My journey to India 1972, a visualisation

You Are Irreplaceable - A message from Prem Rawat

 

My Weed and I, Stoned Again! by Al Zeeman

 Paperback  and Kindle

 My Weed and I, Stoned Again! by Al Zeeman aka Alun Buffry

Al Zeeman first consumed cannabis in 1970 whilst at University, firstly in the form of “Coffee Bhangs” and hash cakes, then smoking mixed with tobacco or pure in pipes. After graduating, he travelled across Europe to India and back, stopping off in several places such as Kabul to sample the hasheesh.

Upon returning from India, he started following the teaching and practices of Prem Rawat, then known as “Guru Maharaji”, a fifteen year old from India.

A few years later, Al started smoking cannabis again and continued to so for almost 50 years, including his time in several UK prisons. He continued to follow Prem Rawat which he still does today.

But during the time since 1970, Al Zeeman travelled widely throughout Europe, also visiting Morocco, India, Nepal, Kashmir and Egypt, meeting many people and smoking hos weed (and theirs) and was so often "stoned again”.

The author also participated in “Legalise Cannabis Campaigns” for over thirty years, even standing for Parliament under the banner of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance (LCA) on the single issue, in 2001.

This is his account of his experiences, the places he saw and some of the friends he made.

This book, along with many amusing anecdotes, recalls his encounters and near misses with the forces of law in the UK. Also the book contains a wealth of information on the uses of cannabis / hemp, the types and sources, smoking utensils, some political opinions and a chronology of cannabis.

Zeeman pays tribute to the cannabis campaigners and enthusiasts that he met along the way, many of whom have now passed on, including Howard Marks, Chris Baldwin, Don Barnard, Winston Matthews, Mark and Lezley Gibson, Clara O’Donnell, Jack and Tina Girling, Lee Harris, Steve Pank, Jooep Oomen and “Granny” Pat Tabram.

At the end of the book, Zeeman gives his birth name, Alun Buffry, stating that he has never made any attempt to hide his identity.

Table of Contents:

NICOLAS CULPEPER, CANNABIS LAWS – PROHIBITION, COFFEE-BHANGS AND HASH CAKES, THE DEALER’S HAT, FIRST CHILLUM, A BRUSH OR TWO WITH THE LAW, FRANKFURT, MUNICH, BELGRADE, ISTANBUL, AFYON /AFYONKARAISHAR, THE FISHERMAN ON THE BEACH, HEADING EAST, AFGHANISTAN, KABUL, HELMUT, KHYBER PASS AND ONWARDS TO INDIA, INDIA: HARIDWAR AND THE GANGES, NORFOLK, THE WRECKING CREW, BUSTED, WICKLEWOOD, MR NICE, JACK AND LILY, STANLEY ATKINS, JOE HARDY-SHARP,POLISH CHRIS – CHRIS LAUSCH, MONTY, LESLEY JAMES, THE “BIG MONEY GANG”,CAMPAIGN TO LEGALISE CANNABIS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION 1992, BANGED UP, HOWARD MARKS, MR NICE 1997,THE LEGALISE CANNABIS ALLIANCE (LCA) 1999, TRAVELLING HIGH, NOL VAN SHAIK’S SPANISH COMPLEX, CAMPAIGN GROUPS DURING AND AFTER THE LCA, METHODS OF CONSUMPTION, TYPES AND SOURCES OF CANNABIS, RECREATIONAL OR MEDICAL, CANNABIS ABROAD, HOLLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS, SPAIN, PORTUGAL, IRELAND, GERMANY, FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, GREECE, ITALY: SICILY, MOROCCO, INDIA, OTHER COUNTRIES, THE BAD STUFF, GROW YOUR OWN, CANNABIS PROTESTS, HEADSHOPS, SMOKEY BEARS PICNICS, RALLIES AND MARCHES, COFFEESHOPS, BYE BYE, A CHRONOLOGY OF CANNABIS.

