Anthony Peake's Cheating The Ferryman Blog Page

2011-08-08T16:37:00.005+01:00

Anthony Peake to speak at Warwick event on Saturday September 24, 2011

UK binary mind theorist and author Anthony Peake to be keynote speaker at Warwick event in September

PRLog (Press Release) - Aug 08, 2011 - On Saturday, Sep 24, 2011, British binary mind theorist and author Anthony Peake will speak at Warwick, UK, as guest speaker for the Unitarian Society for Psychical Studies. This will be an open event.

Peake, who is author of several books on human consciousness and binary mind, will give a talk entitled "The Out-of-Body Experience: Neurological phenomenon or Noetic Encounter?"

Fellow speakers will be Dr. Mark Fox and Dr. Roger Straughn.

Fox is author of ‘Religion, Spirituality and the Near Death Experience’ and ‘Spiritual Encounters with Unusual Light Phenomena'. Straughn is author of ‘A Study in Survival’ about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and life after death.

Special thanks go to Richard Holland for facilitating this lecture.

The event will be starting at 10:00. Peake will be "on stage" at 12:15 .

Peake is best known for his "Cheating the Ferryman" and "Daemon" theories, about a secret second self residing within human consciousness, which allows us to cheat death. He is author of "Is There Life After Death? The Extraordinary Science of What Happens When We Die" (Chartwell Books, 2006), "The Daemon: A Guide to Your Extraordinary Secret Self" (Arcturus Publishing, 2008), as well as two books pending publication on precognitive dreams and out of body experience: "The Out-of-Body Experience: The History and Science of Astral Travel " and "Dreams, Time, and Precognition".

Peake has been interviewed by numerous radio stations and magazines across the US and Europe, and has appeared on British television discussing the explanatory power of his theory.

An engaging and dynamic public speaker having now presented over 100 lectures across the UK, Europe and the USA, in July of 2009 he was a speaker at a prestigious "Platform Event" at the National Theatre in London, and two weeks later he presented a lecture to over 300 people in Manhattan, New York, at the historic Roosevelt Hotel.

Contact Email	:	***@gmail.com
Issued By	:	Metro Media Consulting Group
Zip	:	10017
City/Town	:	Manhattan
State/Province	:	New York

Anthony Peake takes inspiration from David Icke on BBC Live Radio HAARP discussion | PRLog

2011-05-18T19:20:00.001+01:00

Anthony Peake takes inspiration from David Icke on BBC Live Radio HAARP discussion | PRLog

American Physicist George Hammond and UK Theorist Anthony Peake: A Synthesis for the 21st Century

2011-04-06T21:00:00.001+01:00

American Physicist George Hammond and UK Theorist Anthony Peake: A Synthesis for the 21st Century

Anthony Peake to Lecture in Dublin at the Grand Canal Hotel, April 2011

2011-03-22T00:42:00.001Z

Anthony Peake to Lecture in Dublin at the Grand Canal Hotel, April 2011

dreaming of you all !

2011-03-05T16:04:00.002Z

Last night , I had a strange dream....I dreamt of a man without a head, and that his body was lying on a floor that resembled a chess board.
I tried really hard to understand this strange dream, ( esp because, I stopped dreaming since last 3 years)
Our brain works with associations and counter associations..... I suddenly saw a picture in my mind. The picture was about a man`s face on a table without a body .The table that looked like a chess board.
And the man`s face was none other than Martin`s (Hurly Burly) ( I think he had such a picture on his profile some years ago when I was active on the blog and forum! btw, I cant view the forum, it shows a broken link)
And today when I came to Facebook ( again I am not very active on facebook, I just came coz all my friends wanted me to change my old profile pic!)
I met, Martin online!!!!!!
What is this but, the serendipity that we talk about all the time? or is it synchronism ?
But I spoke/chatted with Martin and then later( within a gap of few mins) with Susan and I felt I was with friends.. even after such a long gap.. Almost 3 years!!!!!

Tony I am very very happy for you and today I feel proud to be on your blog and that I am your friend!
Thank you and May the blessings of all the thousands of Gods in the Universe be over you!

Peake Accepts Fellowship

2011-02-18T15:02:00.000Z

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) – Feb 18, 2011 – British author and binary mind theorist Anthony Peake has been awarded a prestigious fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study at Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University in Tuscany, Italy.

From the University's website:

"In Tuscany, a new academic institute devoted to consciousness and sustainable transformation.

The Center for Advanced Study is the academic and research center of excellence for the Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University."

Said Anthony Peake of his being offered the fellowship, which he readily accepted:

" . . . I received a stunning email from Professor Ervin Laszlo. He asked me if I would accept a research fellowship at the Center For Advanced Studies at the Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University. I had to pinch myself as I was sure I was dreaming this. I read and re-read the email to make sure that I was not misinterpreting what one of my all-time intellectual heroes was offering ...... and yes, it was real and a genuine offer."

The Research Fellowship will allow Peake to do research into his binary mind theory, which he terms, "Cheating the Ferryman", about a second self residing within human consciousness which directs the individual in life and at death.

Peake has expounded on this theory in two books, "Is There Life After Death?: The Extraordinary Science of What Happens When We Die" (Chartwell Books, 2006) and "The Daemon: A Guide to Your Extraordinary Secret Self" ( Arcturus Publishing, 2008), and has two additional books pending publication in Europe.

He will also delve into his "Intromatic Model" under the auspices of the University and will be invited to lecture on his subject at the campus in Italy as a full staff member. This will also allow him to network with many of the World's leading authorities in science, politics and the ecological movement.

Says Peake, " I have received a confidential list of those involved and I am simply stunned. This includes really famous politicians (and I mean "world famous") and even some celebrities from the world of entertainment. Professor Laszlo has certainly pulled out the stops with this one."

For more information on the University, visit :

http://ervinlaszlo.com/gche/

and Anthony Peake's Global Forum may be viewed at :

http://www.anthonypeake.co.uk/forum/index.php

--- end ---

Robert Waggoner on Anthony Peake series

2011-02-13T15:50:00.004Z

PR LOG PRESS RELEASE: For Immediate Release: Feb 13, 2011 – NEW YORK CITY, NY -Robert Waggoner ( http://www.lucidadvice.com/) who is author of "Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self" will be appearing on British binary mind theorist Anthony Peake's show, "The Peake Experience" at noon eastern time today, Sunday, February 13.

Anthony Peake hosts the show and discusses various aspects of human consciousness - including lucid dreaming, near death experience, out of body experience, astral travel, quantum consciousness, and eternal recurrence. - with his guests, who include globally renowned authors and scholars.

He is creator of the "Cheating the Ferryman" theory , about a second self which resides in human consciousness and contains a shocking secret for the individual at the point of death.

Peake is author of "Is There Life After Death?: The Extraordinary Science of What Happens When We Die" (Chartwell Books, 2006), and "The Daemon: A Guide to Your Extraordinary Secret Self" (Arcturus Publishing, 2008).

From Soup Media Network:

"Author of Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self, (see www.lucidadvice.com ) Robert Waggoner, is the past President of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) . For the past ten years, he has been the co-editor of the online magazine, The Lucid Dream Exchange, the only ongoing publication devoted specifically to lucid dreaming. A lucid dreamer since 1975, he has logged more than 1,000 lucid dreams.

Robert frequently speaks on lucid dreaming at national and international dream conferences, workshops and college classrooms, like Sonoma State University, Iowa State University, University of Washington and Evergreen State College. Robert intends to speak in London, UK on June 18/19, 2011 and possibly other venues on his way to the IASD conference in Kerkrade, Netherlands (June 24-29th).

Robert has been interviewed by CNN about the practice of lucid dreaming and ABC News, as a lucid dream expert on the movie, Inception. Robert had a regular show on Iowa Public Radio during most of 2009-10, discussing dreams and lucid dreams.

Please join Tony and Robert on Sunday, Feb. 13th at noon Eastern for The Peake Experience on Unraveling the Secrets TV"

Tune in live at noon eastern time @

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/unravelingsecrets

Today noon Eastern time: Robert Waggoner on Anthony Peake series

Anthony Peake will be "Special Evening Event" at Glastonbury Symposium this July

2011-02-04T16:52:00.002Z

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) – Feb 04, 2011 – On Sunday, July 24, 2011, British author and binary mind theorist Anthony Peake will be featured as the "Special Evening Event" at Glastonbury's Symposium, in Somerset, UK.

From their website:

"The Glastonbury Symposium is one of England's longest-established and acclaimed 'alternative' conferences, where the audience is often as interesting as the speakers!

Held in the unique environs of the fascinating and varied town of Glastonbury in Somerset, the Symposium has grown and evolved massively since its inauguration at the Blue Note Café in 1990."

Anthony Peake is author of "Is There Life After Death?: The Extraordinary Science of What Happens When We Die" (Chartwell Books, 2006) and "The Daemon: A Guide to Your Extraordinary Secret Self" (Arcturus Publishing, 2008), and has 2 additional books pending publication.

His "Cheating the Ferryman" thesis, about a second self hidden within human consciousness which contains a shocking secret for us at death, was lauded by the Journal of Near Death Studies as "one of the most innovative and provocative" immortality theories ever.

Peake has lectured extensively throughout Great Britain, Europe, and the United States, and has been featured on Sweden's Red Ice Radio, Edge Media TV in the UK, as well as numerous other radio and television programs, including the BBC.

For more information, go to:

http://www.glastonburysymposium.co.uk/programme.html

Red Ice Radio: Tom Campbell and Anthony Peake

2011-02-03T19:37:00.000Z

British authors and theorists Anthony Peake and Tom Campbell discuss quantum consciousness on Red Ice Radio.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) – Feb 03, 2011 – A recording of a three-way discussion between British binary mind theorist Anthony Peake, nuclear physicist Dr. Tom Campbell, and Henrik Palmgren of Sweden's Red Ice Radio can be listened to at

http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/2011/02/RIR-110201.php.

The program was aired February 1, and centers around the idea that human consciousness creates reality.

From the Red Ice Radio website, here is a synopsis of Peake and Campbell's work, which invokes a heady radio discussion which Peake feels may "become a classic" of it's genre:

Anthony Peake is a British binary mind theorist and author from Wirral, England. His work focuses on near-death experience, deja vu and the nature of reality. Peake has suggested a different explanation as to what happens to human consciousness at the point of death. This theory, which he terms Cheating the Ferryman was first published in the International Journal of Near Death Studies in 2004.

The theory involves a Peake's unorthodox interpretation of the latest theories of quantum mechanics, neurology and consciousness studies and concludes that at the point of death the dying person is presented with a literal minute-by-minute recreation of their life in 'real time' from their subjective viewpoint. Peake is author of Is There Life After Death?: The Extraordinary Science of What Happens When We Die and The and has a trilogy of books pending publication.

Tom Campbell began researching altered states of consciousness with Bob Monroe at Monroe Laboratories in the early 1970s. Campbell has been experimenting with, and exploring the subjective and objective mind ever since. For the past thirty years, Campbell has been focused on scientifically exploring the properties, boundaries, and abilities of consciousness. In a previous Red Ice program he shared his "Big TOE" (Theory of Everything), which is a model of existence and reality that is based directly on Campbell's scientific research and firsthand experience. In this special two hour joint interview, Anthony and Tom discuss the nature of reality and consciousness. Topics Discussed: Theory of Everything, David Bohm, Carl Prigram, many valid ways of approaching truth, physical, metaphysical, brain portal, time, perception, waking dream, enfoldement, language, metaphor, informational fields, probability, virtual reality, databases, digitally processed reality, lucid dreaming, walker group, god, larger consciousness, Über-daemon, novelty, life is a unity, theodicy, data field, god, intent, collapse of the wave function, diode tunneling effects, quantum mechanics, UFO's, ET's, pattern matching, lost the magic relationship to reality, belief, the scientific model, hallucinogenic substances, DMT, switching data streams, awareness, totem, temporally lobe epilepsy, pre cognitive ability, doomsday timelines, feedback, Rupert Sheldrake, morphic resonance, the hundredth monkey effect, TM meditation, The Intention Experiment, skeptics, the placebo effect, and quantum mechanics."

Ferryman Foundation : A few words from New York

2010-06-29T14:40:00.001+01:00

Image via Wikipedia

Tony: This was published on my Musing in Obama's America blogsite, and is a precursor to press releases, so thought I would post it here also:

Anthony Peake, British binary mind theorist and author from Wirrals, England, who charmed the crowds on Madison Avenue last summer, is co-founding the Ferryman Foundation with a Boston-based American colleague and a New York City associate.

Although the foundation is in its infancy, it has already attracted the interest of dozens of scholars and scientists globally.

The foundation's function will be to form a compendium of scholars who will facilitate debate and dialectic, and obtain funding to add to- and greatly expand upon - the research which Peake has conducted regarding the binary mind, and a hidden, "second self", which resides within human consciousness, directing and guiding the individual in life, and at the point of death.

Peake has termed this self "the Daemon", and calls its purpose at death "cheating the ferryman", based on the myth of antiquity about Charon the Ferryman, who ferries the dead across the River Styx.

Peake believes that the Daemon cheats the ferryman, and that we never arrive at the realm of the dead. Each time an individual dies, Charon is cheated out of yet another customer, via a function he calls the Bohmian I-MAX, based on the principles of David Bohm.

Peake is author of Is There Life After Death?: The Extraordinary Science of What Happens When We Die (Chartwell Books, 2006) and The Daemon (Arcturus Publishing, 2008), and has a trilogy of books pending publication.

Perhaps a conference at some date in the near future can be arranged with a bit of help from the Manhattan council of the arts and sciences!

The foundation will be open to private,  business, and institutional donations.

More updates later.....

Discussion With Tessa Dick

2010-05-28T09:24:00.003+01:00

Last night as part of the ongoing “Schrödinger’s Diary Archive” (see box to the right) myself and Miguel Conner recorded probably the most interesting interview that I have been involved in since writing ITLAD and embarking upon this “Garden of the Forking Paths” that describes my writing career.

I consider this the most important because it was the first one in which I was doing more than simply explaining the complexities of ITLAD/CTF to an audience (and, on occasions, interviewer) who has no pre-knowledge of what I am talking about. This one was different. It gave me the opportunity to glean new information regarding a crucial component of the whole hypothesis, the theophany of Philip K Dick.

Usually the episodes of “Schrödinger’s Diary” last about forty minutes. Last night’s recording went on for over an hour. And this was because none of those involved wished it to stop, that is Miguel, myself, and our special guest, Tessa Dick.

This interview was both delightful and fun! We spent a good deal laughing and going off on weird “Pythonesque” avenues of thought which certainly amused us anyway! But the underlying theme was both fascinating and, in my opinion, a possible turning point in the path that ITLAD/CTF will now take. (Hmmmm, why I am a so preoccupied with track analogies today; paths, avenues etc etc?) This is because for the first time I was not explaining my ideas but asking questions of somebody who was an actual witness to the events I describe in my second book, The Daemon. And what answers!!! I will in no way ruin this interview for those who wish to listen to it but if you ever had doubts about my itladian interpretation on the experiences of Tessa’s late husband, the great Philip K Dick, then these doubts will probably be removed. Tessa describes the events from the most important position possible, she was there!

Indeed Tessa also reinforces my analysis of events that took place earlier in Phil’s life when his Daemon manifested itself as both a guide and a form of mentor from his own future. This is astounding stuff.

A few years ago I asked author Brad Steiger what he thought Phil would have made of my “Cheating the Ferryman” hypothesis. Brad, who had known Phil for many years, stated that he would have been fascinated and intrigued. If anything can be taken from last night’s interview it is this, PKD would not only be fascinated, he would have understood because he personally experienced the immanence of his own “Higher Self”, his Daemon.

As a final point Tessa, in her opening comments regarding the moral negativity of the Eternal Recurrence, proved to me that readers must read both books to fully appreciate why it is that ITLAD/CTF is neither an updating of the Nietzscheian / Ouspenskian “Eternal Return” nor a re-presentation of Berkeleyan Idealism. I agree that there are certain similarities but my hypothesis is far more subtle and life-enhancing (and, in my opinion, based on empirical science rather than philosophical conjecture). Tessa, quite rightly as she has only read “The Daemon”, assumed that ILAD/CTF suggests that we all live the same life over and over again in an endless repetition of our mistakes and successes and that the lives of others that we perceive in our Phaneron is the only life that these people will lead. She cited the example of a still-born child and how morally distasteful the idea is that that child will repeat that short “life” over and over again. By applying the implications of Everett’s Many Worlds Interpretation (or the Many Minds Interpretation) such a sad situation is a “reality” only in this universe, the universe in which you are the observer (c.f. Copenhagen Interpretation …. And yes, I am aware that MWI is supposed to be an alternative to Copenhagen) but within the Macroverse there will be trillions of universes where the child was not stillborn and experienced all possible alternative lives resulting from each and every decision. But the subtlety doesn’t stop there. If we apply the implications of David Bohm’s “Implicate Order”, “Holomovement” and “Enfoldment” then we exist in a universe in which life itself is enfolded within itself (and yes, I am also aware that Bohm’s interpretation was suggested as a counter to both Everett’s MWI and Bohr’s CI). Tessa will find, by a careful reading of my first book, that things are not quite so depressing. We live a “Groundhog Life” rather than “The Life of Ivan Osokin”!

This amazing discussion will be available for listening (and downloading) in a few days time. If you have the time do give it a listen ……. oh, and do check out Tessa's book "Remembering Firebright"

2010-05-04T17:14:00.004+01:00

On Saturday evening my wife and I settled down to watch a recording of the latest episode of Flash Forward. It was the title of this programme that particularly intrigued me – the writers had decided to call it “The Garden of the Forking Paths”.

Those of you who have read my first book will know that the first sub heading of chapter 5 is “Too Many Forking Paths” and on that page (107) I reference the amazing short story “The Garden of the Forking Paths” by the great Argentine writer (and Gnostic philosopher) Jorge Borges.

