I am delighted to announce that my good friend William Murtha's new book, 100 Words - Two Hundred Visionaries is now available for pre-order on Amazon USA. I am honoured to be one of the "visionaries" featured in this fascinating collective statement of intention for the 21st Century.
Whilst in New York I spotted this image outside the HQ of the Pfizer Corporation. I am hoping that me using this image is okay with them (if it is not please could a representative of that company contact me and i will take it down).
Has anyone read the book 'Angels In My Hair' by Lorna Byrne. I have and to be honest I'm torn I don't know what to think. Part of me believes her because I have had plenty of very unexplainable experiences throughout my life and I can relate to her in some way's. However, the rational side of me is saying no way! she's a millionaire now, paid a 6 figure sum by the publishes of international bestseller The Da Vinci Code for her book in the U.S. Come on! it's a put up job!....or is it... I have experienced at least two miracle's that could have been from the pages of this book and have absolutely no explanation except divine intervention but something is playing on my mind... In her book her husband is near death and she beg's God to allow him to live longer. God's tell's her 'ok Lorna I will allow this just this once'. She said God's tone was such that she knew she could never ask out again to God to spare her husband life. This made me think 'sod off' I would still ask and go on asking or begging 'whatever'.... In fact I would ask so many questions and not simply accept as she does the words of these being's/angels that have been in her life since birth my questions and questioning would be endless. Maybe that is why I don't see angel's and maybe that's why God doesn't talk to me in the same way because I ask too many questions....
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I am delighted to announce that I will be appearing live on UK television on the Thursday 23rd July at 2000 (British Summer Time). I have been invited to be the sole guest on a two hour programme on Edge Media TV.
Today I was in the process of trying to source a book entitled Replay by a writer called Ken Grimwood. This book is profoundly itladian in that it gives a fictional account of a person who lives his entire life over again, but this time he "remembers" what happens. In itladian terms what this describes is an Eidolon who is aware of its own Daemonic memories of the previous run-through the Bohmian IMAX.
Last Saturday I attended a fascinating day of discussion and lectures at Nottingham Trent University. With me was fellow BLOG member Mick (of "Cordoba" fame) and his girlfriend Jan.
I am delighted to announce that the much awaited Paranormal Magazine containing my article and an interview with me has been published. This will be found at most UK newsagents and some bookshops (including Borders). In my opinion Richard and his team have done an excellent job. The use of images is particularly striking.The magazines website is:
On Saturday evening I was interviewed for over two hours by Henrik Palmgren of Red Ice Creations Radio. Red Ice are based in South West Sweden but have a following across the world. After listening to the interview and checking out their website I can quite understand why. These guys are really professional in every way. The website itself is a credit to them. Indeed I am so impressed with how they have manipulated my photograph to show both the "Daemon" and the brain that I have decided to use that image from now on in my promotional material. I have therefore changed the image on here.
My theory suggests that there is something not quite right with the "common-sense" approach to reality. When I discuss these issues with the public I find that most people assume that the world "out there" is exactly as their senses tell them it is. A classic example of this was the heated debate on this very subject that took place on the Graham Hancock site in April. it is clear to me that for many there is no mystery and that I am somehow a little bit crazy in the way I evaluate consciousness and its interaction with reality.
I am delighted to announce that Tessa Dick, widow of the late and great Philip K Dick, and I have opened up email communication. I would like to thank archaeologist and member of the Graham Hancock "Phorum", David Campbell, for facilitating this.
As many of you may be aware, I have been invited to contribute to a "Platform Event" at The National Theatre in London. I will be on stage with Professor Jeff Forshaw of Manchester University.
Something very weird took place last Friday (17th April) and I am keen to record it here.
Well, after seven years procrastinating, The God Game series (six short digital films which I call surrealist documentaries) is finally going to be viewable online, thanks to the assistance of a member of the younger generation! All the films (and the final capstone work, Being the One: Document of a Delusion) will eventually be uploaded to my youtube channel, here
For a description of the God Game film project, which was actually completed back in 2002, you can visit my blog.