 

Forget Me Not - In Loving Memory

Featuring: (some are extra photos of the same person several years apart)
John Sullivan, Cedric Skinner, Paul Jolin (Australian Paul), Richard Scott (Scotty), Keith Marshall, Phyllis Franklin, Judith Dawson, Greg Hurn, Klarika, Vera and Stanley Buffry, Aaron Whitehead, Keith Huckle, Mick Smith, Graham Whitehead (Monty), Roger Martin, Tim Sillence, Billy, Lou Whitehead, Mark Angus, Levi McCarthy, Larna Simmons, Levi McCarthy (2), Bob Wilton, Ingrid Waters, Joe Thompson, Nigel Ellis (Nudge) Susan Bewsick, Vera Buffry, Joe Hardy-Sharpe, Sid Grubb, Vera Buffry (2), Smiley Wilde, Stanley Atkins, Damien Donnelly, Harold the Baker, Lesley James, Chris Lausch (Polish Chris), German Jonny, Lesley James (2), Liza Frost, Claudi Stiller, Spider Gill, Larna Simmons (2), Beryl Jackson, Norbert Stiller, Patrick Rowlings, Pete Hunter, Dave Barker (Woofer), John Davies, Anne Clarke, Jackie Barnard, Colin Paisley, Jaime Carran, Larna Simmons, Mick Pryce, Susan Beswick, Alistair Stevenson, Edie Ellison, Howard Marks (Mr Nice), Derrick Large, George Bacon, Chrissie, Miroslav, Don Barnard (2), Lesley James (3), Paul Fowler, Chris Baldwin, Marcus Davis, Jack Girling, Mick Pryce, Don Barnard, Tom Hamson, Pat Tabram (Grannie Pat), Lynn Zimmer, Winston Matthews, Joep Oomen, Ivor Garfield, Clare Gardner, Sheriff Lyness, Liza Frost, Peter Donnelly (Paddy), Andre Furst, Davy English, Jaime Carren (2), John Cripps, Maggie Bevan, Mandy Medlar, Paul Flynn MP, Phil Stovell, Julian McAlistair, Christine Humphreys, Don Good, Smiler, Miroslav, Frank Kirk, Colin Campbell-Clarke, Jane Stevenson Liz Gotto (Warden), Sue Duggan, Robo Linders, Keith Huckle, Anne Clarke, Alistair Stevenson (2), John Banham, Mike Beavis, Lee Harris, Lesley James (4), Sid Carter (Siddy), Nick Herne, Jack Girling (2), Fernada de la Figuera, Charlie Briston, Marcus Davis, Winston Matthews, Alysia Solomon, Ali Baktoo, Lesley James (5), Simon Edye (Ronaldos Icecream), Miroslav, Miroslav (2), Jackie OToole, Frank Kirk, Nol van Shaik, Winston Matthews, Lesley James (6) Allan Ivans, Ian Harris, Roger Warren_Evans, Allan Ivans (2), Alysia Solomon (2).

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 Jerusalem Post February 17 2026

Egyptian researchers discover collection of ancient rock art spanning 10,000 years in Sinai desert

 The engravings and drawings are divided into several groups, researchers learned in their initial study of the space, the oldest of which are done in red and dated to between 10,000 and 5,500 BCE.

 A shelter containing rock art spanning nearly 10,000 years was discovered by a team of archaeologists in the southern Sinai, the Egyptian Tourism and Antiquities Ministry announced last week.

 

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

 Wikipedia 

  

The Book of the Dead is the name given to an ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom (around 1550 BC) to around 50 BC.Book" is the closest term to describe the loose collection of texts consisting of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person's journey through the Duat, or underworld, and into the afterlife and written by many priests over a period of about 1,000 years. In 1842, the Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius introduced for these texts the German name Todtenbuch (modern spelling Totenbuch), translated to English as 'Book of the Dead'. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw, is translated as Spells of Coming Forth by Day.

The Book of the Dead, which was placed in the coffin or burial chamber of the deceased, was part of a tradition of funerary texts which includes the earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, which were painted onto objects, not written on papyrus. Some of the spells included in the book were drawn from these older works and date to the 3rd millennium BC. Other spells were composed later in Egyptian history, dating to the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt (11th to 7th centuries BC). A number of the spells which make up the Book continued to be separately inscribed on tomb walls and sarcophagi, as the spells from which they originated always had been.

There was no single or canonical Book of the Dead. The surviving papyri contain a varying selection of religious and magical texts and vary considerably in their illustration. Some people seem to have commissioned their own copies of the Book of the Dead, perhaps choosing the spells they thought most vital in their own progression to the afterlife. The Book of the Dead was most commonly written in hieroglyphic or hieratic script on a papyrus scroll, and often illustrated with vignettes depicting the deceased and their journey into the afterlife.

The finest extant example of the Egyptian in antiquity is the Papyrus of Ani. Ani was an Egyptian scribe. It was discovered in Luxor in 1888 by Egyptians trading in illegal antiquities. It was acquired by E. A. Wallis Budge, as described in his autobiography By Nile and Tigris in 1888 and was taken to the British Museum, where it remains. 

