Matthew Stone and friends interview Ebe Oke.

• Matthew Stone: What do you have faith in?

Ebe Oke: Love, friendship, the overriding benevolence of the universe and the inherent goodness of every human being no matter how wounded or flawed - also, we can heal ourselves of illnesses great and small, I’ve done it!

• Boo Saville : What do you think happens when we die?

EO: I’m not afraid of dying having come close before - I am in love with and lust for life but death is a comforting thought - I believe my spirit will remain, my intelligence will become a feeble footnote and I will harmonise with friends and loved ones: those of the same frequency or spiritual family - I don’t believe in heaven or hell unless it’s self imposed - the inability to forgive is a surefire anchor to the flames.

• Nicola Lane : What does success mean to you?

EO: Ultimately for me it means to accept myself and to love without reservation or fear - it also means to have the freedom to work with whomever I choose whenever I choose and to have access to great resources for my work in different mediums, be it musical, visual or literary - finally it means to have the financial freedom to travel and explore, homes in a city and isolated countryside of my choosing and being able to share it all with the one I love.

• Jack Brennan : What film fits your vision of the future best and why? (The film needn’t be set in the future)

EO: Orlando: the opening scene! I would like to spend my future writing poetry on a rolling hill under a great oak! Tilda Swinton is the ageless, time traveling, gender bending, noble hero(ine) and I can think of no better ticket to the future than that - exploring your anima and animus with lovers of both sexes as both a man and a woman, possessing an otherworldly beauty and charm and being portrayed through the eyes of a brilliantly poetic female director; you can’t go wrong.

• Iphgenia Baal : What is the one thing about you that undermines all the opinions you have made above?

EO: I have a pronounced dark side that through years of honest investigation I have become more conscious of - I faced a lot of adversity earlier in life which caused me to accumulate fears and insecurities which once seemed insurmountable - simply recognising this dark side and the minions in its thrall is a start but something has to occur which grants you enough perspective to see that you actually have a choice not to act from your shadow but from your shine (so to speak) - having mapped out the terrain of my dark side through poems, songs, visions and the mirror of intimate relationships (etc.. ) and realising I have a choice has freed me immensely to embrace a lighter spirit and personality - It’s been a real blessing to visit such extremes.

• MS: What question should be added to this list?

EO: What unique gifts do you have to offer to this world ?

Photo: Iphgenia Baal

Matthew Stone and friends interview Iphgenia Baal.

• Matthew Stone : How can we change the world and what is there to be done?

Iphgenia Baal: It is impossible not to change the world. But, I reckon you are asking how to change the world for the better which I just have to be mainstream about and relate back to Star Wars. No, I could do Hindis and Christians. Someone once explained Hindi to me (I bet I miss loads of things). Essentially you are reincarnated time after time after time and the purpose of each life is to have as little effect on the world as possible, to change things as little as possible, to focus your energies inside instead of making other’s understand your point of view. Depending on how well you do, your reincarnation makes things more or less easy. If you have hardly any impact on the world, you come back as tree, then an ant, then a gnat, then as an amoeba (I missed out some stages but you get the idea) and then eventually, one day you die and, if the life you have just lived has changed nothing, effected nothing you die and then you cease to exist. Ping! Nirvana. Christians on the other hand have marched all over the world pillaging villages in the attempt to ‘spread enlightenment’. Christians march and conquer and preach. Which essentially means they fight and lie. I think the problem is that, if you want to get noticed in this world, you have to start early, put in the time to promote whatever it is you are doing from a young age when, in fact, that is the time you should be figuring out what it is you mean. But, if you take that time to figure out what it is you mean, by the time you have figured it out you will probably dead. And so, have no time to tell everyone else about it.

I think you just have to trust everyone else. I mean, there are exceptions to these rules. I mean, you need Ghandi. And Kapil. So, you can make exceptions in certain lifetimes based on trust. Change the world for the better one this time round and then make up for it in the next by shutting the fuck up. But screw it, no one needs the Catholic Church.

I guess my answer is, you don’t have to change the world, just make sure you don’t fuck it up anymore. And yes, that includes ridiculous attempts at self-promotion for “the good of the world”.

• MS : Can we ever be truly free?

IB: I don’t think any group of people can ever be truly free. The provisos protecting human rights and freedom which any entity governing a body of people, by their very existence detract from the freedom they are protecting. But, any one individual can indeed be free. Find the middle of yourself, arrange the rest of it in an order which allows you to exist. Congratulations. You are free. Now, what are you gonna do?

• MS : What do you have faith in?

IB: That lies, deceit and bad intentions always reveal themselves. And the learning of a collective consciousness. I mean, that’s not something I believe in, I don’t have to. You can just see it and it’s awesome. Like how people learned to draw. Crazy.

• Nicola Lane : What does success mean to you?

IB: No idea.

• Jack Brennan : What film fits your vision of the future best and why? (The film needn’t be set in the future.)

IB: The future? Or my future? The future - Doom Generation My future, I can’t give you the plot, but the setting (it’s not a film) is described perfectly in The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman by J.P. Donleavy. Only, I hope less lonely.

• MS: What question should be added to this list?

Iphgenia Baal: What is the one thing about you that undermines all the opinions you have made above?