The premise of the film (surprise surprise) is quite ITLADian - it actually began with a dream I had, about being in an acting class and using a megaphone to create an after-death persona, who would comment on one's life from "the other side." This instantly gave me the idea of making a movie - combining documentary format with role-playing, with psychotherapy, in which I would ask players to imagine their deaths and reconcpetualize their lives, as stories, seen from this transpersonal (Daemonic) POV.
An idea ahead of its time? Let's hope so, anyhow, because it's taken seven years for the films to get "released"! But here they are....
.Here's a recent interview I did as part of a Guardian project with the artist Mark Titchner
It covers various subjects, including schizophrenia, the environmental crisis, multiple personality disorder as relating to our moods, the personal self as Frankenstein's monster, Matrix Warrior, Fight Club, the primal self, mythic narratives of moden movies, and other juicy tidbits.
JH
Just a quick thanks to Anthony and Penny for coming along to the private view of the exhibition at Saint Brides Church on Percy Street in Canning on Friday. It was a lovely night where Saints and holy beings mingled freely with baffled members of the wider public and proud aunties and cousins. There were a good few folk there who had read ITLAD and were quite excited to meet the Author.
Warning: the following review is likely to be somewhat “biased”: When I first read Watchmen in my early twenties, it affected me as deeply as any work of fiction ever had—it changed my life. So my responses to the movie—as described below—are going to be more than a little colored by a highly personal connection to the source material. (Jason Horsley)
When I first heard about the Watchmen movie, I was skeptical—to put it mildly. In fact, I was indifferent. And when I saw the first stills from the movie, I knew, absolutely knew, it was a bust, that they were turning it into something gaudy and noisy and messy and dumb—what Hollywood does best. Beyond all doubt, “the visionary director of 300”—a mind-numbingly vacuous live-action cartoon cum commercial for Spartan warfare—would debase the material by catering to the lowest sensibilities of the mass audience.
What’s really astonishing about this movie is that, in under three hours, it manages to capture not only the spirit of the novel but the full, epic breadth of its storyline. I’ve read the comic book at least a dozen times and yet I couldn’t even say which parts the movie misses out (except for the obvious, the parallel story within a story of “Tales of the Black Freighter”). The odds against a big budget Hollywood adaptation of a fiction masterpiece being almost 100% faithful, and at the same time managing to translate it whole into a new medium, are truly phantasmagorical.
Yet therein may be a problem: Watchmen is so completely true to its source that anyone not already enamored of the comic book may be unable to fully grok it. The storyline is straightforward enough, but the peculiar blend of social realism with the pulp roots of comics, and the idiosyncratic, poetic, magical genius of its creator, make Watchmen utterly unlike any superhero movie, or any movie, we've ever seen before. It’s a freak in the best sense of the word: a creature of unfathomable beauty so unique that some people may mistake it for ugliness. It creates its own aesthetic.
What’s perhaps most unusual about the film is its complete moral ambiguity, the way in which it steps entirely outside of the usual mythic paradigm of good and evil, spins off a parallel reality, and weaves its very own mythic narrative. Just as the graphic novel did within the comics field, Watchmen creates a new paradigm for the superhero movie. It’s a paradigm which I highly doubt other filmmakers will be willing, or able, to match, much less develop. There are no heroes in Watchmen, and no villains either. There are rather extraordinary (and extraordinarily flawed) human beings, struggling to make sense of a world in chaos, wrestling with their own complicity in that chaos. These are easily the richest and most affecting characters to ever grace what is ostensibly a fantasy movie. They are not just functions of the plot, as Neo and Morpheus are functions of the plot. As in all great writing, Watchmen’s story develops out of the characters and not vice versa. And these characters are nothing if not ambiguous.
The most dislikeable of the characters, Ozymandias, is driven by a seemingly pathological, philanthropist desire to save the world, and this he succeeds in doing. But we don’t admire him for it—we can’t admire him, because no end could justify these means. He’s an elitist, driven by intellect and a sense of his innate superiority, but devoid of heart. On the other hand, there is much to admire in the murderous vigilante Rorschach—who is all heart. His code of no compromise, his ruthless implacability, his deranged sense of justice, beneath which is a strange tenderness and a deeply wounded soul. Rorschach simply cares too much not to cause mayhem. Like Travis Bickle, his pain, rage and confusion spills out into the world—and he matches it atrocity for atrocity.
