On the 7th of June 2024, I checked in to the International Buddhist Center at Doi Suthep Temple, just outside the city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. Image by clarkelz  from pixabay After hearing about vipassana meditation retreats online and from fellow travellers on my trip, I felt inspired, and wanted to spend some time trying to clear my mind through meditation. vipassana? 'Vipassana' is a Sanskrit word, meaning 'clear mind' - which is the goal of the meditation retr

Zoroastrianism is regarded as one of the first monotheistic faiths - meaning it centered around the worship of one omnipotent, all-powerful God - and can be traced back to around 600BC in ancient Persia, now known as Iran. A highly influential religion, it is thought that Zoroastrianism helped form some of the ideas of philosophers such as Socrates  and Plato , and also inspired aspects of Judaism, Christianity and Islam . In fact, Zoroaster , the religion's prophet, is also

For many creatives, a newly uncovered sense of threat and uncertainty surrounds the subject of AI art. Photo by Dima Solomin  on Unsplash This year, the real power of modern artificial intelligence has been revealed, with Chat GPT  composing detailed responses to questions within seconds, and new generative AI art software  churning out images at a never-seen-before rate. Accordingly, the conversation around how we should progress with this new technology as a culture has bee

Dreams are one of life's most mysterious dimensions. Each night, the mind seems to take us out of the jurisdiction of space and time as...

The evil eye amulet can be seen across mainstream culture today, whether it's on social media or adorned onto necklaces, bracelets and other jewellery. But what does it symbolise, and where and when do its underlying superstitions originate? Do these superstitions hold any logical value? Let's get into it. 🧿 Our eyes give us the power to perceive and navigate the external world. It is said that they are the windows of the soul, and so in this light they can be understood as

With conversations around mindfulness and its benefits being seen more frequently in society and on social media platforms today, questions around meditation are becoming more common. In the past, mainstream western culture conveyed meditation as rather alien, often associating it with hippies and nonconformists in the media and totally disregarding it as a valuable practice. But meditation has an important place, and ancient roots, within many traditionally Eastern religions