As weird coincidences, synchronicities and other odd events have followed me ever since I embarked upon this great adventure I sensed that there would be curious clues, pointers, and references to my own work in this episode. How I knew I am not sure, maybe my Daemon was about to have a joke with me ….. after all if ITLAD/CTF is true then I am existing in a universe that is partly created by my own life-memories (in a similar way to the many images that are flashed onto the screen at the end of another phenomenal itladian movie, “Vanilla Sky”) then what I experience will be like a patchwork quilt with many significant parts of my first life embroidered into the pattern (reminds me of another itladian work – Ray Bradbury’s “The Illustrated Man”).But how much this episode was speaking to me was really quite weird. (Indeed if any of you are interested there is a recording of a 45 minute discussion I had with Miguel Conner on Aeon Byte Radio which can be downloaded by going down the list of my "Schrodinger's Diary" interviews on the upper right hand side of this Blogsite. The Borges discussion is "Entry 7").

One of my favourite artists is the French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Indeed in my first year at university, back in 1974, I decided to research and write an essay on this guy’s work. I decided to focus in on one of his less well known works, one called “Oedipus and the Sphinx” painted in 1826/27. The subject matter of the painting fascinated me. I will not go into any detail about the symbolism of this work but it has long been a painting that has continued to fascinate me.And lo and behold in the FF episode with the title echoing a section of ITLAD this painting plays a central role! This stunned me. Now I know that the screen writers have no idea about me and my work but nevertheless as the episode progressed I was waiting for the links. And they came, thick and fast.The episode introduced, for the first time, another central pillar of ITLAD/CTF, Savant Syndrome. Now this has nothing to do with quantum physics (but then again neither has Borges or Ingres), the major theme of the storyline up until now, and yet her was another reference to my personal interests.

We then moved rapidly on to déjà vu (absolutely central to ITLAD/CTF) then the role of the hippocampus in brain functioning (ditto) and, inevitably, eidetic imagery (ditto).But then, as the final point-made, it is discussed that the character Dyson Frost (is this a play on the name “Freeman Dyson” by any chance?), otherwise known as D. Gibbons, has experienced “hundreds of flash forwards” and in each one he experiences a different outcome of events. This is where the title “Garden of the Forking Paths” comes in (although sadly the background to this term is not acknowledged …. Unless a character called “Borges” turns up later.) Of course the idea of living one’s life over and over again and following the outcome of each and every decision is not in any way a strange concept to the folks on this BLOGSITE (well, it may be strange but at least it is not new to them!)

The final weirdness involved a "Blueprint" of what looked like a compass.

The moment I saw it I turned round to my wife and said "that is the "Antikythera Device".

Fortunately she recalls me doing this and (as usual) she thought it was just me being "weird". I recognised the diagram instantly. Those of you that know me know that I have this odd ability to recover information. Sometimes this instantaneously appears in my mind (I don’t have to “recall” the information. It is just there). Indeed sometimes I am even at a loss as to when I encountered that piece of information or data. Other times I have a form of “eidetic imagery” whereby I “see” (in my mind’s eye) a page from a long-ago-read document or book. I literally “read” down the page to get the information I need. I cannot do this on demand (if I could I would have been far more successful in exams). The images themselves decide when they wish to manifest (probably it is the decision of my Daemon) and I have no control of when and how.This is what happened when I was watching the previous episode of FF. The blueprint was shown on the screen and immediately my “mind’s eye” opened and “saw” a page from a book I last read at least thirty five years ago. In this “vision” my mind overlapped the two images and the words “Antikythera Mechanism” appeared in my mind. I then blurted this out, much to Penny’s surprise.My “normal” (eidolonic?) mind then took over and I remembered, using my normal methods of recall, details about this device that had fascinated me so much when I first read of it back in, I think, the early 1970’s (I will check this but I think that this would have been in Brinsley LePoer Trench’s “The Sky People. Trench was the 8th Earl of Clancarty and an amazingly original thinker whose ideas were “stolen” by Eric von Daniken, an issue of “Man Myth & Magic” or even “Impossible Possibilities” by Louis Pauwels and; Jacques Bergier – I will check this later).

Indeed in 1983 I saw, in the distance, the island of Kythera from a Greek ferryboat and probably bored to death the group I was with by describing the curious device that was found by a group of divers in 1901 in the waters of Antikythera, a small islet off Kythera. This was because such archaeological anomalies had long fascinated me, and this was a classic example.I am intrigued as to how many viewers spotted this almost throw-way reference in the “Forking Paths” episode. Indeed I wonder how many viewers would have been aware of the device at all.

So yet again something from my own past weaves itself into the plot of this TV series. Indeed in last night’s episode the very process by which I “imaged” the Mechanism in my “mind’s eye”, Eidetic Memory”, was introduced as yet another itladian theme within FF ….. it transpires that Dyson Frost had been flash-forwarding savants with eidetic imagery as they could “total recall” the various alternative futures that they “perceive” in their FF.

If I didn’t know any better …….

Example of a migraine-induced deja precognition on live radio!

2010-04-28T13:20:00.001+01:00

my spot on BBC Merseyside was, as I expected, one of the most interesting I have done. Although I felt that Billy had not quite grasped the link between ITLAD/CTF and migraine the last caller most certainly showed just why migraine intrigues me so much. I suspect that Billy's confusion is simply because he has yet to read ITLAD. If he does eventually get round to doing so he will fully understand why. The caller described how he started experiencing classic aura sensations and then he slipped into an ongoing deja vecu state in whic he knew, in advance, what he was about to experience, both aurally and visually.

Now remember that this person was simply a member of the public phoning into a popular afternoon radio show. I regularly state in my talks and lectures that such experiences are far more common than ordinarily thought. I am convinced that a majority of people experience these Altered States of Consciousness (ASCs) at least once in their lives. Indeed I suspect that for some these are not unusual. The only reason that they are not reported is that the experiencer will feel that others, on hearing about the experience, will ridicule them. It is only when the experiencer feels at ease via the annonymity of a radio phone-in or when surrounded by people who have shared such experiences will they be forthcoming.

To listen into this amazing experience simply follow the following link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p007fhcb/Billy_Butler_26_04_2010/

Wait for the show to load and "Fast-Forward" around 63 minutes to hear my whole spot and around 100 minutes to hear the final caller.I am keen to have your comments on this.

Anthony discusses Migraine Auras on BBC Merseyside

2010-04-23T09:14:00.003+01:00

On Monday 26th April 2010 at 1500 (UK time) I will be discussing the mysteries of migraine on the Billy Butler Show on BBC Merseyside. Like temporal lobe epilepsy this "altered state of consciousness" is central to the Cheating The Ferryman hypothesis.

I am aware that many people were attracted to my work because they, like myself, experience "Classic" migraine.It is hoped that this discussion will generate a good deal of listener interest and involvement. I am keen to hear from anybody who has experienced odd perceptions during a migraine "attack" ... specifically during the aura phase.

Remember as well as being broadcast on DAB and FM across the Greater Merseyside/ North Wales area this programme can be listened to anywhere in the world by logging on to the BBC

website:http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/liverpool/hi/tv_and_radio/

Telephone number to comment on air is 0151 709 9333 (++ 44 151 709 9333 from outside the UK)Text number is 07786 209 333 (++ 7786 209 333 outside the UK)

Email: - steve.coleman@bbc.co.uk or billy.butler@bbc.co.ukadminadmin.

"The Daemon Art Group" Launched

2010-03-22T10:28:00.005Z

On Saturday 20th March 2010 my wife and I were guests at a private "Launch Party" of an exhibition by the newly formed "Daemon Art Group" at the Chasewater Centre Gallery near Cannock in Staffordshire. I am really honoured that the three artists involved, painters Mark Lippett and Richard Boote and sculpture Steve Eastwood have named their group, indirectly, after my second book "The Daemon - A Guide To Your Extraordinary Secret Self". This was at the suggestion of Richard whose art and creativity has, in some small way, been influenced by my own writing. Indeed three of Richard's amazing paintings reference my Daemon-Eidolon Dyad concept. Above is a photograph of myself and Richard standing in front of his massively itladian major work, "The Daemon".

In my opinion Richard's work is profoundly meaningful and he is using his art to explain in images what I try to do in words. Indeed I am so taken by his imagery that I have bought for pride of place in my study his painting "The Burdon of the Eidolon". This will now inspire me in my own writing. This can be viewed in an earlier posting on this site:

http://cheatingtheferryman.blogspot.com/2009/02/first-itladian-artist.html

I must also say that the works of other two members of the group are also both fascinating and challenging. I wish the Daemon Art Group all the best for the future.

indeed with the launch of Bozack Clothing in New York last week the influence of ITLAD is evident on both sides of the Atlantic and across very different applications.. To check this out follow:

http://www.anthonypeake.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1169&sid=a734e91d6657214b0781c3394293fa96

Jane Scott-Baker (1951 - 1983)

2010-03-16T12:09:00.005Z

In response to a posting I placed on my FORUM on March 2nd 2010 -

http://www.anthonypeake.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1118&p=10533&hilit=Pedi&sid=4b60049756e728ec6ccd96d44afea8c2#p10533

I have had many requests for any pictures of the young lady who introduced me to Symi island in Greece back in 1978. I have decided to place the montage above on here so that any visitors and interested parties will check out this site as well.

I have placed this posting in memory of a beautiful woman who died far too young. I hope that my hypothesis is correct and that Jane's Daemon managed to avoid her personal tragedy when she followed her next Bohmian IMAX.

Pedi was the location of a curious "message to the future" from the past that I describe in the introduction to my second book, The Daemon - A Guide To Your Extraordinary Secret Self.

BBC Radio Merseyside - Monday 8th Feb 2010

2010-02-08T13:20:00.004Z

Just a quick note to remind any interested parties that I will be doing my fortnightly slot on BBC Merseyside's Billy Butler Show this afternoon at 1500 UK time. This one promises to be a good one as I will be talking about Near-Death Experience.

Full contact details for this slot are:

Telephone number to comment on air is 0151 709 9333.

Outside the UK this will be ++ 44 151 343 1902.

Text number is 07786 209 333 (within the UK) and ++ 44 7786 209 333 for outside the UK.

Email: - billy.butler@bbc.co.uk or steve.coleman@bbc.co.uk

To listen to the show log on at:http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/liverpool/hi/tv_and_radio/

Farnborough Air Show Disaster - 1952

2010-02-08T13:15:00.002Z

To say that I am excited about the material I have uncovered during my week at Cambridge University Library is an understatement. Some of the cases described could be re-written as individual episodes of the “Twilight Zone” or “The Outer Limits” they really are that good. I have no reason to disbelieve the individuals who were motivated to write in to J.B. Priestley in 1963. As I have stated before these are letters written by ordinary people who have experienced extraordinary events …. Individuals who seem to be embarrassed about describing what happened to them.

By the end of the week I had read around 450 letters and of those I have made full notes on around 67. I will be returning to the library soon to go through the remaining 800 or so letters. I cannot wait to read what amazing events they will describe.

One of the most interesting describes a series of events that took place in early September 1952. I am sure that this is the first time that this has been published in any shape or form, indeed, I suspect that I am only the third person to read this letter after Mr. Priestley himself and, possibly, his secretary.

These are my notes:

“In September 1952 “DP” and his wife were planning to drive home early from their holiday in Dorset to watch the Farnborough Air Show on the first public day and then carry on home after the show was over. As they were driving from Dorset his wife told him that she did not want to go to the show. The night before she had experienced a vivid dream that one of the aircraft had exploded during its exhibition and crashed into the crowd. She described the plane as silver with swept-back wings. However he convinced her that it was just a dream and that everything would be okay. They had already bought the tickets so she agreed to attend.

About half way through the show the DH.110 came out piloted by John Derry. This plane took off ready for its display. As it flew past David’s wife grabbed his arm and said “that’s the plane I saw in my dream – only it was silver not black”. Indeed this DH.110 was, indeed, black. She was really uneasy throughout the display but when the plane landed safely she was relieved.

They then travelled home to Welwyn. However the next day the evening papers carried the grim news that the DH.110 piloted by John Derry had crashed into the crowd killing twenty eight spectators. What was very odd was that the plane that crashed was, as his wife predicted, silver. It was not the machine that they had seen the day before. The black plane had been specially painted for the event but it had developed a fault on the Saturday morning. The first prototype was then used. This had not been painted and was still silver. John Derry had flown back to Hatfield to pick this reserve aircraft up and flew it back to Farnborough for the display.

This is an amazing precognition because it looked as if it was incorrect but then was shown to be uncannily accurate. In turn this dream was reported to somebody other than the dreamer before the accident took place.

The actual date was the 6th September 1952. The final death toll was 31 including the pilot.”

This is a short film about this event. In it you will note that the events that took place were exactly as described by DP in his letter to J.B. Priestley:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I-BkpWvwGc

For each case I have full supporting details including the writers name, address and, in many cases, original phone number.

Richard Boote Exhibition - Chasewater Visitor Centre Gallery, near Cannock

2010-01-14T13:02:00.002Z

Richard Boote, whose work I have mentioned before on this Blog has a new exhibition of his work planned. This will take place at The Chasewater Visitor Centre Gallery, near Cannock near in Staffordshire 09th March to 11th April 2010.

Richard is one of a growing group of artists, poets, musicians and even clothes designers, whose work has been profoundly influenced by my Cheating The Ferryman and Daemon-Eidolon Dyad theories. The picture above will be the centrepiece of Richard's exhibition and is also his largest work to date. It is called The Daemon and it is Richard's attempt to depict the contents of a vision that he had many years ago .... a vision that he now considers to be an encounter with his Daemon.

Richard's new website can be viewed at http://richardboote.co.uk .

2009-12-15T17:10:00.002Z

I am delighted to announce that I will be doing a regular, fortnightly, slot on the Radio Show of fellow ANTHONY PEAKE FORUM member, ABRAXAS.

We have agreed that we will record a half hour or so interview in which I will pick up on on one theme of ITLAD/CTF and then we will discuss the implications of this theme. Clearly Abraxas's interests are to do with Gnosticism but as virtually every itladic theme has Gnostic connotations this will be a real positive stimulus for discussion.The interview will then be posted on Abraxas's site the following weekend and will remain in the "Anthony Peake" section for as long as people wish it there.

The site is http://www.thegodabovegod.com/.

We have provisionally planned two interviews for January 2010. These will appear on Saturday 9th and Saturday 23rd.The plan is then to have a recording available each fortnight from then on. Abraxas and I have agreed that we will invite others to join us in these discussions. Initially these will involve active members of my FORUM. I envisage that each month there will be a guest who will join us and maybe that three-way discussion will extend for a longer period. I can think of many members of this FORUM who will make superb guests.Both Abraxas and I are really excited about this development. To understand his world-view please check out his site. It is full of fascinating material, most of it profoundly itladic.

Rumanian Language Edition Of My First Book Published

2009-12-11T17:11:00.002Z

I am delighted to announce that the long awaited Rumanian language edition of my first book has now been published. I have already received a handful of emails from my Rumanian readers and some have ordered the English language edition of my second book.

I was surprised on doing a Google of the title (Exista viata dupa moarte?") how many references to this book are already posted. Indeed I have found three Rumanian Forums actively discussing the implications of my ideas.

May I again thank my publisher, Arcturus, for adding yet another market for Cheating The Ferryman.

2009-12-08T08:56:00.002Z

The National Theatre website has now re-posted the short film they comissioned as a lead-in to my Platform Event in July 2009. The link below will take any interested parties straight to this movie. I appear after about a minute or so.

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=42735&dspl=discover1

11:11 Synchronicity

2009-11-30T07:58:00.002Z

Even though I have been experiencing curious and strange synchronicities over the last two or three years, this one really quite shook me.

A few weeks ago I met up with a member of my FORUM called Dave. During our conversation he told me that he was becoming quite concerned about the numbers 11:11. He told me that he was seeing this set of digits everywhere. He was finding this really very weird. As my books deal with synchronicity and its potential significance we discussed this in some detail. I told him that I knew of no real significance for these numbers other than the fact that they represented the end of the First World War..... and, at the time of our meeting it was building to the commemorations of this day.

Dave insisted that this was not the reason and that his 11:11 experiences had been happening for some time. I asked Dave to place his observations and experiences on my FORUM. This he did.

This can be viewed at:

http://www.anthonypeake.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=838&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=carter&sid=9f8056743c3f0c04e8f8ef760a758d2f

Now what is odd is that my FORUM members tend to be a very well-read bunch but you will note that all acknowledged the strangeness of Dave's observations but that was about it.

Youn will note from my later postings on this thread that 11:11 started to involve itself in my life. This was odd because I had never noticed such a thing. Of course fellow FORUMITE "A Dark Philosopher" has pointed out that this is part of the "Kangaroo Effect" which may be the case. However I found it really odd that two new professional writers have involved themselves on my FORUM in recent weeks. Marie D Jones and Hilary Carter. Marie contacted me out-of-the-blue and, as you will see from my posting, I was stunned to find that she has written a book on 11:11. (http://www.mariedjones.com/ - and scroll down to the third book on Marie's list).But it became odder. By pure chance I was reading my first-ever copy of the Watkins Review and I saw a review of a book written by Hilary Carter entitled The 11:11 Code (check the book out at http://www.hilarycarter.com/2.html .

This really fascinated (maybe even disturbed) me. This was more than a series of coincidences. They seemed to be clustering all at once.

And yesterday it became really weird.

On checking my email in-box I was surprised (and delighted) to receive an Email from Hilary. She informed me that she was amazed as to how the whole 11:11 phenomenon seemed to be facilitating communication with her and I. Indeed in the email she pointed out that she was travelling in India at the moment and just nipped into the first cyber-cafe she could find to pick up her emails. There was one from me. She had just started typing her response to me when she noticed the computer date - she simply could not believe what she was seeing - 11:11 flashed up! Okay, so what, I hear the cynics say. But Hilary informed me in the email that the actual time was 17:40!!!!

Strange eh. Well it doesn't stop there. Literally seconds after reading the email I picked up my half read latest copy of the British satire magazine Private Eye. I found myself flicking through the pages and I did something I never usually do. Looked at the classified adverts pages. What I saw made my stop dead and gasp in amazement. The full advert in front of me is reproduced in the photograph at the top of this posting.

Now this is becoming far more than simply concidence, synchronicity or the "Kangaroo Effect". This is Jungian synchronicity writ large.

So what does this all mean?????

2009-11-26T14:38:00.003Z

I am delighted to say that my work is featured in three different ways in the THE GNOSTIC 2, a journal of Gnostic thought published in Dublin by the Bardic Press.