Dr. Manhattan, on the other hand, cares little for humanity’s plight: he’s moved beyond that. Was ever a god this chillingly disconnected, a superhero this utterly disaffected? Yet, as Billy Crudup (the only recognizable face in the movie) plays him, Dr. Manhattan is deeply touching. He’s human despite himself, and in his way he’s as lost a soul as the rest of these characters, because he is so utterly, completely alone. As written by Moore, Dr. Manhattan is the first fully believable depiction of a superhuman being—a god—in movies.
On the face of it, the Comedian is the most sheerly unpleasant of the characters: a rapist and child killer, the puppet of the military industrial complex (in a beautiful twist added by the moviemakers, he’s also JFK’s actual assassin). Yet, loathsome as his actions are, he doesn’t ever become hateful to us. None of the characters are defined—or limited— by their actions; they are far too alive for that. Moore’s genius is that he uses the very limited and limiting genre of the superhero comic as an arena—a sort of child’s playground, but also an alchemical workshop—to work through his philosophical themes and develop flesh and blood characters—like forging gold from lead. With Watchmen, he created a kind of feedback loop that expands the story from genre melodrama, into infinity—the realm of archetypes, of true myth. Paradoxically, by turning superhero archetypes into ordinary, believable human beings, ordinary beings are transformed into something extraordinary, something magical, transcendent.
But despite these flaws, the sheer joy and originality of the source material fills every frame. It animates every performance with an exuberance, audacity, and poetry, that is unique to the genre. I haven’t even begun to analyze the schizophrenic subtext of this film—perhaps another day?—but I can honestly say that, in thirty years of movie-going, I have never been so pleasantly surprised by a movie. Watchmen has every imaginable reason to crash and burn. Yet somehow, against impossible odds, it takes flight.
Can there be a movie sequence or even a whole movie that will leave – more than others – deep traces in the memory of cinema-goers? Is there such a movie that will stay for ever green? There must be quite a few of them, that’s for sure. One is definitely the SF movie (with or without inverted commas) Stalker by Andrei Tarkovski. Both Tarkovski’s fans (some of them even adore him) and those ones still unfamiliar with (or put off by) his vision can testify to this. To be honest, it is not that easy to like Tarkovski when your mindset has been invaded by clichés and schemes which form the recipe of any blockbuster: action, fun, violence, hope, nudity, sex, happy ending.
O carte desepre icoane - oricând binevenită - ne aminteşte că locul icoanei este înainte de toate în biserică, icoana fiind – ca şi Biblia – opera Bisericii. Icoana ca teofanie (sălaş al transcendentului), ca pictură transfigurativă (venind dinspre şi ţintind înspre absolut), ca semn văzut al prezenţei strălucitoare nevăzute. La informaţiile deja „clasicizate” despre icoană (furnizate de cărţile unor vrednici cercetători în domeniu, ca: Paul Evdokimov, Leonid Uspenski, Michel Quenot, Pavel Florenski, Gabriel Bunge etc.) se audaugă acum comentariile din studiul Arhiepiscopului Lazar Puhalo, Icoana şi Scriptura. Cunoscut cititorilor de limbă română prin cărţile: Căile ortodoxiei contemporane, Sufletul, trupul şi moartea şi Dovada lucrurilor nevăzute. Ortodoxia şi fizica modernă, autorul ne propune să descoperim sau să redescoperim icoana ortodoxă în contextul în care a apărut şi s-a dezvoltat: Tradiţia vie a Bisericii. Hi All
I posted the following at Martin's blog, and he suggested I post it here also, since the movie in question is one favored by ITLADians. The piece comes from The Blood Poets: A Cinema of Savagery, vol. two, "Millennial Blues."
If the eye could see the demons that populate the universe, existence would be impossible.
Although as a thriller, Jacob’s Ladder appears to be little more than medieval-gothic/new age hokum, at a more esoteric level, the film is surprisingly, at times disturbingly, persuasive. The writer, Bruce Joel Rubin (who went on to write the insipid Ghost and the loopy Deep Impact ), has obviously taken the time to research his subject, and the film achieves an atmopshere of occult menace and paranoia such as few horror films ever come close to (Polanski’s The Tenant, though a more obviously psychological thriller, is one of the few). Lyne’s direction is characteristically unimaginative, slick and assured but lacking either subtlety or sensitivity. Yet his commerical touch here (Lyne is yet another English filmmaker trained in advertising) is more suited to his material than in his other, uniformly lousy sex-orientated films (Flashdance, 9½ Weeks, Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal). He shows a horrifying flare for depictions of demonic presences and hellish landscapes, and the monsters here, which are the monsters of the protagonist’s mind—are amongst the most appalling ever put on the screen.
