Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language (Wikipedia) The word "philosophy" comes from the Ancient Greek φιλοσοφία (philosophia), which literally means "love of wisdom". The introduction of the terms "philosopher" and "philosophy" has been ascribed to the Greek thinker Pythagoras.
On this page you will find articles; material that I have written from the philosophical background of Theosophy or the Ageless Wisdom. (Not yet posted)
VIDEOS FOR THE HIGHER DIPLOMA IN THEOSOPHY SUBJECT ONE
Introduction to the Secret Doctrine. The first fundamental proposition.
Editing and proofreading services
Great news for first-time authors
You have written your novel. You want to publish it independently - Amazon, Smashwords and so on. It's in draft form and you need it edited but are put off by the high prices of editors and proofreaders. There is absolutely no point in sending it to an agent or publisher because neither will even look at an unedited ms. In any case, self-publishing is by far the rout of choice now, even for many established authors. It is easier, will cost you far less, and the royalties are higher per unit cost. But you are heading for failure if you don't have quality editing and proofreading.
I can help! I've been where you are now and I found it all very stressful. I tried several times to edit my book myself using word's spell checker and other software and still, there were typos that I and they missed. Not only that, but there were other issues not showing up - grammar, syntax and poor or even bad sentence structure. I had to learn. I had no other choice. I stuck at it until I was beating all editing programs by a mile. A friend had written three books of a trilogy and had paid for editing and proofreading for the first book (70.000 words). I offered to check it after the editing and found joined together words, missing and unnecessary commas, missing semicolons, missing quote marks, sentences making no sense, and many typos or spelling mistakes. He had paid over £400 for that. I would have charged £70. There are editing services currently being offered on the web at £50 per 1000 words! It's your choice, your money, and you win or lose.
You can not see all of your errors or your poor writing styles because you are too close to the work. What you see when you read your prose is what you know should be there - you wrote it, and you SEE it - even though it is not really there. This is why authors of any note always use an editor/proofreader. If you just do it yourself, readers will spot the errors a mile off and that then reflects very badly on your work. Nothing should be allowed to get in the way of your excellent plot, characters, and drama. Your poor editing will definitely do that and your reviews will shout it out loud and clear.
So, Is it just the high cost? I can certainly understand that. It is one thing for established authors to shell out for high-cost proofreading, they can afford it. But you are just starting out. You have put an enormous amount of time, blood, sweat, and tears to get the story finished. If you don't get the draft edited you will spend as much, if not more, time trying to get it published. (I can help you with that as well.)
£5 - £10 per thousand words is not uncommon and many are much higher. BUT I WILL EDIT YOUR FIRST DRAFT FOR £1 PER THOUSAND. Now if I could have got myself an editor's services for that pricing I would have jumped at it. It would have saved me hundreds of hours of grinding hard work and a lot of misspent money into the bargain.
Interested? Well, get your work moving now by contacting me with details of your ms - genre, publishing aims traditional or independent, paperback, e-book, and Word count. email me at
I wish you well with your writing and successful publishing.
Eric
Music is my first love. It is truly the universal language of nature and of humanity. When I listen to music my mind reverberates with the infinite possibilities born of the sounds, textures, and colours. My songs are nothing special but I have found great pleasure in writing and recording them.
On this page, you will find the complete album 'JIGSAW' as well as its individual songs. There are also links to videos of my guitar covers of some great tunes. 'Jigsaw' was put together from various pieces recorded over five years or so - hence the name. Because of this and the variety of recording mediums, and other equipment used over that time, some of the tracks vary in tonal and dynamic quality. Because I worked alone I had to play all of the instruments myself. Some tracks, such as 'Jigsaw' and 'Waiting For You' reflect the fact that I had acquired a Keyboard at that time and was learning to play it.
I started writing and recording songs in 1991 when my son Stuart asked me to look after his music gear while he went away for a few weeks. Along with his things was a 4-track tape recorder and he kindly set it up so that I could record my guitar. I soon had an idea for a song and started laying down some drums and guitar chords. Ideas formed into words and then verses and before long I had a song - 'Heart of Things', which was inspired by the looks on people's faces as they passed by a cafe window. I eventually lost the original track and had to re-record it years later using my computer. These days, all of my recording is done on a computer, from which I can draw on an almost endless supply of instruments and editing power along with my trusty guitar. In 1993, after the siege of Sarajevo had been raging with continual bombardment for over 18 months, with the TV showing pictures of children dying in the streets (this was to continue for another two years) and the support for Nelson Mandela growing at a fast pace worldwide, I wrote 'Mandela People' in sympathy with oppressed people everywhere. I have written backgrounds to all of the 'Jigsaw' tracks with each of the individual audio videos.
'Jigsaw' was put together in 2000 by gathering the few songs that survived the 1990s and then writing and recording a couple of new tracks for a more modern balance. Because it was essentially odd pieces I called it 'Jigsaw' after the first track.
I hope you enjoy.
'JIGSAW', the full album, was put together using odd tracks that had been recorded at various times and with a wide range of equipment. Most of the equipment was cheap toy-town stuff at first but as time passed I acquired better gear and made cleaner recordings. It came to the point when I decided to tidy things up and make a clean start. So I edited the best tracks and put the album together from all of the bits and pieces. Some tracks had been damaged or parts were missing or were so badly recorded that I had to redo them from scratch.
Most of the tracks have a story behind them; something that inspired them or an incident that led to a song. The earliest track is 'Deep in the Heart of Things' (1992) and the latest is 'The Sky is Falling Down' (2001). Since then I've been too busy with the TS to find the time and energy to write and record more but my mind is still fertile and I hope to get back to it someday soon. Because I have always worked alone writing and recording, I played all of the instruments myself (drums only on Kelt - the rest using an elasis drum machine). Principally a guitarist, my keyboard skills took some time to develop (at least to the point where I could play a backing without missing a note - with hours of practice). The single track - 'Jigsaw' is the best effort to date.
FULL ALBUM -
In the player below you will see talks on 'consciousness' listed ready to play. The talks are arranged in the correct order for use as a course - from the top down.
THE SECRET LIFE OF HUMANITY is a precursor to the course and looks at what lies behind the everyday appearance of humanity. There are hidden forces and beings that have a profound influence on all of our lives.
CONSCIOUSNESS PART 1 Examines the true nature of consciousness. Its origins, how it works, and its development.
CONSCIOUSNESS PART 2 looks at the development of consciousness as the Monads climb the ladder of evolution, eventually emerging as humans./
CONSCIOUSNESS PART 3 The future of consciousness. Towards Cosmic Consciousness.
I hope you will find them of value to your further studies.
If you would like to have any of the talks on CD or USB drive please contact me at
Eric
Consciousness part one
Consciousness part two
Consciousness part three