It contains an article I wrote on Philip K Dick together with a review of both my previous books. What is even more pleasing is that the editor, Andrew Phillip Smith, has included a a short story written by him. He states that this story was influenced by something I discuss in my first book. The story is superb and well worth checking out .... as is the journal itself.

It is rare for me to read a journal and enjoy every single article (with the possible exception of my own!) In its pages can be found interviews with Tessa Dick (PKD's widow) and Colin Wilson and excerpts from books written by both these fascinating thinkers.

Other articles include one on Goethe, one on the Pistas Sophia and one on the process known as "Kimetikos".

In my opinin this journal is worth every cent and I strongly advise anybody interested in Gnosticism to check it out. It can be purchased on Amazon or directly from the Bardic Press website at http://www.bardic-press.com/.

They also have a FORUM that will be discussing the contents of this booklet. This can be found at:

http://www.palmtreegarden.org/

Infinite Potential: The Legacy of David Bohm

2009-11-24T14:09:00.006Z

On Saturday 21st November I attended the above one-day "Open Dialogue" at Queen Mary College in London.The programme included presentations by Professor Bernard Carr, Professor Basil Hiley, Professor Leroy Little Bear, Lord Stone of Blackheath and our very own FORUM member (and fellow Wirralian but now living in Italy) Dr. F David Peat.

It was fascinating to hear anecdotes about Professor Bohm from those who knew him well such as Prof Hiley, Dr. Mary Cadogan and David Peat. I spoke to Professor Hiley after his presentation and we discussed the actual date of Alain Aspect's famed "Paris Experiment" (something that no book on the subject that I have read is precise about - usually it is stated as taking place in "the early 1980's). I am delighted to state that I received an email from Prof. Hiley yesterday that confirmed it to be 1981.

I also discussed with Prof. Hiley our mutual interest in the writings of the German philosopher Fichte.At lunch I experienced one of life's (probably) unique experiences .... sitting next to a Nobel Prize Winner. This was Professor Brian Josephson of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University. Prof. Josephson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1973 for his discovery of the Josephson effect (don't you find it an amazing synchronicity that somebody called Josephson discovers an effect with exactly the same name as his own? Indeed this seems to happen a lot. I wonder why nobody has noticed this before?) This Josephson effect has important applications in quantum-mechanical circuits, such as SQUIDs. The eagle-eyed (or elephant-memoried) of you will recall that on page 395 of ITLAD you will find a note on these "superconducting quantum interference devices" and the work done on these at SUNY. Little was I to know at the time of writing that note that I was to have lunch with the man who discovery made this work possible! Honour indeed.Prof. Josephson is fascinated by parapsychology (this may come as a surprise to many "skeptics" who like to suggest that "real scientists" have no interest in such things. In fact Prof. Josephson had a fascinating "app" on his iphone that had been designed by Prof Russell Targ (what, another "real scientist" eh?) This had been designed to test psi.

Finally, David Peat finished off the day with a fascinating, and very moving, talk about Bohm's final years. The picture above is David's book on Bohm. It is well worth reading.

2009-11-18T16:53:00.002Z

I am delighted to announce that the long awaited Spanish language version of "Is There Life After Death - The Extraordinary Science Of What Happens When We Die" has just been published by Editorial Kairos in Spain.

This now opens up the whole Spanish speaking world to Cheating The Ferryman. If you wish to check this out it can be found at

http://editorialkairos.com/catalogo/-somos-inmortales

I am stunned at the list of my fellow authors published by this prestigious publishing house:

http://editorialkairos.com/autores/

Many of them are my all-time intellectual heroes.

Stop and pinch me because I am sure that I am dreaming all this!!!

Visionaries of the 21st Century

2009-11-03T13:10:00.002Z

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.

If you are interested in further information please follow the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/100-Words-Visionaries-Share-Future/dp/1573244732/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257206955&sr=1-4

Regular Slot on BBC Merseyside

2009-10-28T16:47:00.004Z

I am delighted to announce that commencing on Monday 9th November 2009 I will be doing a regular slot on BBC Merseyside. This will be broadcast each alternative Monday at 1500 UK time. I will be "on-air" for 30 minutes.

Each show I will take as the theme an element of my writing. Listeners will have the facility to phone in with their questions or comments.

These shows will be broadcast on DAB and FM across the greater Merseyside and North Wales area and will be available to listen on the web.

The shows will then be available on "Listen Again" for seven days after broadcast.The shows will also have the facility for listeners to phone in or text questions, observations or comments.

This is yet another opportunity for individuals interested in my work from across the world to join in on a regular basis.This web option will be found on:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/liverpool/hi/tv_and_radio/

Anthony Peake and Fairleigh Dickinson

2009-10-21T14:51:00.000+01:00

This Fall semester 2009, Anthony Peake's two published books will be jacketed and placed on the shelves of Fairleigh Dickinson University's library for faculty and students to use.

FDU is a private liberal arts University in the greater New York Metropolitan area. It sits on the Twombly estate in Madison, New Jersey, a commuter suburb of Manhattan. It has campuses also in Wroxton, England, Tel Aviv, Israel, and Bergen County, New Jersey.

I am planning a fall 2010 conference for Anthony Peake to be held at Lenfell Hall, at the Madison campus, in October of next year. In the meantime, I think his books can be explored by faculty and students in the departments of psychology and philosophy. I hope Peake's books will be cited in a few student papers!

Identity

2009-10-14T11:28:00.004+01:00

Watched this amazing movie a few days ago. I really did not see any ITLADIAN links until towards the the end when what is really going on is revealed .... and even then I am sure that you will not spot the shock ending.

Terrific screenplay, great acting (has John Cusack ever done a bad movie?) and a mind expanding (blowing?) concept that will have those of you who have read my first book rushing back to pages 237 to 242 of Is There Life After Death - The Extraordinary Science of What Happens When We Die

Basic details can be found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0309698/

Example of how Bohm's "Implicate Order" can be shown visually

2009-10-12T08:29:00.006+01:00

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).

The image is of a Pfizer employee called Joe who works in the Bioinnovation Center in Massachusetts. If you look closely you will see that the image is made up of pictures of all his co-workers in this unit.

A couple of nights ago I was awake in the middle of the night and I started thinking about ways in which David Bohm's concept of "Enfoldment" could be explained in a simple and graphic way. This image suddenly appeared in my mind. I argue that when we are in these semi-awake states (Hypnogogia) our Daemons can communicate more effectively. It is as if the "Doors of Perception" are slightly ajar and ideas can filter through to the semi-conscious eidolonic personality.

My Daemon had given me the answer.

Imagine a picture similar to this of yourself. This picture is composed of micro-images of every human being on the planet. When looked at from a distance it is just a very detailed image of you. However, and this is the important point that I suspect the Pfizer image designer has not done, is that contained within the micro-images will be an image identical to the larger one .... in every respect. As such this image of yourself will, again, contain images of everybody else on the planet. But it gets even more interesting. Imagine that each of all the other images were designed in the same way (containing the micro-images of everybody else).

This is exactly what David Bohm was trying to get across in his dual concepts of "Enfoldment" and the "Implicate Order" - the idea that the whole contained the parts and that each part contains the whole. He used the analogy of a holographic image (smash a holographic image then look at the parts of the image under laser light and it will be seen that each part contains a denuded version of the original image not, as would be expected, the part).

I need to give this idea more thought but I did present it to the audience at my lecture yesterday and it was received very well. I may acquire the software that generates these images and see what can be done.

On Saturday 21st of November 2009 I will be attending an "Open Dialogue" meeting at Queen Mary College in London. This has been arranged by the Scientific and Medical Network (SMN). Under the title of Infinite Potential: The Legacy of David Bohm such lumimaries as Prof. Basil Hiley and Dr. F David Peat will be discussing the scientific philosophy of this great man (the person I try to honour in my term The Bohmian IMAX. I am hoping to discuss this analogy with David and, hopefully, Prof. Hiley.

Anthony Peake on UK National Radio!

2009-10-10T17:42:00.000+01:00

Sorry about the late announcement but we have just heard that Anthony's BBC Manchester and BBC Lancashire interviews this week caused a a certain degree of interest.

Indeed such was the interest that Anthony will be interviewed live, in the BBC Five Live studios tonight (Saturday 10th October 2009 at Midnight). The interview will run into very early Sunday morning and finish at around 00:30.

For those of you outside of the UK BBC Five Live is a national radio station and is probably the most popular station in the country. The potential audience is millions although the reality will probably be tens of thousands. Indeed the show is also broadcasy on virtually every local BBC station as well.

So if you are in the UK just tune into Radio Five Live tonight. For those of you outside the UK you can listen in on the Five Live website which is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/fivelive/

You will find full detals on the site if you wish to phone in .... full details can be found at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n7csz

Look forward to hearing from you!

A story of the Buddha...

2009-10-02T15:02:00.003+01:00

Hello guys!...Im sorry ... Im posting after a long time....Forgive me!.......but DORJE`S post helped me to come over and post this beautiful story about the Buddha...its at once ITLADic as well as Poignant....
Once the Buddha was walking from one town to another with a few of his disciples. While they were traveling, they happened to pass a lake.They stopped there and the Buddha told one of his disciples, "I am thirsty. Do get me some water from that lake." The young disciple walked up to the lake. When he reached it, he noticed that right at that moment, a bullock cart had started crossing the lake. As a result, the water had become very muddy, very turbid. The disciple thought, "How can I give this muddy water to the Buddha to drink!?"So he went back and told the Buddha, "The water in there is very muddy. I don't think it is fit to drink!" After about half an hour, the Buddha again asked the same disciple to go back to the lake and get him some water to drink. The disciple obediently went back to the lake.This time too he found that the lake was muddy. He returned and informed the Buddha about the same. Once again, a few minutes later the Buddha asked the same disciple to go back to the lake.The disciple reached the shore only to find that the lake absolutely clean with crystal clear water in it. The mud had settled down and the water above it looked pure enough to drink. So he collected some water in a pot and brought it to the Buddha.Buddha looked at the water, and then he looked up at the disciple and said,"See what you did to make the water clean. You just let it be and the mud settled down on its own, and you got clear water!"
And then he addressed his disciples:" Your mind is just like that lake ! When it is disturbed, it gets all muddy and confused. So just let it be. Give it a little time. It will settle down on its own. You don't have to put in any effort to calm it down. It will happen. It is effortless.

Live Radio Phone-In : BBC Lancashire 7th October 2009

2009-10-01T15:17:00.004+01:00

The night before last a short interview with me was broadcast by BBC Lancashire. This generated such interest with not only the listeners but also the staff of the radio station that I have been invited back to do a two-hour phone-in this coming Wednesday (7th October 2009). This will be broadcast from 2200 to 2300. This may prove to be a really interesting hour. My last phone in was with LBC in London and we had an amazing three hours.

The timing is good for any listeners in the USA and Canada. The programme can be listened to live on-line at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/playlive/bbc_radio_lancashire/

Full contact details for the studio are:

email address: barnsey@bbc.co.uk.

Telephone number: 00 44 (0) 1254 583583

Text number: 00 44 (0)7786 201 955

So why not join me with your comments and questions?

Note: Numbers into the UK may be slighly different. Please check your access code.

Another Web-Based Review

2009-10-01T13:11:00.004+01:00

Interesting to contrast how two people can read the same book (see previous posting) and come up with totally different observations:

http://greywoolfetarot.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/dont-pay-the-ferryman-when-you-can-cheat-him-instead/

In my opinion this is one of the best short descriptions of Cheating The Ferryman that I have encountered. And that includes may own attempts!

Blogspot Review of ITLAD and "The Daemon"

2009-09-28T16:12:00.004+01:00

You may be interested to know that I have received (as far as I am aware) my first BLOGGER review of my books. This can be found at http://pelicanist.blogspot.com/2009/09/round-in-circles.html.

It is an interesting review and I am honoured that John Rimmer has taken time to not only read my work, but also to spend an amount of time putting together the review.

Some of his comments imply that he has failed to grasp many of the subtlities of ITLAD, but this is not unusual. Indeed his questions have been raised (and answered) many, many, times, on my FORUM.... specifically the accusation of solipsism.

I was also intrigued as to why he feels that my science is "old hat" He writes:

"The reader who gets this book looking for the latest evidence from psychical research, some new amazing scientific breakthrough will be sorely disappointed, for this book is really just an amalgam of poorly understood, often very 1970s pop science and philosophical musings."

In my posession I have literally dozens of books written in the last four or five or years that support the concepts I discuss in my books. For example Rosemblum and Kuttner's Quantum Enigma (2006), Michio Kaku's Parallel Worlds (2005) and Marcus Chown's magnificent book The Never-Ending Days of Being Dead . Each one of these writers are at the leading edge of their profession as physicists .... all with doctorates and professorships. Why John feels that this is "1970's pop science" is somewhat of a mystery to me.

I cannot also give a wry smile that John feels that my writing does not explain any Fortean events (by implication I must say rather than be outright statement) because the founder editor of the ultimate Fortean magazine, Fortean Times does not agree with him. Bob Rickard gave the Daemon nine out of ten and waxed lyrical about how refreshing the book's central concept was. An added smile crosses my face regarding the excellent reviews of both my books in The Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Again this implies that the SPR do feel that my hypothesis has merit.

I do not feel that an author should challenge a review of his work, and after all I still stress that John has given me the honour of reviewing my work in the first place. I suggest that maybe some of my readers, and members of this BLOGSITE may be motivated to comment (in a positive and constructive way, please) in response to this comment by John:

"One wonders what sort of person could be attracted to Peake's philosophy, presumably someone who has had a fairly cushy life, which they would love to rerun with just a few minor changes here and there, and little empathy or regard for other people less fortunate than oneself."

I suspect (hope?) that John may be more open to my ideas than first seems ... after all, somebody who calls his blog site "Magonia" should appreciate that the reality we perceive is not quite as it seems (I presume this "Magonia" is taken from Jacques Valee's wonderful book A Passport to Magonia - a well thumbed 41 year old copy of which has pride of place on my bookcase).

2009-09-25T08:38:00.003+01:00

It has just been confirmed that I will be interviewed on BBC Radio Manchester next week. The interview will be recorded at the studios of BBC Radio Merseyside at 1630 on Tuesday 29th September 2009 and will be broadcast on BBC Radio Lancashire at around 2300 that evening. The interview will be for around twenty minutes. The interviewer will be John Barnes
This is to tie in with my lecture at Blackburn Central Library the following evening (30th at 1900).

As with all BBC local radio programmes this can be listened to on-line at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/lancashire/hi/tv_and_radio/

- Just click on the "Listen Live" tab on the right hand side about half way down the page.

And on "listen again" at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004h7zq

2009-09-20T19:10:00.002+01:00

Reading The Daemon is as interesting as the ITLAD but when I was reading the part about the Hawaiian Kahuna my wife asked me what was the name / make of the watch our daughter had been wearing as she wanted to buy one similar.
My reply was without thinking, it was a Kahuna. Kahuna? How odd that the same name cropped up in two different places around the same time. Coincidence has a strange way of popping up when you least expect it.
Until I had seen my daughter's wrist watch and shortly after when reading The Daemon I had never heard of the word, Kahuna in my life.
Something very odd is going on in our perceived reality
that stops and make you think it is some kind of dream.
Many years ago I worked briefly with a chap named John Bennett now deceased. We talked about many things. His father had a hard working life up there in the NE of England. He asked his father when he was dying what he thought of life after his experiences? His father replied, "It's just a bad dream son". Methinks he was probably right, it is just a dream and bad for some.

2009-09-17T22:31:00.003+01:00

I read books in the order I buy them and I’m way behind. I finally got to the stage in my elaborate queuing system were I’m reading the Daemon. I’ve been looking forward to it and have some comments to make on the chapter on different religious views that seem to support ITLADian thinking and also the chapter on the possibility of communication from the higher self during dreaming for those people outside of the three main groups within the scale of transcendence.

Firstly, I loved the common ground identified in various diverse systems of belief but I suggest that the Buddha may also have been able to shed ample and relevant light. For instance the very first line of the core Buddhist scripture the Dharmapada (Sayings of the Buddha) is,

“With our minds we create the world; all that we are arises from our thoughts.”

This could be phrased differently as “The act of perception by a conscious being brings matter into physical existence” (ITLAD p23). Buddhists believe the Buddha recognised the illusory and dream like nature of the ordinary world and so understood how to end suffering.

Within Tibetan Buddhism, like some of the systems covered in The Daemon, there is often an understanding that the mind functions (as a formless continuum) with three levels. The first is the Gross Mind, which is the ordinary every day mind which perceives the physical “reality” of the world. It is generally deluded and shrouded in ignorance of this illusory nature of experience. It is subject to habitual desires and cravings and wanders dream like through suffering and unsatisfactory experiences. This mind may be seen as an equivalent to the eidolon on account of it’s limited viewpoint of the universe. The second part of this triune entity is the Subtle Mind which is the mind that arises during dreaming. Its reality is more fluid and flexible but it still believes it to be real, on the whole, when experiencing it. The third part is the Very Subtle Mind which manifests at the loss of consciousness at sleep and again at death as clear light. It is this, Buddhists believe, which, although it is not permanent or unchanging, carries experience from one life to the next. This is the most powerful and distilled element of the mind which eventually is the seed of individual enlightenment/Buddhahood. It seems that here is another clear reflection of the split nature of the mind from this totally different culture.

Within contemporary western Buddhist thought it may be not unreasonable to recognise the various deities, sometimes depicted, as Jungian archetypes within the mind, beings of light, which represent personal potentials rather than external powers. For instance the potential for perfect compassion may appear in deep meditation as Chenrezig to anyone familiar such an iconic image.