Lyne’s lack of empathy as a director is compensated for (as it isn’t in his other films) by the presence of Tim Robbins in the lead role of Jake. It’s Robbins’s first major role, and although he doesn’t do anything really suprising here, he’s sympathetic enough in what amounts to a difficult part (like Harry Angel, Jake is the fall-guy), and his proficiency carries the film along. The story concerns not merely demons of the spiritual kind, in fact, but also of the political and technological variety: it’s about a secret mind control drug used on American troops in Vietnam, designed to bring out the savage, aggressive side of the psyche (to tap into the liminal part of the brain?) and to turn the soldiers into “unstoppable killing machines.” The drug proves too effective by half, however, as even the most miniscule doses turn the troops into homicidal maniacs who tear into anything in sight, including each other. What’s worse, a side-effect of the drug is the onset of intense hallucinations, and a kind of sickly, encroaching paranoia. The survivors (of which Jake is one) suffer from the conviction that they are being persecuted by inhuman forces, and literally see demons on every side.
The trouble with the film’s resolution (that Jake is in fact dead) is that, if all this is just a dying man’s dream or vision, then how are we supposed to take it? As a creation of his own mind, or as a projection of a future which he might have lived, had he survived? The film seems to want to have it both ways. After all, we’ve watched the whole movie taking it to be “true,” then, in the last few minutes, we are asked to accept it as a dying man’s fantasy. Obviously, the first hundred minutes far outweigh the last two, no matter how much of a “revelation” they may be. And in actual fact, the last scene is a bust, anyway, because it doesn’t add anything to the film, really, but only takes (or attempts to take) everything we’ve just seen away from us. The film closes with a rather lacklustre caption informing us that, “the hallucinatory drug BZ was used in experimentation on soldiers during the Vietnam war. The Pentagon denied the story.” This—the fact of mind control experimentation by the government—is a reality that I trust most discerning American citizens are aware of by now, however dimly; but the film itself offers us no specifics, no authentic details, no single reason for us to take it as factual. The case it presents us with (even if it hadn’t just been exploded as “fictitious” by the film itself) seems flaky, not because it’s far-fetched or exaggerated (anything but, I fear), but simply because it is insufficiently well-researched, and therefore seems to lack plausibility. Actually, the whole script is a mess, because it seems to be unsure itself, as to whether the demons are an hallucination caused by the army drug, or whether the whole army-drug story is just an hallucination created by the demons, or whether it’s all just a metaphor anyway, created by the human mind, as it prepares to face its annihilation. Etc., etc...
Still, to a large extent, this chaotic lack of structure, of coherent intentions, works for the film and not against it, because it creates an appropriate level of uncertainty and mental panic in the viewer, provided of course that he’s prepared to suspend his disbelief and go along with the action, at a more emotional level; which is where the infernal presences and nightmare visions come in. Jacob’s Ladder is one of the very few recent movies (perhaps the first since The Manchurian Candidate) that successfully describes, or evokes, something of the despair, dread, paranoia and outright horror of modern life, in the age of psychological/germ warfare and shadow governments. It may even be that, with this film, “covert operations” became the modern version of “occult forces,” hence the use of theological terminology here meshes almost seamlessly with the espionage-paranoia plot. Jacob’s Ladder is an outstanding film of the ’80s, because it brings two very distinct kinds of horror together into a single nightmare: the nightmare of control. This effectively combines the ancient fear of possession (i.e., demons) with the modern fear of corruption (i.e., evil men, or government).
