This evening we had a zoom meeting under the auspices of the Scientific and Medical Network, a so-called Virtual Pub evening which happens every Friday. In general I have quite strong views about people’s behaviour particularly when the camera is on and they get up, start eating, moving around the room and generally distracting us.

Other people do not even switch their cameras on at all. I find it rather alienating experience to speak to a black square or abstract artwork or even someone’s animal.  People have this idea about privacy but I really don’t know what they hope to gain by being anonymous. When I speak to someone I like to see their face because I know how they are reacting. If the video is turned off how are you supposed to know?

I also told everyone that I was their servant in other words for the purposes of the meeting I have no views or opinions. I follow the feeling of the meeting. This is only possible when you understand the concept of quantum entanglement that we are actually all one. It is a requirement that I have everyone’s focus in order for the entanglement to take place from which inspiration comes.  A group of like minded people is a huge catalyst.

Anyway the meeting started at 6:30pm. I was made co-host of the evening by Jerome, a member of the organisation. Fortunately, I have run weekly zoom meetings for two years back during the lockdown so it just took me a few minutes to get into my stride and off we went. The topic of the meeting was ” Seven Omens that herald the dark night of the soul”

There were 45 of Us. The zoom group that I used to run had seven or eight members. The only problem with a larger group is that I cannot see the cohort on the second screen because each screen only supports 24 people. Fortunately the active people seem to be channeled into the first screen so you do not lose touch. It is quite comforting to use zoom as it has so many tens of thousands of customers that they will have ironed out all the problems. I love a well tested system.

You can read the article here.

I don’t think I ever seen such an exquisite overview of the whole topic from a topic that might have be seen to be grim. In fact turned out to be a marvelous catalyst for the souls gathered in this group.

I printed it out and it was an eight pager. There was a very good summary about the seven omens that you might be going through a dark knight of the soul
1. you feel a deep sense of sadness which often verges on despair (this sadness is often triggered by the state of your life, humanity, or the world as a whole)
2. You feel an acute sense of unworthiness
3. You have the constant feeling of being lost or condemned to a life of suffering or emptiness
4. You possess a painful feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness
5. Your will and self-control are weakened making it difficult for you to act
6. You lack interest and find no joy in things that once excited you
7. You crave for the loss of something intangible; a longing for a distant place or to ‘return home’ again.

A very useful aspect of zoom is the breakout rooms. You decide how many rooms you want which of course depends on the number of people. I had a cohort of 45 so I chose 10 rooms. It is flexible enough that those who do not wish to join a room stay with the main meeting. We were somewhat short of 10 minutes. I used this as an opportunity for people to say more intimate things about their feelings that they would not necessarily have shared in a larger group.

I had the article to hand and if there was a lull, or a need for a further catalyst, I just read a few lines to get people going again. Sometimes people need to hear the same thing a number of times but in different ways to spark off.

We reconvened after a period slightly short of the 10 minutes. All shared their experiences. Normally one person shared what happened in their group. I then ask people what they thought about various things for example ‘are you ashamed or what do you do when you wake up one morning and find yourself depressed and listless’. Sometimes no one says anything. This does not matter because a session to be successful does not have to be filled up with words. People need thinking time. Some had more than one visit to the speaker rostrum  but I try to make sure that everyone has a say. People get the idea that they should make one point and then give way.

The only problem with tablets and mobiles is that you cannot see all the items on the zoom menu. For example one person could not find the button to put your hand up. In this case you have to click the more button on the right hand side and you will see the extra fields.

We had a lot of very valuable comments with some people saying that it was such a relief to express what they had been feeling inside. One person said that he did not have any dark nights because he went through horrendous circumstances in a previous life and felt that he had done his time in prison so to speak. One of the members who was a therapist said politely that maybe there was still something to tidy up.

So the allocation of duties is quite clear. The instigator of the meeting has to prepare the structure of discussions that might happen but be flexible enough to allow the situation to develop as it will. In other words, each side does 50% of the work. All benefit. All shine. There are no losers.