The Buddhist practice of chanted “Sadhana” visualisation represents an attempted technology not just to worship Buddhas and Bodhisattvas but to actually become them. There are also stunning and intense accounts of Tibetan NDE experiences (called Delog experiences) in which the various deities appear in exactly the way Christian NDEs may reflect meetings with Christ or Angels. If these are ways to recognise the Daemon then perhaps some of the meditation techniques associated with these traditions may provide useful tools to explore ITLAD too.
One in particular leaps out at me, the esoteric Tibetan way of Dream Yoga. This is a fascinating idea based in ancient tantra where the basic idea is to meditate to the point of retaining conscious while in the dream state, (often going to sleep sitting upright in the full lotus posture!) The meditator then enters a perfect lucid dream state with a clear goal. The idea is to make a series of ritual offerings and requests before sleep to the Buddha in question and to request Him or Her to appear in the dream to convey direct blessings and give teachings on spiritual advancement. What seems to be in question here is a direct communication between the lower and upper levels of consciousness which is not just one way.
When I first started to meditate in 1995 I experienced a series of very strong lucid dreams where I felt I had been spoken to and even asked questions of several different Buddhas. (Interestingly when I heard the voice of the Buddha it seemed to come from above my right ear each time) These were serious life-changing experiences which caught me completely off guard. In an attempt to recapture this I read the work of psychologist Stephen La Berge and Lama Surya Das about the science of lucid dreaming and the practice of Dream Yoga. I practiced all through the last summer but only made slight progress. I also investigated the idea of lucid dream machines such as the Nova Dreamer, which detect when the brain enters REM sleep and send a stimulus signal to encourage the development of lucid dreaming capacity. I am aiming to acquire one before Christmas and continue experimenting. I wonder, has anyone else has tried lucid dreaming to make the one way channel of communication into a two way conversation?

The eventual goal of Dream Yoga is to recognise on a deep level that dreaming is a mistaken appearance to the Subtle Mind and that external “reality” is a mistaken appearance to the Gross Mind.
When the historical Buddha was questioned about his extraordinary presence and abilities, they asked “Are you a man or a god?”- He replied simply, “I am awake…” Of course Buddha was a title given to him and not his name (which was Sidharta Gotama Shakyamuni). The title simply meant one who has awakened from the dream of ordinary experience.

2009-09-04T10:30:00.003+01:00

After some difficult technical problems my interview with Sonia Barrett of Sovereign Mind Radio was broadcast live two days ago. In my opinion this is one of my most interesting in that it turned out to be more of a dialogue than an interview. In my opinion it is well worth listening to as much for the observations of Sonia as my own contribution. Due to the delay of the broadcast it is possible that many who are interested may have missed it.

However I am delighted to say that it has now been posted. It can be listened to at:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Sovereign-Mind-Radio/2009/09/03/Sovereign-Mind-Guest-Anthony-Peake

Indeed Sonia was so interested in matters itladian that she has invited me back for another interview, this time a three hour special that will have both myself and Karl (A Dark Philosopher) L LeMarcs. In this we plan to discuss in some detail the latest developments including an introduction to Karl's Collapsing The Consciousness Wave that first appeared on this BLOGSITE with his postings "Where Is The Internet" and "The Sensation of Being Stared At".

This will be a very important show for the development of both itlad/ctf and the uber-concept of

BIGTOE .... "The Bohmian IMAX Grand Theory of Everything"!

The broadcast time and date will be 0800 (Pacific Time) on Wednesday 14th October 2010. Don't miss this one!

2009-08-25T12:31:00.002+01:00

This morning I received my copies of the Russian edition of ITLAD from my UK publisher, Arcturus.

It is entitled День сурка: хроника личного бессмертия which, if my translation is correct means "Groundhog Day: Chronicle of personal immortality". Yet again it seems that a foreign translator has hit the nail on the head (you will recall that the Dutch edition was called Leven Na Leven Na Leven - "Life After Life After Life". I find it interesting that neither decided a literal translation of "Is There Life After Death". Clearly both translators had really grasped the theme!

I have attempted to contact the Russian publisher because I am sure that Russia could prove to be a really good market place for ITLAD/CTF. The issue is getting it marketed well over there.
I am hoping that soon we will be joined by some Russian Itladians who may see the links between my writing and the work of Petyr Ouspensky.

The Spanish language edition should be out soon as well .... what we need is French and German editions to follow soon. Indeed when in New York I met a young lady who was very impressed with my lecture. She was from China and said that she would send a copies of my books to a publisher she knows in Shanghai. If I can break into the Chinese market as well I will feel that we are really starting to make inroads into real "World Exposure".

New "angle" on Many-Worlds Interpretation

2009-08-24T16:16:00.006+01:00

Whilst on holiday in Greece recently I read a fascinating book entitled Hidden Dimensions - The Unification of Physics and Consciousness written by Dr. B. Alan Wallace. I find this an absolutely fascinating book that is well worth checking out.However what really caught my eye in this book was a reference to the work of Michael Mensky. Philosopher Mensky has extended Everett's "Many World's Interpretation" (MWI) and in doing so, in my opinion, suggests a wonderfully itladian slant that gives yet another solution to the implied solipsism of ITLAD/CTF.

You will recall that according to Everett at any act of observation the wave function is not collapsed by that observation but the wave function continues with the the act of measurement (observation) dividing the quantum world into alternative classical worlds, all equally "real". The observer subjectively perceives only one classical world, namely that of everyday experience.

However all the other worlds also exist.

Now the issue here is that each alternate world must, by logic. also contain an "observer", many replicas of the person who existed prior to the act of observation.... and each one of these replicas believes that they are the continuity of subjective consciousness.Mensky asks the simple question: What happens to the observer's consciousness when such a measurement takes place? He states that every observer sees only one result ... meaning that a choice of one alternative reality out of all the possibilities must be made. Mensky suggests the following itladian solution:

"All alternatives are realised, and the observer's consciousness splits between these alternatives. At the same time, the individual consciousness of the observer subjectively perceives what is going on in such a way as if there exists only one alternative, the one she exists in. In other words, the consciousness as a whole splits between the alternatives but the individual consciousness subjectively chooses (selects) one alternative".

By this he is suggesting that the the observer's brain and the observed system are synchronistically entangled. Now what is exciting is how Dr. Wallace interprets Mensky’s idea. He writes:‘Unlike inanimate matter, every conscious living being perceives the quantum world, with its characteristic nonlocality, relative to its own cognitive frame of reference. Each of these individual classical projections is “locally predictable”, and in each case one, a conscious being realises a world of living experience. And each such classical world exists only relative to such a being or community of beings.” (page 82) And in this way Wallace and Mensky explain how all “observers” within the same cognitive framework perceive the same things and in doing so ensure that their observations are consistent. Indeed he goes on to suggest that the selection of reality is made taking into account the preferences or psychological state of that observer:‘So it is possible that by choosing a classical world according to our interests, we may affect the probability of which alternative we observe.” Wallace then presents the most amazing quote from Mensky:

‘If, for instance, a close relative dies in one of these realities and remains alive in another, the conscious subject is highly motivated to select the latter alternative. If he believes in this case that he is able to affect the selection, it is not inconceivable that he will actually increase the probability to some extent that he will witness precisely the latter alternative’.

Of course within ITLAD/CTF the choice is assisted by a “precognition” or “hunch” injected into Eidolonic awareness by the Daemon who is already aware, having followed through the alternative scenarios in previous runs of the Bohmian IMAX.Wallace makes an interesting observation that this may explain such mysteries as the “placebo effect”.I would add that this may also explain the “Law of Attraction” (Ed, is this how you always find a parking space?)Now for a true (and well documented) personal example.

For the last eight years I have never had a plane seat that has not been over the wing! This has become far more than a joke with my wife, family and close friends. I have flown approximately 50 individual sectors in that period and every flight is the same …. I get a window seat and look out on the wing….with one exception, and only one. Four years ago I flew to Greece with my mother and wife-to-be to make arrangements for our forthcoming marriage on the island of Halki. I gave my mother the window seat. And guess what ….. you guessed it. We were off the wing!I have calculated that on any one flight there is a rough average of 70 window seats on an average size plane.(737-800). 16 of these will be on the wing. So I have a 1 in 4.375 of being allocated a window seat on a wing. So on average I should be off the wing 3 flights in every 4. But I have been on the wing 50 times out of 50 !Is this evidence of my negativity (I now expect to be on the wing?) that places me always in the universe where I am on the wing?Will my universe now change because I have recognised why this is happening? I am flying from London to Denver in a few weeks time. Let’s see what happens!!!

References:Wallace, B Alan – Hidden Dimensions – The Unification of Physics And Consciousness (Columbia University Press) – isbn: 9780231141505.

Mensky, Michael B – Concept of Consciousness in the Context of Quantum Mechanics (Physics-Usekki 48, no. 4 (2005): 389-409

2009-08-19T08:53:00.004+01:00

Last night I was delighted to receive a copy of the Society of Psychical Research (SPR) review of The Daemon. I received it "out of the blue" from one of their Officers. I had long known that the SPR had reviewed ITLAD and, for some reason, I was worried about what they may say. I guess that my logic was that the SPR is an organisation that I have always held in awe ever since I was a child and I first began reading about unusual phenomenon. Back in 1969 I used to receive a weekly copy of a part-work called Man, Myth & Magic and in the early 1980's I collected a similar series (although slighly less intellectually challenging) called The Unexplained. Both these works were full of learned articles written by members of the SPR. I read more about this organisation and found that they had been founded in 1882 by Henry Sidgwick, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge University, and had, over the years, some great thinkers, scientists and philosophers within its ranks. A few years later (1886) a book that was to have a huge influence on my own philosophy was published by the SPR. This book was entitled Phantasms of the Living and was written mainly by Edmund Gurney, together with Frederic Myers and Frank Podmore. I re-read this book whilst researching material for The Daemon and I was stunned with how my Daemon Hypothesis can be applied to many of the cases reported by Gurney et al. A few years later one of my all-time intellectual heroes, William James, was to join the ranks of the SPR.

Over the years this organisation has attracted some of the best brains of each generation, radical thinkers who were willing to risk carefully built academic reputations to pusue understanding of areas of experience that did not fit into the scientific paradigm of the time.

As such the opinion of the SPR was of great importance to me. For them not to like my book was a possibility, and something that I would prefer to be in ignorance of. However yesterday I was sent a pdf of their review of The Daemon...and on reading it I found that the reviewer gave it a reasonable review. Indeed in my opinion the reviewer, Robert Charman, writes an excellent précis of the whole ITLAD/CTF hypothesis and in doing so he has given the members of the SPR an excellent understanding of what I am trying to explain.

It is of no surprise to me that the SPR focuses on the one element of ITLAD/CTF that does not fit in with their research findings …. That consciousness is simply an epiphenomenon of the brain and as such cannot exist outside of the brain. However on careful reading of my work it will be seen that I leave this question open. I can see evidence that the brain may also be a receiver of some description in which case consciousness may exist in another “place”. My problem with this was that such a concept falls into the classic Dualism trap and despite much research no hard evidence has been found for such a conclusion.

But there is considerable subjective and experiential evidence for this conclusion. Distance viewing, telepathy, out-of-body experiences, Astral Travel and many other well documented phenomena suggest that consciousness is more than just a “brain-state”.

As such my involvement with the SPR is, yet again, phenomenally synchrondipitous. Last night I was also sent a pdf copy of their review of ITLAD (Robert Charman again). This is another very fair and well thought-through review. Robert is obviously a very careful reader and does an excellent job. This stimulated me to do something I had long planned to do …. Join the SPR. I emailed my contact (Tom Ruffles) to let him know that I was doing so. Tom replied asking if I had considered doing a lecture for the SPR! Wow! What an honour that would be. But of course the timing is exactly right because Karl and I will be presenting BIGTOE to the world via our Edge Media TV interview which will be recorded on Friday 21st. Bringing together my ITLAD/CTF with Karl’s CtCw will, in one perfect synthesis, explain all the phenomenon discussed above whilst still remaining true to the concept of the Bohmian IMAX.

I have informed both Tom and Robert about this TV programme and I am hopeful that they will inform the members of the SPR about it.

All very exciting ………. And, as I stated above, a classic case of synchrondipity!!!

Event Review: British Author Anthony Peake @ the Roosevelt Hotel, Monday August 3 - Writerface.com - the online social network for writers

2009-08-18T14:59:00.001+01:00

Event Review: British Author Anthony Peake @ the Roosevelt Hotel, Monday August 3 - Writerface.com - the online social network for writers

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Quantum Duo: Anthony Peake & Karl L LeMarcs to be broadcast on Edge Television

2009-08-16T19:47:00.001+01:00

Quantum Duo: Anthony Peake & Karl L LeMarcs to be broadcast on Edge Television

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WORLD PREMIERE of BIGTOE: Peake-Le Marcs Television Interview

2009-08-16T10:20:00.011+01:00

Anthony Peake and Karl L Le Marcs will be interviewed by Edge Media Television on Friday 21st August for a television programme named ESOTERIA hosted by Nick Margerrison and broadcast in the UK on Sky Channel 200, Controversial TV.

Tony and I are very proud and excited by this invitation to our very first joint interview where we can introduce BIGTOE (Bohmian IMAX Grand Theory of Everything), the uber-theory combining Tony's ITLAD (Is There Life After Death) with my CtCw (Collapsing the Consciousness wave), to the world.

We are being interviewed for two hours which is to be recorded for broadcast at a later date. When we have confirmation of the broadcast time and date we will, of course, announce it here and on FORUM.

I have begun a thread on this interview, with more information and links, over on the FORUM - CONSCIOUSNESS section, where Tony and I hope all those who have an interest in the future of ITLAD/CtCw and the implications of BIGTOE to all Consciousness and Life will contribute with questions, opinion, discussion and debate.

So, if you have any questions on how ITLAD and CtCw work together then please ask us on the thread linked below:

FORUM: WORLD PREMIERE of BIGTOE: Peake-LeMarcs Television Interview

A Dark Philosopher

Karl L Le Marcs

Angels In My Hair

2009-08-15T23:06:00.002+01:00

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....

Sovereign Radio Interview - 12th August 2009

2009-08-12T18:05:00.004+01:00

My sincere apologies to Sonia Barrett of Sovereign Radio and to all those planning to listen in this evening. Unfortunately I made a total miscalculation in terms of the time of broadcast. I had checked the time difference between the UK and California a few months ago (when the first interview with Sonia had been scheduled). Clearly I jotted down the wrong time and worsened the error by not checking it again.

Unfortunately the interview was unusual in that usually the radio station rings me. This time I needed to ring them. As I was at home at the correct time of 1600 (UK time) I would have been available to take the call. As it was I waited until the time I thought it was (1800) before attempting to SKYPE the station.

I have done many, many, US and Canadian interviews and this is the first time that this has happened. Hopefully it will be the last time.

My apologies also to Susan-Marie who I know placed this on many wires in the USA.

PK Dick , Anarch Peake , and Anthony Peake | The News is NowPublic.com

2009-08-11T20:18:00.005+01:00

PK Dick , Anarch Peake , and Anthony Peake | The News is NowPublic.com

Interesting website?

2009-08-11T11:22:00.003+01:00

You and the dark philosopher may be interested in this site as it covers much the same ground but its by an experiencer that has had a lot of experience I can tell you!

Thank You to Anthony Peake

2009-08-05T11:50:00.000+01:00

I just want to say thank you to Anthony Peake, for gracing New York City with a superb lecture on August 3 in the Grand Ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel: One which was invigorating, electric, and seamless from start to finish. I am humbled by the rush of congratulatory calls and emails I have received post event; and the compliments on Anthony Peake, and many are requesting a part 2. Thank you again, Tony, and thanks also to Martin Huxter for his excellent speech and his company; and to John Broughton of New York Philosophy for his; and to Ruth Ahlgren and her sister, for their wonderful participation and presence.

Grimwood post

2009-07-30T13:30:00.003+01:00

I couldn't leave a comment for some reason, so here goes this post instead. I've been out with two women diagnosed with schizophrenia, plus another in which spontaneous psychic events unfolded. In my opinion this is all ITLADIAN and the condition needs to be reclassified. When I was in Scientology they were against the barbaric treatment of such patients but they never saw or were interested in the psychic power or 'witch' angle, that I saw: I'm now 57 so those heady, daemonic days are over, in the same way as flowers burst into bloom, seed and then die off as their purpose for being wanes.

2009-07-28T14:36:00.002+01:00

I have just been informed that Radio City, the major radio station for the Merseyside area, has requested that I be involved in tonight's "Pete Price Show". I will be "on-air" for approx 20 minutes from 2220 (BST). The theme of the programme will be "the meaning of life". Also being interviewed will be a theologian and a philosopher. As we understand it the three guests will be interviewed separately and then the telephone lines will be opened for a debate and discussion. The guests will not be involved in this but Pete will.

Radio City broadcasts on FM across Merseyside and to a much wider area on digital. For those of you interested in this show it can be listened to on-line at:

http://http//www.whatson.com/radiocity/.

Clearly if anybody wishes to phone in and add their itladian comments that will be great.

Heat induced time slip.

2009-07-08T19:21:00.004+01:00

During the recent heatwave my wife and I have decided to use different bedrooms. I preferred the back cooler bedroom she put up with the west facing warmer bedroom.
One evening we retired to bed about the same time, she may have been a little after me as she sets out the kitchen for breakfast. Her normal time of rising is about 4.30am anyhow as she has back problems and twisting and turning in bed she gets up early does some housework and then goes to sleep on the sofa until I get up at 6.am for work. I was reading the book The Daemon in bed when she turned in. Eventually I turned off my back bedroom light.
Around 3.24am [AS PER MY CLOCK] I heard her get up as she went via the bathroom etc I checked the time again to be sure and as she is an early riser anyway and it was still warm I took little notice. I fell back to sleep and re-awoke and checked my digital LCD clock it was only 1.15am, again double checking by putting on the light. Huh? How could that be? Puzzled I fell back into a sleep awaking for work at 6.00am. I went via the bathroom and down for breakfast and asked my wife what time she got up, about 3.30am she said she couldn't rest it was too warm upstairs. I muttered I had a backward night then but never bothered to explain it, not worth the hassle. Did my Daemon try to prove something to me or was it just heat induced madness. I still can't accept it as real but who can tell?

2009-07-08T19:20:00.001+01:00

Now Television beckons?

2009-07-03T16:24:00.003+01:00

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.

I will be appearing on their "Flagship" programme On The Edge. I will be interviewed by Theo Chalmers. I spent a fascinating 45 minutes chatting with Leo yesterday. He has a great sense of humour and I am sure that this could be a very interesting show. indeed I am informed that there will be a facility whereby listeners can "text in". How this facility works I am not sure but I watched part of Theo's programme last night and the listener involvement was very active.