Jacob’s Ladder is like an update, for TV generations, of the Frankenstein myth. The hidden forces of the American government, and their Nazi-like doctors (standing in for the old Baron), are never seen in the film—as befits their covert nature—but their presence is certainly felt. No longer working to create life, modern science is now dedicated to conquering the human mind, to turning man into a machine that can be controlled and deployed, like a living weapon. And of course, in the process of harnessing this forbidden knowledge, the demons of the psyche are unleased. Once unleashed, these demons (like Frankenstein’s monster) cannot be placated, they can only be confronted. Knowledge, science, technology, in this myth they all equal disaster. In Lyne’s film, mankind itself, represented by the shadowy, omnipotent but wholly corrupt powers of the Pentagon, has become the modern Prometheus; while society, as the laboratory in which these infernal powers-that-be operate, has become the arena where the unspeakable consequences unfold. It has become Hell on Earth.
Jacob’s Ladder is an authentic apocalyptic vision of a society on the brink of devouring itself, of succumbing to its own insanity, and being overrun by its own demons. Like its protagonist, it walks the razor’s edge between madness and illumination, between paranoia and heightened awareness; and the awful, unthinkable visions it conjurs up are—far from being the deranged rantings of a diseased mind or mere chimera summoned up by blind hysteria—images of things to come. The Vietnam war was a bizarre and covert kind of sociological experiment, as much as it was a bid for power. Drugs were used (on both US and Viet Cong), not only in an insane attempt to win the war, but, more disturbingly, in order to test their properties and discover more about the workings of the human mind, ways in which it might be controlled, manipulated, reshaped, destroyed, and to discover just what the human being was capable of. The war itself was unlike any other war before it or since; none but the very few know what really happened there, or why, and those few aren’t talking.
I am delighted to announced that I have been awarded the accolade of "Author of the Month" on the hugely popular Graham Hancock website.
I have been invited to be involved in a "Platform" event at The National Theatre in London on Friday 24th July at 6:00pm. Myself and Jeff Forshaw, Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Manchester will be discussing the scientific and philosophical implications of the time theories of J.W.Dunne. This will take place before a performance of J.B. Priestley's play Time And The Conways.
In my research I have just come across a fascinating, and little reported, neurological condition called the Zeitraffer - Elebnis Phenomenon. In German a "Zeitraffer" is an apparatus that accelerates the apparent motion of a film. This is used in a similar way to time-lapse photography.
James Hunt, member of this Blogsite and my FORUM (www.anthonypeake.com/forum) has just published the second edition of his exceptional book Into This World We're Born". 
Raluca îmi vesteşte, după ce a citit necrologul de la intrarea în Opera din Timişoara, că Ivan Bota - o bună cunoştinţă de familie - s-a mutat la cele veşnice. Am făcut cunoştinţă cu el prin 1983. Era balerin şi l-am văzut în câteva spectacole de balet montate în acei ani la Operă: Giselle, Fântâna din Bahcisarai, Lacul lebedelor, Spărgătorul de nuci etc. În ultimii zece ani a devenit regizor tehnic la TNT şi la Operă. 
Once again with apologies for those of you without an IP address that the BBC allows, here is an introductory programme into the workings of the Large Hadron Collider in CERN, much drooled over by our Mr Le Marcs.
I am delighted to see that my latest book, "The Daemon" has been reviewed in the magazine "Alternate Perceptions". This magazine and website is well worth checking out. The editor, Brent Raynes has this to say about the book:
In today's Sunday Times Magazine here in the UK the journalist Brian Appleyard has written an excellent article about the latest research regarding Near-Death Experience. Indeed he even discusses the quantum physics aspects so dear to our itladian hearts.
Robert Larson will be interviewing me again on his show "OUT THE RABBIT HOLE" on Thursday 11th December at 5-6 PM, Pacific Time. For listeners in the UK this will be broadcast at 1 -2 AM on Friday 12th December. The show is broadcast from the studios of KUCI in Irvine, CA. For those of you in sunny Orange County this can be listened to at 88.9 FM. For the rest theshow is streamed worldwide at http://www.kuci.org/. Audio archives this interview can be found at http://www.kuci.org/talk/. If you are interested in Robert and his previous shows you can check him out at his MySpace site at: 
I received an email from Glen Kreisberg a few days ago. Glen is an associate of the writer Graham Hancock. At present Graham is working on a novel and has requested that Glen commission articles for Graham's website. I am delighted that not only are they interested in me writing an article for them but also they wish me to be their "Author of the Month" for March 2009. I am deeply honoured to receive this accolade and I have, of course, agreed to write the article.
