutual support where we share voluntarily what we have to offer to the community.”

Information Resources

www.freegan.info

http://www.freecycle.org/

www.globalissues.org

http://wetlands-preserve.org/

http://scavengeuk.mine.nu/

http://freegan.freeservers.com/ (Planet Freegan)

The 21st century has seen a rise in humanity’s interest in ’spirituality.’ The Cambridge Dictionary describes spirituality as “the quality of being concerned with deep, often religious, feelings and beliefs, rather than with the physical parts of life.” There are a rising number of people drawn to so-called spiritual pursuits, but the problem I have is with what spirituality has come to mean.

The word by its own definition suggests concern with that which is not of the physical body, however what it has come to mean as far as I can see is a kind of spiritual consumerism. People think they can dabble in tarot cards or buy a few runes and that denotes an interest in spirituality. Shops are cropping up everywhere with the tools to be a ’spiritual’ person. Being ’spiritual’ seems to be something that anyone will proclaim without thoughts of the choices they have made in life or their actions and their consequences. Humanity is desire driven yet simultaneously stretching out one arm to dip into the spiritual realm and taking out whatever it fancies.

Celebrities are a prime example of humanity jumping on the spirituality shopper bandwagon. I was flicking through TV channels recently when I came across a programme about celebrities and religion. I was surprised to see (well only a little surprised) that certain celebrities rush to buy bottles of Kabbalah water, which are supposedly infused with Rabbi meditations. This allegedly gives the water amazing healing powers. Whatever happened to ‘right’ living and offering unconditional love! I am not a religious person but I do consider myself to be somewhat of a Christian in the true sense of the word. I believe that the words in the bible “Our love must not be a thing of words and fine talk. It must be a thing of action and sincerity (1 John 3:18)” to be true.

Wearing a bracelet or drinking water or energy drinks with rabbi infused meditations is not going to save anyone’s soul if that is what they are hoping for! As far as I can see all these things are merely gimmicks to make a tidy profit. Numerous hip-hop stars in the US adorn themselves with million dollar jewel encrusted crosses as if the size of their jewellery reflects their spirituality and commitment to God. All the while these stars are rapping about guns, bitches and dropping pills. The even more astonishing thing is that people worship celebrities as if they were some kind of divine beings. Humanity seems to have gone completely mad.

People seem to be hungry for ‘gurus’ who will feed them exactly what they want, in effect like a spiritual buffet. Rather than telling people the truth exactly as it stands a commercial guru will offer people a buffet of alleged spiritual answers. The individuals can then dip into the buffet and choose the answers they would like to hear at that particular moment in time.

Life is about learning lessons, hard work, trusting your intuition and making the right choices for yourself. Marketing bottled water as a cure all for society’s ills or wearing a belt made in the Vatican that is sprinkled with holy water doesn’t boost your spiritual ranking.

Don’t get me wrong, searching for spiritual answers and the quest to make ourselves better, more enlightened human beings is wonderful. Accessing our intuition and trusting that we have all the spiritual answers we could ever need in life is beyond fantastic. I am constantly learning lessons every day of my life and we all learn something from everyone we come into contact with.

The search for truth and for the divine that lies within is, I believe is the means to true contentment and peace. However, we have to be discerning with the information we take on board. The answers we seek are not external to us. Some books do have pearls of wisdom but much of what is written or said comes from people’s perceptions rather than true intuition. We need to trust our own intuition, as this will never fail us. Jesus said in the Gospel of St Thomas “Split a piece of wood and I am there. Pick up a stone and you will find me there.” The divine is all around us and within us. All we have to do is ask to access that truly spiritual part of ourselves. Undoubtedly there are some people that can point us in a certain direction, but beyond that it is up to us to take control of our own lives and ultimately take responsibility for our selves.

If you type the word ’spirituality’ into msn over 9 million results show up spanning a wide range of differing spiritual and religious belief systems, mixed in with courses in miracles and spiritual goods galore. So if you are doing some soul searching, be careful in whom you trust. Let intuition be your guide and maybe resist the urge to buy the jewellery infused with the power of prayer or the courses that promise miracles with no effort involved. Say no to pseudo spirituality!