Edge Media programming is broadcast in the UK on the Sky platform, Channel 200 "Controversial TV" from 6am until 10pm. It can also be received across Europe on Eurobird 28.3E (11.222Ghz H, symbol rate 27.5, FEC 2/3).

However what is even better news for those of you outside of the UK (and those of you, me included, who do not have SKY TV) is that this programme will also be available for viewing live via a webcast. This can be viewed at:

http://www.edgemediatv.com/videoplayer/watchonline.html

Their general website can be found at http://www.edgemediatv.com/ .

Cheater of the Ferryman: His Name in the U.S. Media

2009-07-02T19:22:00.000+01:00

I hope that Tony will forgive me a bit of boasting, but it is simply thrilling to see all my hours of work, reaching out to press, writing OpEd pieces, etc. paying off in such a big way. Articles about Tony's theories, his work with the National Theatre of London, and his upcoming New York event on August 3 in Midtown Manhattan, have now been spread through the US media , in Metro New York, and are showing up on the pages of such media giants as USA Today, CBS and NBC in New York, World News , the Thriller List put out by famous American mystery author Leighton Gage, Mayor Bloomberg's Office's Cultural Affairs list, and major authors and events listings. An article about Cheating the Ferryman coming to New York ranked as one of the top "Science and Life" section stories, even posted above pieces on Michael Jackson. My editor and colleague, Eric Bryant, and I are so happy to be helping in the ITLADian adventure. Bravo to the founder of the feast, Mr. Anthony Peake.

Theory now discussed in the Fortean Times Paranormal Handbook

2009-06-25T14:16:00.002+01:00

I was in Borders Bookshop this lunchtime and something suggested that I look round the magazines. I was on my way out of the shop and I had absolutely no reason to go over to this section, but I found myself walking towards the rows and rows of magazines. I was quite frustrated because in Speke they have moved all the sections and I had no idea what I was looking for. However as my eyes scanned the rows of magazines they alighted on a new booklet entitled The Fortean Times Paranormal Handbook. I just had this feeling (Daemonic?) that this was of importance. I casually picked it up and noticed that it had a chapter on "Life After Death". I turned to this section simply to see what I could learn from this. I noted that this section was written by Bob Rickard, the "Founding Editor" of FT and the guy who reviewed Daemon in the April edition.

I scanned through it and towards the end Bob was discussing the suggestion by physicist Ron Pearson that consciousness itself is a sub-quantum phenomenon. I then glanced at the final paragraph of the article, the summing-up section and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Bob had writtten the following:

Many of these exciting new notions are summarised by Anthony Peake, to which he has annexed an extraordinary and equally promising discussion of the evidence for each of us having a dual consciousness; one he calls the Eidolon, which experiences life for the 'first' time and which locates itself in physical space; and the other he calls the Daemon, which has lived through the 'life' experience many times and which locates itself in quantum 'non-locality'. The analogy here is of a hologram, an image in which each part contains the whole. Further Peake attempts to account for much of the phenomena experienced during NDE's as imperfect recollections of encounters between the two types of consciousness. If he is correct in suggesting that the Daemon is as much rooted in the quantum world as the Eidolon is in the physical world, we may indeed be on the way to an explanation of both the nature of consciousness and its independence from the physical body - Indeed, to a new theory of death and how it may be survived!

Wow!

I am so excited about this because this is not the FT magazine which is only in the bookshops for a month .... this £7.99 "Magbook" will be in all the major newsagents - including ones at airports - for the whole Summer and maybe even longer. This could be the big breakthrough.........

Thanks Bob!

2009-06-24T13:15:00.004+01:00

I am delighted to say that my interview with Amanda Lyon and Katrine Seidelin has now been posted on The National Theatre website. It is an excellent short film that explains in a very effective way why this particular production is of great relevance to my own theories on the nature of time, consciousness and perception.The link can be found at:

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/50304/time-and-the-conways/play-now-time-and-the-conways.html

I would like to thank both Amanda and Katrine for an excellent short film.

The picture above shows the central character "Kay Conway" as she slips into some form of seizure, a seizure that places her 19 years in the future. It is interesting to note that in my theory I suggest that seizures (specifically temporal lobe epilepsy petit mal "absences") do open up the human mind to strange temporal anomalies such as the one depicted in this fascinating play.

Indeed the actress who plays Kay Conway, Hattie Morahan, will be on stage with me on the 23rd July together with particle physicist Professor Jeff Forshaw.

2009-06-19T14:41:00.003+01:00

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.

I succeeded in my search and I will be receiving a copy in the next few days. However, in doing a Google-search on "reliving one's life" I came across a simply amazing letter published in the periodical The American Journal of Psychiatry (143:3, March 1986). The letter was sent by an extremely puzzled and very intrigued psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Jerome M. Schneck. If ever I needed empirical (albeit clearly subjective) proof that I am really onto something significant in my ITLAD/CTF hypothesis this is it. Dr. Schneck wrote:

SIR: I would like to describe a patient's delusion that is unlike anything I have encountered before.
Ms. A, a 36-year-old woman, was sent by her employer for a medical examination because she was said to be uncooperative with her co-workers. The examining physician referred her for psychiatric evaluation.The patient was schizophrenic, was vague about any history of inpatient or outpatient psychiatric treatment, and had been advised to take haloperidol and other medications but never filled in her prescriptions. She was loquacious, at times irrelevant, and yet was coherent and capable of offering direct answers to specific questions. She described having hallucinations in which she saw tents and thrones "inhabited by God."She denied having any feelings of depression or anxiety. Her attention and concentration somewhat wavered. She seemed fascinated by her unusual claims. Despite having had previous psychiatric contacts, she denied having psychological problems. She had occasional ideas of reference but declined to describe them in detail.The patient spontaneously revealed the delusion she harbored that she relived her life from moment to moment, each day, week, month and year. She did not claim that she had lived other types of lives in the past or that she would relive this one in the future, after her death. But she insisted that this life was a thorough duplication of her past life. She denied experiencing reincarnation in the sense of having previously lived in some other way or form, nor did she necessarily expect a reincarnation in the future. Her experiences were not the usual well-known deja vu but the re-living of a life span in specific and exact sequence, one event after another in proper order. She claimed that her ability to fortell events because of her reliving often frightened her as well as others. She said her facility to recall past events in detail also frightened others, but she asserted that her recollections were valid and accurate, even for time periods in infancy that are not ordinarily remembered. She claimed that other individuals confirmed her recollections, but she presented no evidence for this claim
I report this case to alert others to this delusion type and to encourage others to report on any similar patients they might have treated.

For me this report is absolutely fascinating and probably one of the most crucial cases regarding ITLAD/CTF. I have tried to trace Dr. Schneck but thus far with no success. He was based in New York so it is my intention to try and trace him, and possibly speak with him whilst I am in that city in August.

It is interesting to observe that this lady had been diagnosed as schizophrenic. Could it be that her odd perceptions themselves had brought about this diagnosis? If so then by implication anybody who may perceive elements of the Bohmian IMAX will be quickly labelled with this "illness". However what if this is not an illness but a glimpse of the true nature of existence? I am sure that Dr. Rick Strassman would agree with my position on this having tested out such a proposition with his work on DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine).

A careful reading of this report begs some strong questions .... for example, did nobody think to test out the woman's claims that she could perceive the future? Surely this would have been easily tested? But it seems that nobody bothered (of course, if one accepts what many deja TLErs have told me, that the very communication of what is about to happen to another human being will ensure that that the universe splits and a new future is created to accommodate the change from what happened "last time" - i.e. last time the subject would not have made the prediction and as such the very verbalisation of the fact changes peoples actions and reactions).
She was also quite precise in her point that this was not a form of reincarnation but a "reliving" of the same life. Something that I have stressed many times in my lectures when people assume that I am talking about a form of "reincarnation".

I am interested in any comments anybody may have with regard to this case ..... and even more interested if anybody has access to any further material to do with this case, or any similar.

Anthony Peake in New York - August 3rd 2009

2009-06-17T11:57:00.005+01:00

The following has recently been announced in to various media outlets in New York.

'Anthony Peake will be addressing the New York public at the Roosevelt Hotel, Madison Avenue @ East 45 St, Midtown, Manhattan, Monday, Aug 3, 6- 9 pm, 2nd floor, Conference Mezzanine, The Broadway Suite Lecture/Discussion/Author Book Sale and Signing/Free Public Reception for the Author, Open Bar and Buffet : Hosted by Gnosis Arts Multimedia Communications, LLC (Eric Bryant).'

There is an open invitation to this event so if you happen to be in New York on the 3rd of August please do feel free to join us there.

Full details about this event can be found at the BLOGSITE of my associate Susan Marie Kovalinsky:

http://musingsinobamasamerica.blogspot.com/

PKD Day at Nottingham Trent University - 13th June 2009

2009-06-16T15:41:00.004+01:00

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.

The papers in the morning were highly academic in their approach. Indeed it took me back to my own university days in the mid 1970's. Clearly the approach was textual rather than personal in that the themes discussed Phil the writer not Phil the man. However this is what was to be expected as it was taking place in the English Department.

In the afternoon I presented a paper entitled "PKD-PRECOG?" It is difficult to evaluate how this went down with the assembled academics and enthusiasts but I think the lack of questions (except from Mick and the organisers) suggested to me that the audience were, at best, confused and at worst somewhat underwhelmed.

On reflection my presentation was somewhat different to those that had gone before. I was dealing with "facts" (as reported by Phil himself so I guess the word "fact" in this case consists of many "factors") whereas my predecessors had analysed Phil's writing in a sociological or textual way. I was fascinated to realise that a simple science-fiction story can be analysed and taken apart for meaning. I wonder what Phil would have made of it?

I was really expecting some challenging questions - particularly as I presented evidence from Phil's life that he had been precognitive. Indeed I even distributed copies of the fascinating letters that Phil wrote to Gloria Krenz, one of which actually described the circumstances of his own stroke that was to happen seven years later. I guess that because my analysis did not work within a Marxist, Derridian or Deleuzian approach it caused a degree of confusion.

Of course it could simply be that my lecture was the last of the day before Tessa Dick joined us on SKYPE and everybody was anticipating chatting with her.

Tessa was wonderful, being witty, funny and very open in her comments about Phil. However I found it again very strange that not many questions were asked of her. I can only assume it is because many attendees of the conference were more used to answering questions than asking them.

One question Tessa was asked was to seek out her opinions on the biographers of her husband, specifically Lawrence Sutin and Emmanuel Carrere. Her response was to say that parts of Sutin's book contained accurate information and some did not. She did not seem to be aware of the Carrere book. However she then said that she had been very impressed by a new book by an English writer by the name of Anthony Peake - she said that with the exception of his suggestion that Phil experienced TLE, she felt that this book, "The Daemon" was excellent!

This really made my day, no, far more than that, it made all my hard work worthwhile. Tessa was actually an external witness to most of Phil's 2-3-74 "experiences" so with the exception of Phil himself she is the only person qualified to really comment upon my "take" on Phil's theophany.

Indeed Tessa finished of her communication by categorically stating that she agreed fully with Phil that the reality that we perceive is an illusion and that we are all living within this illusion.

I would like to thank Tessa for these kind comments regarding my work and also Professor John Goodridge for organising a wonderful, and very enlightening day.

Paranormal Magazine - Issue 37

2009-06-02T12:34:00.003+01:00

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:

http://www.paranormalmagazine.co.uk/.

For those of you outside the UK there is a downloadable version of the magazine that can be purchased on-line. Details can be found at:

http://www.jazzpublishing.co.uk/index.php?app=gbu0&ns=prodshow&ref=paranormal_latest

In his review of the article and interview Richard writes:

'Anthony Peake's "Cheating The Ferryman" theory (is) one of the most exciting and far-reaching theories regarding the supernatural to have emerged in decades".

This follows on from the Fortean Times review of "The Daemon" where founder of the FT, Bob Rickard wrote the following:

' (The Daemon) is not a self-help book, at least not in the the usual meaning of that term. It is something far more exciting; an intelligent and imaginative synthesis, a tentative step towards understanding what happens to us at the moment of death. In doing so, Peake seems to be shining a light on our equally mysterious inner life'.

What can I say!!

Worldview Warfare (weltanschauungskrieg) & the Necessity of Illusion

2009-05-20T22:56:00.005+01:00

“We are greater artists than we know.” Nietzsche.

Everyone has their personal version of reality and everyone believes theirs is not only the best version, but the only one that really counts
Our version of reality is dependent on our physical, emotional, psychological imprinting as infants, and has little or nothing to do with conscious processes.
It never seems to occur to us, however, that our version of reality is built up from material that comes directly from other people’s versions of reality (the books we read, people we respect, and so forth).
We cling to our version of reality as if our life depends upon it. Maybe it does. Yet we know that any version of reality is incomplete, and never can be complete.

The way we view the world defines who we think we are, our constructed identity. We cannot see ourselves from the outside, except through the eyes of another.
We agree the sky is blue without ever wondering if we are seeing the same color, knowing only that we have agreed to give it the name “blue.”
We all desperately need others to agree with our version of reality, even while we insist that we are special and unique.
Does anyone ever really upturn their version of reality in a way that is meaningful? It is akin to identity-suicide.
Our versions of reality are our defense systems, our armor, against an incomprehensible, and probably hostile, Universe. It began as a necessary survival response to those first childhood experiences, the ones which presented the original threat to our well-being, so shaping the identity-armor that was later fully consolidated as a version of reality.
Parents are the first to override our sense of reality by telling us that monsters do not exist and that our invisible friends are imaginary, that we are not hungry when we say we are, and so forth.

We are looking for allies, most of all in our illusions. Complicity in denial. The rejection of conspiracy “theory” (a telling term, since it is often as fact-based as anything in the consensus realm) perhaps stems from our unconscious awareness that we are all conspiring, all of the time, to keep ourselves in the dark about this one, all-consuming fact: that we are the authors of our own beliefs.
Friendship is opposition.
When worldviews, versions of reality, go to war, the potential for breakthrough is great
What we believe to be real becomes real. We forget that we chose to believe a version of reality because we had to. It was a necessary illusion.
Jason Horsley

(full piece here)

Red Ice Creations Interview & a Meeting with Tom Priestley

2009-05-20T12:27:00.003+01:00

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.

The first part of the interview can be listened to, or downloaded as an MP3 at:

http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/2009/05may/RIR-090517.php

To listen to the second part you will need to become a subscriber to the site. However this is not a bad idea because this gives you access to some amazing interviews - many of them directly related to subjects that we have discussed and, hopefully, will continue to discuss on this BLOG and on my FORUM.

I am very pleased with how this interview went. I had just returned from a fascinating meeting with Tom Priestley. Tom is the only son of the playwright J.B. Priestley. As many of you will know I am involved in a "Platform Discussion" at the National Theatre in late July and I will be talking about J.B.Priestley's philosophy on time as presented in his "Time Plays".

I spent over an hour with Tom and he was very interested in ITLAD/CTF. Indeed he gave me the ultimate complement when I said that his father would have been quite fascinated by my work. As JBP wrote plays influenced by the ideas and theories of Peter Ouspensky and J.W.Dunne this was an honour indeed!

Tom will be in the audience for my "Platform Event" at the Lyttleton Theatre on Friday 24th of July. I only hope that after reading ITLAD that Tom is still as intrigued!

2009-05-14T09:26:00.002+01:00

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.

However I suggest that it is common-sense that is in error and that the masses are deluding themselves in their enthusiasm to remain in their "comfort zone". Indeed I find that sometimes people can become quite aggressive when I suggest that they reflect back on themselves and for a second or two evaluate the real nature of consciousness and perception.

An example of this is that a few days ago I was in discussion with my optician. He was testing my eyesight with all his latest equipment and in the course of our conversation I brought up the question of the "blind spot" in our field of vision. There is a blind spot in each eye where there are no photoreceptors. This is because there has to be a place where the optic nerve is positioned. We don't usually notice the blind spot. However it is always there. I mentioned to the optician that I thought it odd that the brain seems to "fill in the missing section of vision". The optician disagreed with me and said that there was no mystery at all. He explained that we do not notice it for one simple reason; what falls on the blind spot of one eye does not fall on the blind spot of the other. He added that because the eyes are in constant motion so that what falls on the blind spot now does not fall on it a second later. For him that was the simple answer.
This was a typical response of a professional who was dealing with an enthusiastic layperson. I was wrong in my assumption and his opinion was correct. There is no mystery. However there is, a huge one, and one that I guess either he was not aware of or simply wishes to ignore it because it simply does not fit in with the present scientific paradigm. I could have mentioned this to him but decided against it. After all, what would be the point?

So why am I so sure that he is wrong? Well, try this experiment. Keep your head very still and stare at a blank surface such as a wall. Close one eye. Now there will be no overlap of the fields of vision so one eye will not compensate for the other (the optician's central argument). As you are not moving your head there is also no overlap of monocular vision as your single eye stares straight ahead. But still there is no blind spot! In fact it is quite difficult to demonstrate the blind spot and this involves staring at an object with one eye open at a specific distance. So for me there can only be two conclusions to be made about the opticians response - either he knew that the mystery did exist and pretended it didn't or he was simply unaware that the "received wisdom" was wrong.

And this really is a huge mystery because it implies that the brain, not the eye, fills in the missing information. But what is weird is that it fills in the information so seamlessly that we do not notice it. We are fooled into believing that we have an unbroken field of vision.
The philosopher-scientist Daniel Dennett argues that the information is not "filled in" but it is simply ignored. But this does not make the process any stranger. This suggests that the brain can manipulate or field of vision to the extent that areas are "ignored". This still implies that what we actually perceive is not what the eyes actually "see".

Indeed the above is somewhat of an understatement. Again most people assume that what is focused on the back of the eye is what is "seen" in the brain. They are taught that the retina simply acts like role of film at the back of a camera. The light comes in through the lens, the photons/waves (see my recent postings on this additional mystery below) then land on the light sensitive film and an image is created. This photograph is then sent to the brain and "presented" to consciousness. However this "snapshot" analogy is totally inadequate.

The amount of visual information that lands on the retina is extremely limited. There are two retinal images, not one, and they are are distorted, tiny and upside down. In addition the resolving power of the eye is limited and non-uniform. Indeed outside of the high resolution foveal region, the retina is nearly colour-blind and its powers of descrimination are severely limited. On top of this, as the optician rightly pointed out to me, the eye is in nearly constant motion. This movement is called saccadic motion and involves the eye changing position three or four times a second. As a result of this the actual image that lands on the retina takes the form of a succession of of alternating snapshots and grey-outs.