Elevii mei, frumoşi adolecenţi care – fără complexe şi fără ruşine – recunosc că n-au citit în viaţa lor nicio carte, sunt materialul uman cu care am de lucru, pe care – zice-se – trebuie să-l prelucrez. Mă uit la ei, la nervozitatea lor, la dificultatea cu care se concentrează la ore, la lenea şi la prematura lor blazare şi-mi spun că din unii ca ei vor răsări, mâine, oameni ce vor şti să fie răbdători şi-şi vor pune probleme pe care acum nu şi le pun sau, oameni care vor regreta anii pierduţi acum – toate acele „păcate ale tinereţelor”. La fel cum, din tineri promiţători şi studioşi, cu o curiozitate intelectuală uluitoare, vor ieşi – cum s-a întâmplat cu colegul meu de liceu, bunul OR – oameni şovăielnici în viaţă, deprimaţi, care se vor stinge înainte ca flacăra tinereţii şi maturităţii lor să se aprindă. Sunt posibile tot felul de combinaţii. Mă gândesc la toate astea şi simt că inhalez astfel doza necesară de oxigen pentru a supravieţui, ca dascăl, în România anului 2008, când învăţământul românesc e c-un picior în groapă. Unul dintre elevi (are 18 ani) îmi mărturiseşte că el s-a implicat în recenta campanie electorală şi a sprijinit – pentru bani, mă asigură el – partidul „democraţiei originale” auto-intitulat „de stânga”. E naiv, e tânăr şi poate că lui i se iartă neştiinţa, credulitatea, imaturitatea. Deşi – vezi pilda evanghelică a fecioarelor nebune - vine o vreme (următor căreia nu se mai poate face nimic şi regretele-s inutile, untdelemnul s-a consumat, uşile s-au închis, mirele a intrat în sala de ospăţ) când nu mai merge să o dregi şi zadarnic este a face cale întoarsă. Când le spun că nu am de un an televizor, nu le vine să mă creadă. „Şi nu vă e dor de el?” Pur şi simplu nu pot să priceapă. „Cum, nici măcar de emisiunile de pe Discovery Channel?” Am încercat atunci că le spun că nici chiar acele emisiuni (informate, e drept, întotdeauna frumos ambalate) nu pot suplini lipsa adevăratei hrane spirituale pe care doar lectura şi educaţia muzicală le-o poate oferi. Că nici măcar acele documentare nu îi pot face să stea locului, să se adune şi să se concentreze asupra unui subiect. În plus, câţi dintre tineri se rezumă la programele de pe Discovery? Majoritatea îşi otrăvesc sufletul cu ceea ce le oferă, deşănţat, canalele comerciale: movies, movies, movies (invariabil filme-conservă americane) şi pseudo-modele, aşa-zisele vedete TV – „personalităţi de tip mafiot”. Aşa cum (vezi cazul Teo) ajung de fapt să recunoască şi singure, când rămân fără slujbă: „Suntem toţi nişte măscărici, demni de scârbă, care venim şi ne schimonosim la televizor, tragem nişte filosofii în care nici măcar noi nu credem, plecăm acasă şi avem exact aceleaşi probleme ca şi oamenii obişnuiţi.” Am ajuns, en fin, la capitolul spontaneitate şi am dat exemplu pe Cârcotaşi – singurii care izbutesc o spontaneitate bazată (culmea!) pe rigoare (rigoarea meseriei pe care – se vede cale de-o poştă – o iubesc), pe documentare şi pe jocuri inepuizabile de conotaţii (desigur, vizând în principal lumea divertismentului). Asta îi face să pară (cel puţin în ochii mei) mult mai puţin diletanţi decât toţi ceilalţi colegi de-ai lor din branşă...Altfel, elevii mei sunt nişte copii nevinovaţi, cu un atu incomensurabil: acea curăţie a sufletului încă neperverit (în ciuda zburdălniciei vârstei lor). 
Central to ITLAD/CTF is that at the point of death consciousness slips into a hyper-realistic re-creation of the subject's life. In Near-Death Experience terminology this is called the "Panoramic Life Riview".