This detailed scene, from the Papyrus of Hunefer (c. 1275 BC), shows the scribe Hunefer's heart being weighed on the scale of Maat against the feather of truth, by the jackal-headed Anubis. The ibis-headed Thoth, scribe of the gods, records the result. If his heart equals exactly the weight of the feather, Hunefer is allowed to pass into the afterlife. If not, he is eaten by the waiting chimeric devouring creature Ammit composed of the deadly crocodile, lion, and hippopotamus. Vignettes such as these were a common illustration in Egyptian books of the dead.

  

https://www.getty.edu/news/what-is-the-egyptian-book-of-the-dead/ 

“Book of the Dead” is a modern term to describe a series of ancient Egyptian ritual spells (instructions and incantations).

These helped the deceased find their way to the afterlife and become united with the sun god Re and the netherworld god Osiris in a continual cycle of renewal and rebirth.

There are nearly 200 known spells, but they weren’t collected into books in our current sense of the word. Rather, assemblages of spells were inscribed on objects from mummy wrappings to coffins to figurines to papyrus scrolls, all meant to accompany the dead in the tomb. They provided instructions for the various challenges the deceased would face on their journey. Spell 125, for example, lists a number of misdeeds they must deny having committed in life when they appear before Osiris.

 Spells from the Book of the Dead 

 What are these spells like?

We use the word ‘spell’ to indicate the individual sections of a Book of the Dead. They are also often referred to as ‘chapters’ or ‘utterances’.

The spells were written down to help the person named in the papyrus to pass safely through any difficult or dangerous situations in the afterlife. One of the most important spells is Chapter or Spell 125 which usually contains a scene showing the heart of the dead person being weighed against maat (divine order and cosmic balance). The same spell also contains a long text referred to as the Negative Confession, in which the dead person recites a number of things he or she has not done.

Ordering and selection of spells

The numbering system used today to identify the different spells was first assigned by the German scholar Richard Lepsius in 1842. He published a Ptolemaic Book of the Dead and numbered the individual spells in the order they appeared in that particular papyrus. It is clear that this order was not particularly standardised and the selection of spells varies too from papyrus to papyrus, probably according to the arrangement determined by the scribe responsible.

We do not know whether the person buying a papyrus would necessarily be involved in selecting and ordering the spells. In some cases it is clear that the person whose name appears on the papyrus had purchased one that was already pre-written, with spaces left for the buyer’s name to be inserted. This is not the case with Ramose’s Book of the Dead.

List of Spells   

— Book of the Dead, spell 30B

The section imploring the heart reads:

O my heart of my mother! O my heart of my mother! O my heart of my different forms! Do not stand up as a witness against me, do not be opposed to me in the tribunal, do not be hostile to me in the presence of the Keeper of the Balance, for you are my ka which was in my body, the protector who made my members hale. Go forth to the happy place whereto we speed, do not make my name stink to the Entourage who make men. Do not tell lies about me in the presence of the god. It is indeed well that you should hear!

 Spell 9:  Identifies the owner with the god

Words spoken by Ani: 'O you Soul [ba], greatly majestic, behold, I have come that I may see you; I open the Netherworld that I may see my father Osiris and drive away darkness, for I am beloved of him. I have come that I may see my father Osiris and that I may cut out the heart of Seth who has harmed my father Osiris. I have opened up every path which is in the sky and on earth, for I am the well-beloved son of my father Osiris. I am noble, I am a spirit [akh], I am equipped; O all you gods and all you spirits [akhu], prepare a path for me.

Spell 42. contains a list of all the essential parts of the body and their divine parallels.

My hair is Nu; my face is Ra; my eyes are Hathor; my ears are Wepwawet; my nose is She who presides over her lotus leaf; my lips are Anubis; my molars are Selkis; my incisors are Isis the goddess; my arms are the Ram, the Lord of mendes; my breast is Neith, Lady of Sais; my back is Seth; my phallus is Osiris; my muscles are the Lords of Kheraha; my chest is he who is greatly majestic; my belly and my spine are Sekhmet; my buttocks are the Eye of Horus; my thighs and my calves are Nut; my feet are Ptah; my toes are living falcons; there is no member of mine devoid of a god, and Thoth is the protection of all my flesh.

 

Recommended reading and TV

I have just finished very much enjoyed "The Untold Story of Christine Bott" bt Catherine Hayes 

ISBN 9781838338824 - it's not available on Amazon at the moment but maybe through a bookshop.

On IPlayer I enjoyed the two series "Waiting for the Out" and "Small Prophets"

The Most Precious Gift: Prem Rawat

Czech Republic video slide show