The perception philosopher, Professor Alvin Noe of the University of California, does not share the comfortable world of the "guy down the pub" about the nature of visual perception and its implications for the ultimate nature of reality. In an essay called “Is The Visual World a Grand Illusion?” In a book of the same title, Professor Noe writes the following in relation to the mystery of who the brain "creates" a stable and enveloping visual experience from such limited data:

“How, on the basis of this fragmented and discontinuous information, are we able to enjoy the impression of seamless consciousness of an environment that is detailed, continuous, complex and high resolution? This is the problem faced by visual theory.”

ITLAD/CTF and Karl L LeMarcs' CtCw attempt to explain these anomalies of perception (and those of particle physics) in a totally new paradigm ... an uber-theory... collectively known as BIGTOE. We do seem to have a workable theory that can explain many, if not all, of these "Black Swans" that so irritate and annoy those, such as my optician, who pretend that they have all the answers and there are no problems with the present paradigm.

Rather reminds me of the position of scientists such as Ernest Mach at the turn of the 19th/ 20th centuries. For me these curiosities are the "photo-electric effect" and the "black body radiation" of the 21st century. They have to be explained in order for us to advance our understanding of consciousness and its relationship with the Phenomenal World.

The Mystery of the Photon (02)

2009-05-13T17:24:00.002+01:00

In my last posting I discussed the strange relationship between light and consciousness. I would now like to focus in on the second itladian issue regarding light. What I write below is, in many ways, simply a collection of notes and observations that I really wish to record now while they are still fresh in my mind. They may signify nothing, and I am sure that I have made some huge errors of interpretation, but this is a good indicator of where my Daemon seems to be taking me – particularly that recent synchronicities suggest that she is shouting at me at the moment!

Einstein, as a young man, used to wonder what it would be like to travel on the end of a light beam. It was these thoughts that led to the paradigm changing theory of relativity and, as they say, the rest is history.Last night I had a similar, but probably a good deal less, iconoclastic series of thoughts regarding light. These were stimulated by a few passing comments by Michael Shallis in his book On Time.As discussed in my previous posting, light seems to be both a particle and a wave. The particle element of this curiously counter-intuitive dyad is called a “photon”. And photons are weird!Most people who think about this (and few do) visualize a photon as being a very small solid bit of light. This is very, very small, but still a solid thing. However this is not the case. For example a photon has no mass! This means that it has no physical existence in the way that we would normally use the term. If you collected every single photon in the universe and placed them in one place (which would be impossible as they have no real ‘location’ see later) you would still have no mass. They would displace nothing and as such one can only assume that they do not exist within space as we know it.Because they are mass-less they can travel at exactly the speed of light – no faster and no slower. This means that they do not accelerate. When a light switch is turned on the photons that leave the bulb they travel at light speed instantaneously. Now at that speed the universe becomes a very different place from the one we observe.For example from the viewpoint of a photon there is no time. At the speed of light time ceases to flow. So for a photon it is still the moment of the Big Bang!Indeed there are even stranger conclusions that can be drawn from this timeless state experienced by a photon. If I am right in my interpretation then it means that they can travel backwards and forwards in time. We do not have to create exotic super-luminal (faster than light) particles such a tachyons to suggest possible time travel. The humble photon does it all the time (pun unintended).It is known that Space (and, I assume Space-Time) is curved. As such if an object travels for long enough it will arrive back at its initial location. This is like somebody circumnavigating the Earth. This line is technically known as a geodesic. This will apply to a photon. Our photon leaves the surface of Rigel and heads off into the vacuum of space at 299,792,458 metres per second. As long as the universe is expanding at less than the speed of light (which it cannot do anything other than) and it is not absorbed en-route, eventually that photon will end up back at its starting point on the surface of Rigel*1. Now as far as “our “time perception goes, this will take an enormous amount of time, billions if not trillions of years. However, and this is the amazing thing, from the viewpoint of the photon no time will have passed. It will find itself instantaneously back at the start of its journey and ready to do it again and again. Indeed it could do this journey countless times and it would still take, for the photon, no time.Michael Shallis observes:

‘It is strange that light to an observer has a finite measurable speed, when to light there is no time and therefore no space (italics mine).Light seems to interpenetrate the whole universe as if everywhere and every time was “here and now”, and yet to the human observer it travels and it travels at finite speed.’ (On Time – page 62)

So imagine that our photon described above leaves Rigel and arrives on Earth to enter your eye one winter’s evening (assuming you live in the Northern Hemisphere). From your frame of reference the photon left Rigel in 1236 C.E. (773 years ago) – when Cordoba was being retaken from the Moors as part of the Spanish “Reconquista” – but for the photon no time has passed and the fall of Cordoba*2. For the photon the encounter with your eye and the fall of Cordoba are contemporaneous events!Now what is important for me is that light, as a photon or as a wave, is the medium by which we perceive most of the world, and universe, around us. Without light we would quite literally, exist in complete darkness. Light is the medium by which we communicate with the world outside of consciousness. It carries information and yet this medium is mysterious in the extreme. It exists in a timeless place beyond our understanding. Indeed without electromagnetic radiation such as heat, life would not exist and the universe would be a cold, dead place.

The Gnostic Mystic Mani called matter “Bottled Light”. Could this be the real secret regarding the nature of reality? That light, matter and thought are all related in some deep, meaningful way? Could this be a clue to the “Implicate Order” suggested by David Bohm. Could light be the building blocks of my Bohmian IMAX?.

(I am aware of a slight error of logic on my part. If the photon had travelled round the universe it would arrive somewhere on the surface of Rigel but it would be unlikely to be the same place. Rigel’s relative position will have moved in the billions of years of travel and, even more likely, it would have gone supernova eons before the photon gets back. Of course, if we apply the concept of the “Eternal Return” and assume that time, like space, is circular, then maybe the photon would return to the point of its creation on the surface of Rigel and, then, in a form of Stellar Bohmian IMAX, start on its timeless journey again..)

Regarding the Cordoba comment above this is strange, and curiously synchronistic.

If you have not already done so, please check out the “Cordoba” postings by “Mick” on this Blogsite. This will explain why this random choice of the star Rigel is curious. I could have picked any star but my Daemon suggested Rigel. My Daemon then suggested that I find out what event would have been taking place in Europe at the time that the photon left the surface of Rigel. Had to be something to do with Cordoba did it not!

The Mystery of the Photon (01)

2009-05-13T17:15:00.003+01:00

I have just finished re-reading the Peter Shallis book On Time. I am particularly intrigued by the things he discusses about the nature of light. Indeed it kept me awake for most of the night. Below are my thoughts and observations regarding my nocturnal ruminations. I am sure that I am really missing something but if I am not I feel that I have really isolated a massive mystery regarding the nature and process of vision when analysed in the “light” (pun unintended) of the Copenhagen Interpretation and the famed “collapse of the wave function”. I would like your opinions on this.

(This is the first of two postings. The second one will focus in on the universe as perceived from the viewpoint of a photon).

Light, or more accurately, the electromagnetic spectrum) is an essential component of our understanding of the universe around us. Everything we see needs particles (or waves) of light to be bouncing off it and entering our eyes. These photons carry the message of shape, colour, texture, brightness from the object to the retina of our eye. At this point the message from the photons is converted into nerve signals and these are sent to the sight centres of the brain. Here something “magical” happens and the signals are “converted” into an “image” that is presented to consciousness. This process in itself is shrouded in mystery (how does a small, inverted image on the back of the eye create the huge, vibrant, colourful field of vision that we take for granted every moment of our waking life? Indeed who does the “perceiving” of this image …. an image that only occurs on the retina, not in the brain itself?) But this is a mystery that demands another post. For now I just wish to discuss the external nature of light.

So light is the medium of communication by which the external world is presented to “consciousness”. But what exactly is light?

Well for a start, modern science cannot even make up its mind if light is a “wave” or a “particle”. Now this is of profound importance. A wave is a disturbance in some other substance such as a wave in water or a sound wave in air. The wave needs the substance for it to travel along. Without the substance a wave does not exist. For example imagine those giant ocean breakers without the water. Where are they? Imagine music being played in a vacuum. Where is the sound? In both cases without the medium the wave simply does not exist. But a particle is a very different type of “thing”. It is a solid point that has both location and mass. It is a solid bit of something or other. Particles of light, as we have seen, are called photons. However photons are very strange particles in that they have no mass and, as we shall see later, no location either.

But light shows particle-like and wave-like behaviour. Sometimes it acts exactly as one would expect a solid particle to behave …. Photons can be shot at a surface and it will kick out electrons just like the surface was being hit by grains of sand and being sandblasted. Individual photons can be fired through a slit and will appear as points on a screen the other side of the slit, just as particles would such as bullets fired from a gun.

However light also flows. It can flow round an object. When shone through two slits it acts exactly as a wave would be expected to. It develops an “interference pattern”, a classic wave-effect.

But how can light be both a particle and a wave?

But it gets stranger. Experimentation has shown that in order for light to show particle-like behaviour it has to be “observed”. Without an “observer” it behaves as a wave.

To explain this mystery physicists have suggested that an electromagnetic wave (of which light is the visible part) is not a wave as we understand the term. It is not a wave moving through a medium such as water or air but a wave of “probabilities”. In this way an explanation was found as to how light/electromagnetic waves can cross the vastness of space …. known to be a vacuum. This was for a long time a huge problem for scientists who were convinced (from the experimental evidence) that light was a wave. How is it, they asked, that a light wave can leave the sun and arrive at the Earth eight minutes later when between the Earth and the Sun is empty space, a vacuum? They suggested that space was not empty but was full of a mysterious substance known as “luminiferous aether”. It was this that carried the light waves. However in a very famous experiment by Michelson and Morley in 1887 it was shown that aether did not exist. However if light consisted of particles travelling at the speed of light then no aether was needed.

However the experimental evidence that light was, indeed a wave, was overpowering. Something was clearly wrong. The solution was that light is a wave that contains a probability of finding a particle (photon) in one place or another. Before observation the particle is smeared out over space as a “wave function”. In order for this wave function to “collapse” into a particle in a particular location something has to take place ….. and that something is the “act of observation”.

The big issue is what constitutes an “observer”? Can it be a measuring device or does it need to be a conscious observer such as a cat? Or does that observer need to be self-aware, a “reflective self-consciousness”?

Nobody really knows the answer to this question but the implications are incredible; that photons may need a conscious observer to bring them into existence! If this is true then vision works in a very weird way. As a light wave hits the retina it is technically “unobserved” because it is yet to reach consciousness. As such it can only be a wave at this point. However the wave is then converted into a nerve signal that is sent to the visual cortex to be reassembled into an image. But that image does not consist of photons. It is simply a nerve signal. The recreated image is then presented to consciousness and is “perceived” – the act of “observation”. If we accept the “collapse of the wave function” then where (and when) does the collapse from a wave to a particle take place? It cannot be before consciousness “observes” it, because that act of observation is right at the end of the process when the “wave” has changed to a nerve signal and is no longer light in any form, wave or particle. Can it be that the retina “observes” and in doing so collapses the wave function? But can this be an option? I am very aware that the retina is technically part of the brain, not the eye, but is it is not in any way “conscious” and definitely not “self-conscious”.

So we have this brain-generated “image” of the external world that projects itself into and wraps around our field of vision like a super IMAX picture. However this image is not made up of waves or photons, they have been long lost in the process. This view of the world is, at best, a facsimile and, at worst, an illusion. And of course we have an even deeper mystery …. where are the photons in this model?

So have I missed something?

2009-05-12T13:16:00.004+01:00

If my theory is correct then 70% of us exist inside an inwardly-generated "illusion" that we perceive to be an external "reality". The philosophers call this the "Phaneron" and I term it the "Bohmian IMAX".

If this is correct than this "world" should be full of self-referential clues that hint at this illusion. I suggest that these clues are presented to us all the time. Some of us see them and others just ignore them as just chance and coincidence. Those who have reflected on these things have another term .... they call it synchronicity. From Karl Jung to Arthur Koestler there has been a fascination with this "significant coincidences. Jmaes Redfield in his "Celestine Prophesy" books came to the same conclusion. These synchronicities mean something. So what should I make of this one:

Yesterday I was travelling through on the Merseyside Metro system from Liverpool James Street Station to my home station of Spital. I was reading the Michael Shallis book [i]On Time[/i]. Michael has a fascinating section on coincidence and meaning and I had just started this as the train left Birkenhead Central. As usual I was listening to my Archos MP3 player (as you all know from previous postings this machine has around 14,000 individual MP3 songs and I was, as usual, listening on random play. So there is a 1 in 14,000 of any one track being played. As we approach Rock Ferry Station I was overcome with what initially felt like a mixed deja senti/vu sensation. The first few bars of the Duffy song "Rockferry" started to play as we drew into Rock Ferry station. Now many of you know that a few months ago I recorded on this FORUM that exactly the same set of circumstances conspired to select this track as I was looking at the song's subject matter through the train window. And it was happening again! The odds of this happening once are very high .... but twice on a "random play" starts to stretch belief. Of course in order for coincidences to be significant there has to be another linkage at work. That was that I was reading a chapter on COINCIDENCE AND CHANCE!!! Indeed at that point Michael was discussing the statistics of coincidence and what made them significant. I got home feeling quite strange about all this.

That is interesting I hear you say, but not THAT interesting.

I agree, but today it continued.

Usually my journey to work consists of a metro journey, then an overground train journey then a short bus journey. For the last three weeks there has been improvement work on the Central Loop Line of the Liverpool metro service. This means that I have been obliged to take a bus from central Liverpool to my work location in Speke. Every day I have caught a bus numbered the 500. This goes to John Lennon Airport (note the Beatle link) and takes the quickest route. This morning I am at Paradise Street Bus Station waiting in my usual place. A bus draws in and I assume it is the 500 and get on. It is only as it drives away towards the city centre that I realise I have got on the wrong bus. I knew that this route would get me to work eventually but the route takes much longer and drives through the inner suburbs of the city before heading out to the airport. I have my archos on (random play as usual) and I am still reading the Shallis book and enjoying some of the fascinating coincidences that he describes. As a Wirralian I do not know Liverpool that well so I was not exactly sure where I was when The Beatles starting playing on the Archos. As soon as the song began to play and I recognised the tune a shiver went right up my spine (I mean this literally, it was one of those "somebody walking over your grave" type sensations). I knew exactly where I was going to be as I looked out the bus window. Literally (and I mean literally to the second) as the Beatles sang

"Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes

There beneath the blue suburban skies

I sit, and meanwhile back ...."

The road sign "Penny Lane" appeared in my field of vision. This really scared me more than anything that has ever happened in my ITLADIC journey.

This was really significant. Think about this. "Penny Lane" was indeed "in my ears and in my eyes". I was listening to it through headphones and I was looking at Penny Lane through the bus window. But it gets weirder. As many of you know Liverpool is in the North West of England. Known for its rainy skies. This morning had clear blue, cloudless skies..... I was in the Liverpool suburbs looking up at "Blue suburban skies". Now I admit that on its own this is of no significance but taking into account what was happening that I also had blue skies above me added to the weird feelings going through my head. Oh, and of course ..... I was sitting.... ("I sit" as the lyrics say). So when this 14,000 to 1 track came on I could have been walking (I wasn't I was sitting) the skies could have been cloudy (they were not, the were clear blue). I was in Penny Lane. I was reading a book about coincidences. The night before I had the Rockferry incident. It was verrrry weirdddd ..... almost Twilight Zone stuff). I have just done a quick check on my Archos about local place names in song titles within the 14,000 tracks. I am sure I am right but I only know of four:

Penny Lane by The Beatles,

Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles,

Rock Ferry by Deaf School and

Rockferry by Duffy (what is it about Rock Ferry that inspires people to write about it in song?)

As I got off the bus I watched it drive away. Along the side of the bus was painted a large picture showing, among others, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Now I need to check this but I am also sure that the road sign "Penny Lane" was featured in this advert for Liverpool 08. As it disappeared in the distance its destination was shown on the back of the bus ..... "John Lennon Airport". I felt the shiver hit yet again!

Tessa Dick - the latest Itladian?

2009-05-10T08:58:00.003+01:00

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.

Tessa (and David) are now active members of my own FORUM at www.anthonypeake.com/forum .

Tessa has already made a posting on the Anthony Peake Forum (discussing Julian Jaynes) and I am hoping that she will become a regular contributor.

Indeed Tessa has her own Blog site which is well worth checking out. Tessa discusses Phil, his writing and the events surrounding Phil's "Theophany" of March 1974 - an event so central to the issues discussed on this Blog and on my FORUM. Tessa's site can be found at http://pkdmemoir.blogspot.com/.

Tessa has also written a book about Phil entitled Philip K. Dick: Remembering Firebright. Signed copies of this book can be ordered direct from Tessa at her Blogsite. I have already ordered my copy and I am convinced that this book may prove to be of profound importance in the development of ITLAD/CTF and will also contain proof of the widening theory of BIGTOE and Karl's CtCw.

Tessa has already posted a comment about my work and I would like to thank her for this. she has already read the PKD chapter of "The Daemon" and a copy of this book will be winging its way across the Atlantic to her tomorrow.

Exciting times indeed!

2009-05-08T15:16:00.003+01:00

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.

The event will start at 1800 and will last for about 45 minutes. Note that this will take place in the Lyttleton Theatre.There is an intention for any itladians in the audience to meet up afterwards and go for a drink at the Doggetts Coat and Badge, a nearby drinking house much frequented by A Dark Philosopher in recent years and in the late 1970's by himself (although I am sure that it has much changed). Check it out at http://www.doggettscoatandbadge.co.uk/.

It is planned that Jeff and I will be signing copies of our respective books after the event. For details on Jeff's book (co-written with Professor Brian Cox) check out:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Does-E-mc2-Should/dp/0306817586

It is possible that some itladians may wish to sit together in the auditorium. If so you have two options. The theatre has a Groups Department.Their number is 020 7452 3010. and tickets can also be booked in-line at:

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/45917/platforms/an-experiment-with-time-and-the-conways.html

This could be one of those special nights (particularly if the weather is nice and we can sit outside - I mean the pub event by the way, not the theatre event!)

2009-05-05T16:54:00.003+01:00

You may be interested to know that a new(ish) review of ITLAD has appeared on Amazon USA. I think that it is a very fair evaluation and one that has picked up on some of the "concerns" long discussed on this Blogsite. I was delighted to discover that the reviewer also has a Blogsite location. This can be found at:

http://wwmentaltraveller.blogspot.com/

I have already added a comment on the actual posting at:

http://wwmentaltraveller.blogspot.com/2009/01/peake-experience.html

thanking "Gardening In The Centre" for this review (and for placing a link to this site and to The Forum).

A Weird Coincidence

2009-04-26T16:20:00.004+01:00

Something very weird took place last Friday (17th April) and I am keen to record it here.

Myself and FORUM/BLOG member, Aloah Gary met for coffee at Waterstones Bookshop in Birkenhead. We were joined for ten minutes or so by another member of the FORUM/BLOG who happened to be in the area (Edg). Ed left and Gary got down to business. He gave me some good advice about where I should next go with my writing. Gary used an analogy to explain my present circumstances. He said “You are like a guy with a dog at your heels with a handkerchief carrying your worldly goods. You need to step off that cliff because you will find that a parachute will be supplied for you as you fall”. Now, believe it or not (and I didn’t mention this to Gary at the time) a two days before I had a waking hypnogogic image of myself walking along a road with a stick and a knotted handkerchief. This puzzled me at the time. I recall thinking “where does that image come from? Did people in times past carry their belongings that way? and what a small amount could be carried”. At the time I mentioned this weird image to my wife.

I left Gary and arrive back home I settled down to read my emails. Nestling in my in-tray was an email from a member of the Graham Hancock Phorum and I opened it. The lady in question, "Nebankh" discussed some strange synchronicities in her life. I was delighted that the synchronicities (synchrondipitys as you know us Itladians call them) were manifesting in her life as they do in ours all the time.

Nebankh had also attached a short story that she was keen for me to read.

I then decided to read the story before I emailed her back to say thank you.

Within half a page I was stunned. I re-read what she had written and my brain simply could not take in fully the import of what I was reading. On the first page of Nebankh's story was the following :

"Goodbye Lily, till tomorrow then," and he tossed her a small card. There was a picture of a young man, with a joyous dog snapping at his heels; over his shoulder he carried a stick with a small, knotted handkerchief carrying all his worldly possessions, and he was stepping off the edge of a cliff with a happy smile on his face."

Just reading that now sends shivers down my spine..... it seemed personally targeted as to not only reinforce the message that Gary had given me, but also to prove to me that there is something powerful going on here .... something that continues to amaze me and leave me in absolute awe!

I am still wondering as to what the significance of this event is ..... but I am keeping an open mind!

ITLAD meeting

2009-04-26T14:33:00.009+01:00

Yesterday was another opportunity for meeting a few of the wonderful people who share a fascination for the works of Anthony Peake and who add to the developing discourse on this forum. We congregated at the Blue Bar at the Albert Dock in Liverpool. I, for one, had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the bonhomie and conversation.

Photos of the event can be viewed at http://www.flickr.com/groups/itlad/pool/

ITLADian Movie Project

2009-04-24T20:30:00.001+01:00

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....

Informal Mini-ITLAD Gathering - Saturday 25th April

2009-04-21T11:24:00.002+01:00

Informal Mini-ITLAD Gathering - Saturday 25th April

After the successes of previous gatherings I have been trying to arrange a suitable date that most can attend for another afternoon/evening of intellectual stimulation, ale-infusion and gags of dubious quality and we have found that, quite alarmingly, almost everyone is free, at least partly during the day, this Saturday so Tony, Penny, A Philosopher of Darkish Hue, Johar (JoJo), Aloha Gary, Ed, Woodsprite (Di), Anubis65/Baphomet (Dave), Nefertiti (Kathy), Rich, Morrigan, Dorje (Tony) and Alan are cordially invited (or in some cases alcoholically invited) to meet up in the sunshine(?) of Liverpool and anyone and everyone who can come along is welcome.

If you want to attend and come to meet some of the people from BLOG and FORUM then please leave a comment here or email me directly.

A Dark Philosopher

Karl L Le Marcs

The Fragmented Self

2009-04-21T02:19:00.003+01:00

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.

Yet More "Itladic" Art

2009-04-18T17:48:00.004+01:00

I received a letter today via my publisher. It was from somebody who had recently read my second book The Daemon and, like many others before him, felt motivated to write to me. I am both amazed and honoured that strangers really do seem to relate to what I write and state that I'm describing the "truths" that they have long been aware of but have never seen in print, nor felt assured enough to discuss with others. In my opinion this is the strength of ITLAD/CTF because it really does seem to resonate with so many people.

This gentleman sent me a drawing he had done after reading the book. A copy of this is above. He describes this as such:

"The chart describes the cycles of ETERNAL RETURN, or RECCURENCE, but also the PATH of UNITY which resolves as the Sacred Spiral in the Real Interior Universe as symbolised by the ALEPH OF SACRED KABBALAH..... (on my chart) the small circles within the great AEON or OLAM represent in their entirety, a cycle of lives, each small circle being a complete life. The large CIRCLE (Aeon) begins and ends with a given life; this is the cycle of REINCARNATION of the same lives"

The gentleman in question does not have a computer so I have placed this on here for him.

Although he will never read this, unless he change a lifelong antipathy to "new technology" I really would like to place his wonderful hand drawing that he so kindly sent to me on here so more people can appreciate it and also to have it recorded in some way.

Another "Shadows In The Dark" Interview - Saturday 18th April 2009

2009-04-17T15:47:00.002+01:00

Just a quick reminder that Anthony will be doing a live interview as part of the "Shadows In The Dark" 24 Hour event on Saturday 18th April 2009. This will be broadcasting Live from the "Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum" in Florida. Anthony has been sqeezed in as a late guest and will be interviewed from 0700 to 0900 Eastern Time. Please confirm what time this will be for your location.
Unusually for Anthony's American and Canadian interviews this will be a very reasonable time for you guys in Europe, India and even China.

This interview is a swift follow-on from Anthony's two hour interview with host (and member of this FORUM) Jeremiah Greer. As this will be, in effect, a continuation of this first interview it is likely that some new areas of ITLAD/CTF may be discussed.

It is also hoped that Anthony and Jeremiah may be joined by people attending the event, members of the Graham Hancock website, and, hopefully, some members of this FORUM.

Full details of this can be found at http://www.shadows24.com/on_air.php. Please be aware that it is unlikely that this will be available on a "listen again" facility.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TONY !!!

2009-04-12T00:01:00.001+01:00

On this day, exactly one year ago, we were doing this.........

BLOG: Covert Operation Codename: Peake-a-boo!!

[by Karl L Le Marcs]

Now, if anyone thinks I’m likely to volunteer to organise something like that again, then they are sadly mistaken: It was frantic enough last year and given the large number of ITLADists now, it would be a mammoth job.

I am, however, quite happy to briefly interrupt my Easter sabbatical with those I care deeply about to say Happy Birthday to my dear friend and cerebral comabatant.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TONY

Many happy eternal(?) returns (obviously)

A Dark Philosopher

Karl L Le Marcs

When the Saints went marching in...

2009-04-07T21:38:00.004+01:00

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.

One of the images on display was Anthony with halo and the show also featured a certain Dark Philosopher with a bright red halo. Show has been unexpectedly successful since and I've really enjoyed being there. There is a free-floating halo on one wall for the viewer to be invited to canonise themselves so if you are feeling sacred over the holiday pop along and see for yourselves. You might get a glimpse of your Daemonic side... (Cheers for coming guys)

Fortean Times reviews "The Daemon"

2009-04-03T10:14:00.007+01:00

Today was for me a re-living of the day I walked to my school to pick up my "A" level results at Wirral Grammar School for Boys. In those days they were posted on the door of the headmaster's office. As you walked towards the notice that held your future life in its bland page you could see the reaction of others; delight or despair.

This was nearly 36 years ago but I had exactly the same sense of trepidation mixed with excitement as I entered W.H. Smiths at Lime Street Station in Liverpool. I knew that today was the day that the latest edition of Fortean Times would be found on the shelves. From a distance I spotted the new copies, picked one up, and held my breath.

I knew that on the review pages would be a review of my second book, "The Daemon, A Guide to Your Extraordinary Secret Self". This would be my first ever review in a major international magazine and I was scared. Would they hate it, or even worse, give it a really small review?

I turned to page 57 and my heart almost leapt out of my chest when I saw that not only was it the first (and therefore major) book for review but the review filled the whole page and part of the next. I ran my eyes down to the crucial score - FT always mark books out of 10. They really do not pull any punches, last edition there were two books given 1. There is was - a 9 out of 10. I have never seen a 10 out of 10 review (but they must exist) so this was much higher than I expected. As I approached the shop I had decided that I would be really pleased with a 7!

The coda underneath the 9 score read "(A) fascinating exploration of the Near-Death experience."

I then paid for the copy and jumped on the train. My joy turned to elation as I read what Founding Editor, and one of my all time heroes, the great Bob Rickard had to say about my work. The review, which runs to a page and a quarter, is a wonderful synopsis of the whole ITLAD/CTF theory. Indeed it is probably the best precis that has been written. But what was even better that Bob genuinely seemed to like what I had written. Like you guys here on the Blog (and on the FORUM) Bob was using the itladian terminology that we know and love. "Bohmian IMAX" got a mention. He had even managed to mention the itladian movies "Groundhog Day", "It's A Wonderful Life", "Vanilla Sky" and "Jacob's Ladder".

I sat back into my train seat with a smug smile on my face that must have looked very peculiar to my fellow commuters!

I would like to both thank and congratulate Bob Rickard for an excellent description of my work, a description that is bound to attract many more readers.

In the final section of the review Bob writes the following:

Despite the subtitle 'A guide to your extraordinary secret self', The Daemon is not a self-help book, at least not in the usual meaning of that term. It is something far more exciting; an intelligent and and imaginative thesis, a tentative step towards understanding what happens to us at the moment of death. In doing so, Peake seems to be shining a light on our equally mysterious inner life.

Copies of this magazine (number 248) appeared in the newsagents and bookshops this morning (3rd April). In the UK this is stocked by all the major multiples such as W H Smith, Borders, Martins etc as well as most medium and large newsagents. It is also available internationally via the large multiples. The UK cost is £4.25 and the review appears on page 57.

I would like to thank Bob for a great review and allowing me to re-experience the day of my "A" level results ..... even to the better than my wildest dreams outcome of both!!!

Agents of Chaos: Alan Moore's Alchemical Worshop, and an Authentic Miracle of a Movie

2009-04-03T00:14:00.000+01:00

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)

Watchmen, the movie, directed by Zack Snyder and adapted by David Hayter and Alex Tze, sticks remarkably close to the source material, the ground-breaking graphic novel written by visionary author Alan Moore (whose name isn’t on the film) and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Moore is a self-confessed magician and uncontested genius of comic books, and his twelve issue, 300+ page superhero epic is a stupendously ambitious work, not merely one of the great accomplishments of comic book writing, but an outstanding work of fiction in any field. (It made Time magazine’s 100 greatest novels—what more do you need to know?!)

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.

But within ten minutes or less of the movie, it’s clear that something else is happening. The film, like the graphic novel, starts with the murder of the Comedian. The perfect pre-credit sequence, it sums up the delicate resonance of the story by both keeping to genre conventions (for an opening action set-piece and plot-starting murder) while adding a whole new layer of emotional nuance and poignancy. The Comedian’s weary acceptance of his fate speaks volumes. He has been waiting for this moment, and he’s secretly relieved that it’s finally come. If he puts up a token resistance, it’s only because he doesn’t know how not to. He keeps up his end of the mythic narrative to the bitter end.

This is followed by the lovely, eerie frozen images of the credits, by which flesh and blood becomes comic book image, or vice versa. The credit sequence is inspired: both delightful—enchanting—and wryly amusing, it lets us know that we are in good hands and can settle back to enjoy the most fully satisfying and morally complex superhero enactment in the history of movies. Watchmen is an authentic miracle of a movie—the best of its kind (the philosophical action fantasy) since The Matrix came out ten years ago. (Plot wise, Watchmen is less ingenious than The Matrix, but morally it’s far more sophisticated.)

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.

Moore creates a world of impossible possibilities, and the movie recreates that world with breathtaking fidelity—the kind of loyalty and integrity that seems unimaginable in Hollywood, but that has somehow come to pass. Admittedly, the film does fail in one crucial area: that of mapping the endless series of synchronicities between images, words, events, that form the texture of the graphic novel, and that in a sense are what it’s really about. More than the story, or even the characters, Watchmen describes the texture and flow of mystery that living in a quantum universe entails, and what’s lacking in the film is the necessary plethora of fine details, of recurring motifs and themes. Besides that smiley face, I didn’t notice any repeating phenomena, and so the scenes aren’t woven together at this subtler, more esoteric level. The result, for those who aren’t familiar with the original story, may seem to be an almost straightforward, though complex, action movie; they may well miss the finer undercurrents moving beneath the gloriously gaudy surface.

There are other minor flaws: the sex scene to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is something we could certainly have done without; perhaps more seriously, the extreme violence seems out of place here, largely gratuitous—it doesn’t add anything and may even detract from the dreamlike quality of the story (though with the Rorschach scenes a degree of savagery is probably intrinsic to the material). And sometimes what works in the graphic novel can seem mannered and contrived on screen (such as Night Owl’s question, “Whatever happened to the American Dream?”). Moore’s dialogue is often self-consciously clever, loaded, and this works better when we can hear it in our heads and give it our own inflexion. Actors can be all at sea with these multi-layered lines. There are also areas, such as Rorschach’s revealing the abyss of his soul to the liberal-minded psychiatrist, that need more time to be developed, that are rushed and hence diminished, and the film would probably have worked better, been less choppy and more textured, if it had been allowed an additional ten or twenty minutes of screen time.

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.

Stalker by Tarkovski

2009-04-02T07:18:00.001+01:00

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.
Is Stalker a genuine SF movie? It is, but only with due respect to Dostoievsky’s words: „Fiction and reality are one and the same thing. Without reality there is no fiction.” The kind of fiction we find in Stalker is of the same nature with the fiction Nicolae Steinhardt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Steinhardt) uses in his The Happiness Diary: one that „does not delude, does not lead to obscure lands of illusion, and is not a mere change of décor – the fiction of faith. That does not deny reality, but transcends it; that does not have to get out of the yellow room in order to leave it; that is not fiction after all, because it does not entertain the mind with a bunch (a human comedy) of other virtual– yet unessential – worlds, but rather makes it concentrate upon reality; which does not exclude science, but transfigures the world and the individual. ”
So, why be this particular film then? Mainly because nowhere else but in Tarkovski’s works (and arguably in Bergamn’s Nattvardsgästerna / Winter Light, Såsom i en spegel / Through a Glass Darkly, Tystnaden / The Silence or in Bunuel’s Nazarin and Viridiana, in some of Antonioni’s films) – and particularly in Stalker – does modern man’s inability to believe (transfiguring the world) and confess (transfiguring himself) hurt is such proportions. But confession is closely related to faith, and (post)modern man living in the glorious age of general deconstruction has increased his scepticism and believes, like the Writer, that "Conscience, remorse, are merely products of the brain...Who told you there is something going on here? Have you ever seen anybody leaving this place happy?” The whole odyssey towards Tarkovsky's Zone in order to pursue happiness is but a (failed) preparation for the most important moment in a man's life. The moment when he has to say nothing, he has to do nothing but concentrate and remember his own life, for "when one remembers his life, one becomes a better person". Perhaps this is the "clue" to Tarkovsky's charade: once we have reached (together with the Writer and the Professor) the threshold of the Room where, as they say, "the most powerful, tormenting and sincere desire becomes true", the Stalker makes us face the unavoidable question: Who am I? How would I react if a "stalker" (a guide) whom I incessantly suspect of hypocrisy (and whom I had imagined as looking completely different - „leather stockings, an impressive black leather suit, the looks of a dragon”) told me: „You only need to have faith!”? Would I be ready or would I resign, like the Writer does, and whose pride makes him say: “I’ll hardly be a better person if I start remembering my life….And don’t you see how shameful that is? To abase oneself, to grovel, to pray?” Or would I call for extreme measures (like the Professor does, who has prepared – not his soul, but rather a 20 kilotons bombs – in order to blow up “this famous place” for he cannot sleep easy in his bed as long as “this ulcer is open to any scumbag”. The place which “does not bring happiness to anyone” will not be blown up because of the Stalker, the “hypocritical worm” (called by the Writer “simply defective”), who – among bitter tears – tells the Writer and the Professor (but only them?): “Nobody has anything left in this world any more. This is the only place you can come to, if you’ve nothing else to hope for…That’s why you came! So, why are you destroying…faith?” What exactly is, after all, the Zone (or “the yellow room”, as Steinhardt put it)? Tarkovski provides the answer, in his book, Le temps scellé: „The Zone does not mean anything, at least it does not mean anything more than what one can find in my films. The Zone is the Zone. The Zone is life, and the man who lives it either crushes or saves himself. It’s all up to the way one feels his own dignity and ability in discerning what is essential from what isn’t.” If Tarkovski is right, we do need – more than ever – such a Stalker (a guide) to help us transform into a dream the dirt we have filled our souls with, a guide to help us discern – in this very age of excessive zapping and claiming of all freedoms – what is really essential from what isn’t.

Italy Makes the International News

2009-03-29T15:02:00.000+01:00

Mikeb302000: Italy Makes the International News

Graham Hancock Site

2009-03-28T17:16:00.003Z

We are now up and running on the Graham Hancock site. My "Author of the Month" status has started a few days early.

There have already been a few comments. It would be great if some of you bloggers joined in the debates with the same level of enthusiasm as you do on here.

This can be found at:

http://www.grahamhancock.com/phorum/list.php?f=8

Icoana şi Scriptura

2009-03-28T09:50:00.002Z

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.
Culorile, formele şi mozaicurile iconografiei bizantine par - pentru ochiul superficial - desuete, abstracte, impersonale, statice, greoaie şi mute. Şi aceasta pentru că artistul bizantin dispare înapoia Tradiţiei care vorbeşte. Înaintea icoanei nu putem fi simpli spectatori (ci trebuie să ne închinăm, printr-un act de adorare şi rugăciune) tot aşa cum înaintea Bibliei nu putem fi doar simpli cititori. Icoanele nu sunt, aşadar, o nouă fază în istoria picturii, ci o altă modalitate de a de a interpreta corect şi de a comunica mesajul Sfintei Scripturi. Dar ce înseamnă „interpretare corectă”? De bună seamă că, de-a lungul vremii, arta iconografică a fost deliberat controlată şi articulată pentru a reprezenta – cu un limbaj plastic ale cărui norme (canoane) se cer încă desluşite – Sfânta Scriptură. Dar, atenţie, este vorba de reprezentare (cinstită, nepărtinitoare), nu ilustrare (orice înfloritură sufletească, gest dramatic, poză, agitaţie este suprimat cu desăvârşire). Cartea Icoana ca Scriptură (a cărei coda este studiul „Râul de foc” de Dr. Alexandre Kalomiros) devine astfel un prilej de călătorie întru descoperirea sau redescoperirea frumuseţii restauratoare spre care ne îndreaptă privirea aceste „ferestre spre absolut”.
În lucrarea sa, Iconostasul (Editura Anastasia, Bucureşti, 1994), Pavel Florenski avertiza atenţia că tendinţa modernă potrivit căreia, în iconografie, trebuie să vedem „o artă veche, o pictură veche” este profund falsă. Abandonarea icoanei în muzee şi spaţii artizanale (sau înlocuirea ei – chiar în bisericile ortodoxe, unde te-ai aştepta mai puţin – de către diverse reprezentări religioase romantic-naturaliste) echivalează cu tăgăduirea forţei sale specifice: mărturisirea de credinţă. Cartea Arhiepiscopului Lazar Puhalo îşi propune să recupereze tocmai forţa mărturiei de credinţă din icoană. Sunt abordate aspecte legate de geneza şi simbolistica ei (semnificaţia absenţei umbrelor, profilelor, nimburilor din icoane), de dreapta ei cinstire (ca imagine nu a naturii divine, ci a unei Persoane divine întrupate), dar mai ales de unitatea dintre imaginea liturgică şi cuvântul liturgic; cele două moduri de expresie - cuvântul şi imaginea – se controlează reciproc, trăiesc aceeaşi existenţă şi au, în cult, o acţiune ziditoare comună. A venera o icoană înseamnă deci a înţelege corect Sfânta Scriptură şi viceversa. Şi aceasta fiindcă iconografia este liturgică prin chiar natura ei: nu slujind drept cadru Liturghiei sau completând-o, ci pentru că îi corespunde întru totul.
Iconografia – ne atrage atenţia cartea lui Lazar Puhalo – s-a dezvoltat pe baza principiilor semitice, ceea ce presupune „reprezentarea lucrurilor într-o perspectivă care-L plasează în mod evident pe Dumnezeu deasupra tuturor, care pune totul în legătură cu Dumnezeu, înălţând pe toate la Dumnezeu şi folosind un simbolism convingător”. Ritmicitatea formelor (supuse canoanelor) este menită să facă legătura dintre icoană şi Sfânta Scriptură, icoanele devenind astfel echivalentul vizual al Scripturii. În Bizanţ, aceste principii iconografice de bază nu au fost compromise de dezvoltarea formelor printr-o anumită graţie şi frumuseţe, prin aderenţa la diferitele stiluri şi curente artistice. Diversele şcoli de iconografie canonică nu diferă în această privinţă. Pictorul ortodox renunţă la reprezentarea naturalistă a spaţiului – atât de marcantă în arta romană – pentru că ceea ce contează nu este atât acţiunea reprezentată, cât mai ales comuniunea cu privitorul. În ochii Bisericii, icoana nu este o artă care ilustrează Scriptura, ci un limbaj care este echivalent nu literei biblice şi nici cărţii ca obiect, ci propovăduirii evanghelice. Astfel, icoana are aceeaşi semnificaţie, acelaşi sens liturgic, dogmatic şi educativ ca şi Scriptura. Prin comparaţie, arta religioasă din Occident - următor vremurilor ortodoxe de acolo - a început să împrumute din principiile Greciei păgâne, unde înţelegerea omului trupesc şi a celor nevăzute era condiţionată de nivelul naturii umane, de epocile istorice, de circumstanţele politice etc. Se cuvine, aşadar, sînţelegem că perspectiva răsturnată din iconografie (tehnică aleasă deliberat de pictorii iconografi) constituie un element esenţial de limbaj plastic - extrem de sugestiv şi de relevant - ce asigură corectitudinea icoanei din punct de vedere scriptural. Şi aceasta pentru că Evanghelia ne invită să ne răsturnăm perspectiva, să privim viaţa, lumea şi pe noi înşine dintr-o perspectivă diametral opusă felului în care lumea priveşte aceste lucruri.
Un loc aparte în lucrarea Arhiepiscopului Lazar Puhalo îl ocupă referinţele critice la şcolile de iconografie necanonice, dezvoltate – de la Reformă încoace - nu doar sub o puternică influenţă latină şi protestantă, ci şi sub influenţa unei gândiri şi sensibilităţi populare, lumeşti. Produsele edulcorate şi pestriţe ale acestor şcoli de pictură îl zugrăvesc „nu pe Dumnezeul-om, Iisus Hristos, ci pe liderul unui cult religios din California: un şarlatan cu mult sex appeal, o combinaţie de Robert Redford şi Charles Manson”. Aceste tablouri degenerate – foarte răspândite în mediul ortodox - reprezintă „tot ceea ce Hristos nu este şi nu reprezintă nimic din ceea ce este El. Sunt pur şi simplu reprezentări ale unui Antihrist ce se dă Iisus Hristos”. Alteori Hristos este surprins „sub forma unui actor efeminat, cu ruj pe buze şi pudră roşie acoperindu-i trăsăturile fade”. Ori părul lung, se ştie, a fost cu desăvârşire interzis de hotărârile Celui de-al Treilea Sinod Ecumenic. „Reprezentarea este cu atât mai blasfemiatoare – afrimă autorul - cu cât se vrea în mod intenţionat o icoană a lui Hristos”. Prin urmare, avem de ales între icoană şi tablou religios (care adesea e luat drept icoană şi folosit ca atare). De bună seamă că reprezentările „originale” în iconografia necanonică nu se rezumă la portretizarea „emancipată” a lui Iisus. Sfinţii şi natura sunt de asemenea prezentaţi cât mai naturalist, mai romantic, mai dulceag posibil, astfel că prezenţa unei icoane canonice, ortodoxe, printre aceste mostre de „sensibilitate populară, lumească” e de-a dreptul bizară. În mod categoric, icoana e, în acest caz, dintr-un alt „film”.
Icoana n-a fost şi nu este pictură ilustrativă pe teme religioase. Meritul excepţional al cărţii de faţă este acela de a ne reactiva – nota bene: în lumina învăţăturii scripturale şi a Tradiţiei Bisericii Ortodoxe - spiritul critic şi discernământul (sau dreapta socotinţă) atunci când ne raportăm la icoane. De dorit ar fi ca predania despre frumuseţea restauratoare a icoanei (faţă de clişeele telenovelistice de tip kitsch ale aşa-ziselor icoane) să transceadă litera cărţii de faţă şi să ne problematizeze vis à vis de imaginile pe care le cinstim. Şi poate că acum, mai mult ca niciodată, este nevoie să ne amintim şi să conştientizăm cuvintele afirmate cândva de Sf. Ioan Damaschinul: „Arată-mi icoanele la care te închini ca să pot să-ţi înţeleg credinţa.”

Living with Demons

2009-03-28T02:11:00.006Z

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.

—The Talmud

Demons come in all shapes and sizes; they can be metaphor or metaphysic, troll or goblin or gremlin or vampire, werewolf or poltergeist, serial killer or zombie. But, whatever they are, the horror film is a washout without them. Very few movies, horror or otherwise, have endeavoured to deal with demons in the true, theological sense of the word—that is, the inverse of angels, spiritual (therefore invisible) beings that populate the Earth and meddle in the affairs of men, specifically, to possess his body and/or torment his soul. Adrian Lyne’s overwrought but genuinely terrifying thriller, Jacob’s Ladder (1991), is the only, outstanding case I know of of a Hollywood mainstream movie (until Fallen, that is) dealing with “the problem of demons,” more or less directly and (what’s more) intelligently. The fact that, by the end of the movie, the whole story has proven to be no more (but also no less) than the hallucinations of a dying man does little or nothing to detract from the film’s intensity (though it may undermine its integrity somewhat). This is, after all, the story of one man’s soul, and its battle to come to terms with the life it has lived, to overcome the demons of the past that refuse to let it go. Jake’s doctor, played by Danny Aellio, quotes Eckhart on the subject:

The only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won’t let go... Your memories, your attachments; they burn them all away. They’re not punishing you, they’re freeing your soul. If you’re frightened of dying and you’re holding on, you’ll see devils tearing your life away. But if you’ve made your peace, then the devils are really angels freeing you from the Earth. It’s just a matter of how you look at it, that’s all.

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.

For a Hollywood horror fantasy, Jacob’s Ladder draws on some pretty painful home truths. Its use of the supernatural, as the only feasible way to account for, portray, and above all do justice to, the kind of organized evil and insanity which government has become, seems to me to be neither arbitrary nor unjustified, but genuinely inspired. The human psyche is a dark and dangerous place, alright, maybe not unfathomable but certainly as-yet-unfathomed by modern man. Science and psychology, when in the service of governments, tend to plunder and pillage in precisely the same spirit as army troops in a foreign land—they are there to conquer, not to comprehend. The unmapped territories of Heaven and Hell, which in Rubin’s script are suggested to be strangely synonymous, are like areas of the human soul which we have been unable, or unwilling, to recognize in anything but metaphorical terms. Jacob’s Ladder literally brings the demons of the Vietnam war home to us, and makes no bones about designating the enemy: ourselves. And, by rediscovering the metaphysical dread that lies beneath our modern, urban angst, it presents possession (and corruption) not merely as a plausible reality, but as a fact of life, and one that we had better learn to live with, if we want to die right.

There’s so such thing as f**ing demons!
—Jacob’s Ladder

"Author of the Month" Award on the Graham Hancock Website

2009-03-18T17:15:00.008Z

I am delighted to announced that I have been awarded the accolade of "Author of the Month" on the hugely popular Graham Hancock website.

This award came "out of the blue" as far as I am concerned. I received an email from Graham's associate (and fellow author) Glen Kreisberg, informing me that Graham was very interested in my theory and writing. (Glenn's site is http://www.ashnews.org/).

To have somebody like Graham Hancock interested in my work is an honour indeed. Graham and Glenn requested that I write an article to go with the award and this I have done.

This article can be found at:

http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/PeakeA1.php

I will be so pleased if readers of this BLOG join in in on the "Message Board" on this site. I am informed that each "AoM" has a section on the Message Board where members of Graham's FORUM ask questions, make comments, and generally contribute to the debate generated by the author's book. I am informed that Graham's site gets thousands of visits each day so anything you place on there will be seen by many people.

You have to join in order to place comments. This can be done by logging on to:

http://www.grahamhancock.com/phorum/list.php?f=8

and clicking on the "Register" button This will take you to:

http://www.grahamhancock.com/phorum/register.php?f=8

I have already joined and I am looking forward to some interesting discussions with Graham's many readers. It will be great if we could let them know that although we are small in number we spread across the globe and really have some interesting things to contribute.

Major Opportunity to advance ITLAD to UK press

2009-03-10T21:26:00.002Z

Aloha!

One of UKs leading 'broadsheet' type newspapers, the Independent, today majored with a full page news article (AND leading editorial too!) on scientists claims to have found the parts of the brain connected to 'religious faith', and even mention the link to TLE!

So this is a major opportunity for us to highlight to them all of Tony and Karl and everyone's theories and bring these into the mainstream - the more of us who write to their letters page the likelihood is that the more seriously they will take the comments.

The way the UK press works, this needs to be done asap, as todays news is tomorrows fish and chip wrappers, so anything you can do would be great! (not sure if they have a forum or blog, will check)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/belief-and-the-brains-god-spot-1641022.html

Aloha
Gary

Another USA Interview - "Shadows In The Dark Radio" - North Carolina.

2009-03-09T12:36:00.004Z

I am delighted to announce that I will be interviewed by Jeremiah Greer of Shadows In The Dark Radio this coming Thursday evening (USA time) and Friday morning (UK time), 12th/13th March 2009. This station are based in North Carolina but webcast across the world on

http://www.shadowsinthedarkradio.com/.

The exact time GMT will be 01:45 am and 21:45 EST. I have agreed to be on Jeremiah's show for at least an hour. It is my intention to use this hour to focus more in on the Daemon-Eidolon Dyad although clearly I will be obliged to explain ITLAD to the new audience that will hopefully be listening in. I will also attempt to build upon Karl L LeMarc's KUCI radio talk by discussing CtCw.

Please note that Shadows in the Dark can also be heard on

Black Vault Radio Network,

http://www.blackvaultradio.com/,

Para-X Radio

http://www.para-x.com/,

Planet Paranormal,

http://www.planetparanormal.com/

UFO Paranormal Radio Network. http://ufoparanormalradio.homestead.com/Main_Page_version_2.html

Anthony Peake at The National Theatre 24th July 2009

2009-03-07T14:29:00.005Z

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.

Above is a scan of the leaflet.

WORLD PREMIERE of CtCw: KUCI Radio Interviews Karl L Le Marcs

2009-02-25T18:28:00.017Z

.

With Tony's valuable support I'm delighted to announce that I am finally about to begin unleashing CtCw (Collapsing the Consciousness wave) onto the unsuspecting public. Of course, those of us who are in the know and have frequented this fabulous place (and FORUM) for sometime now are well aware of CtCw and its implications within ITLAD, and in expanding the theory, so it has been wonderful that Robert Larson at KUCI in California, who has been such an advocate of Tony's theories, has taken an interest in our expansions and has asked me to be his guest next week to discuss CtCw, its implications within Consciousness, its links to ITLAD/CTF and ultimately towards Tony and I's BIGTOE (Bohmian IMAX Grand Theory Of Everything).

I will be interviewed by Robert live on his Out The Rabbit Hole programme on KUCI which can be found at the link below. They have a LISTEN NOW facility at the top right of their webpage for anyone who can listen live but I will also attempt to record it and make available for download here as well after the show.

http://www.kuci.org/

The show will be broadcast on Thursday 5th March Evening (US Time) and the small hours of Friday 6th March Morning (UK Time)
(I always knew my legendary insomnia would have its uses)
*smile*

The times will be 17:00 (California) and 01:00 (UK), I will be interviewed for about an hour.

This is the beginning of a culmination of work that has involved a lot of people from BLOG and FORUM who have helped me, inspired me and stimulated me to formulate these theories and I thank everyone who has done so.

I hope you can listen in.

A Dark Philosopher
Karl L Le Marcs

Neurological proof of my Bohmian IMAX? - The Zeitraffer Phenomenon

2009-02-13T16:41:00.003Z

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.

It seems that for some people this apparatus is not needed. Under certain, little understood, neurological conditions, the world is suddenly perceived to be speeded up. One particularly fascinating case is cited by Ferdinand Binkofski of the Department of Neurology of the Heinrich Heine University and Richard A Block of the Department of Psychology and Montana State University. The paper was published in Neurocase (1992, vol 2 pp. 485-493) and was entitled Accelerated Time Experience after Left Frontal Cortex Lesion.

Block and Binkofski report that a right handed, 66 year old retired clerk with no history of neurological disease was driving his car along a German road. The man (known as BW) was horrified to discover that suddenly external objects starting rushing at him at great speed. As he described it it was as if somebody had pressed a fast-forward button. He also found that his car was also running at a fantastic speed. He could not control the car as his reaction time remained 'normal'. He found himself driving througha set of red traffic lights because he simply could not stop. He slammed his brakes on and stopped the car. He watched in horror as the world around him still ran around him in super-speed.

This state continued for him and two days later, in a state of great stress, BW was admitted to the Heinrich Heine Neurological Hospital. He described what was happening as an "accelerated motion of events, like a time-lapse film". He complained that he could no longer tolerate watching television because the progression of events was too quick for him to follow. He also described that life had begun to pass too quickly for him.

On his admission to hospital a CT scan was done it showed that he had a lesion on his dorsolateral pre-frontal cortex. He was then given a series of tests. He showed no prtoblem with time orientation, it was just for him it was going faster. However when asked to decide how long a 60 second period was for him some strange things were discovered. BW was told to say when he wished to start then remain silent until he felt that a minute had gone by. He was then to say stop. They repeated this test many times and his BW's subjective average 'minute' was 286 seconds.

It was then discovered that BW had a glioblastoma tumour centered in "Brodmann's area" in the pre-frontal cortex of his left hemisphere. Sadly he died soon after without ever regaining normal time perception.

Now what is interesting about this paper is that the two scientists suggest some possible explanations, including one that we all have an internal "pacemaker" that controls how we subjectively perceive time duration. However they finish off by writing "It is unclear how best to explain the phenomenon".

May I suggest an itladian interpretation. as we have discussed elsewhere in this FORUM, there seems to be a link between certain aspects of ITLAD/CTF and the prefrontal cortex, possibly this link may prove as significant as the link to the temporal lobes. As such could it be was that what happened to BW was that the tumour had caused a problem with the 'viewing' of the "Bohmian IMAX" - that it suddenly got stuck in "fast-forward" mode? How else can neurologists explain such a perception. In order to be placed in "fast forward" there has to be a recording to run faster. as such it was not his perceptions that ran too fast but the external BIMAX film was running too fast.

Of course there is an even more controversial conclusion .... and that is that BW's Daemon had again failed to avoid the development of the tumor in this run of the BIMAX and decided that it wanted to get quickly to the next performance. It knew that there was nothing it could do and recalled that last time BW was in pain and discomfort for too long. By "fast-forwarding" the BIMAX the Daemon had its Eidolon experience those painful last few weeks in a blur of speeded-up time!

So here we have yet another term for our ITLADIAN dictionary - "Zeitraffer" - when time runs faster within the BIMAX.

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