First USA Review of "The Daemon"

I am delighted to see that my latest book, "The Daemon" has been reviewed in the magazine "Alternate Perceptions". This magazine and website is well worth checking out. The editor, Brent Raynes has this to say about the book:

"He’s back! That’s mighty right, British author and researcher Anthony Peake is back with a second book exploring the mysterious hidden world lurking within the non-dominant right hemisphere of each human’s brain. This higher self, variously described as a “sensed presence,” a “hidden observer,” fits in quite well, Peake found, with the description of the immortal Daemon, a guardian spirit of the Stoics and the Platonists of ancient Greek and Roman pagan belief systems. Peake’s book, appropriately enough entitled The Daemon, is a virtual tour de force of thought-provoking and startling revelations in modern neuroscience and quantum physics, with a comprehensive and global exploration of the historical and religious background of a myriad of significant belief systems from the Hawaiian Kahuna philosophy to the Zoroastrians, Sufism, Judaism, Gnosticism, to name but a few isms.

This book is an absolutely mind-boggling and riveting analysis of many historical events and scientific discoveries that, while a lot of them are familiar to many of us, no one has delved into them with the same depth of probing and unique mindset that Peake has focused upon them.
This “higher self” psychologically equates with the unconscious part of the brain (right hemisphere) while the conscious ego-self is the awareness the majority of us are aware of the majority of the time (left hemisphere). To the early Greeks the “daemon” of course was the higher self and the lower conscious self was called the “eidolon.” Peake felt that this ancient concept of daulity identified pretty well the two separate components of consciousness that he came to refer to it as the Daemon-Eidolon Dyad, a concept that seems central to many global spiritual belief systems and isms (as just mentioned) that evolved around the world and have emerged within the field of today’s neuroscience. Peake cites the late psychologist Julian Jaynes’s Bicameral Mind theory as making an important contribution of how this split in consciousness evolved. Furthermore, while Jaynes himself came to research this aspect (as a result of a mysterious voice speaking to him) should also fascinate the reader, as well as the stories of Joan of Arc, Carl Jung’s Philemon, Socrates’ “divine sign,” and a host of many others.
Peake finds connections and data emerging from everywhere. Visionaries, near-death experiencers (check out the Raymond Moody account at the beginning of chapter 8), people with déjà vu, temporal lobe epilepsy, schizophrenia, and even migraines. His Daemon-Eidolon Dyad overlaps and integrates so much material, from so many different backgrounds, that it appears to be a candidate for what scientists call TOE (Theory of Everything). Chapter 6 is entitled “Precognition,” and parapsychologists should want to take heed of its contents. How do these people so often get warnings and previews from their “daemons” about events in their future? And, while many of us are fond of saying that truth is stranger than fiction, you should want to read chapter 10 which reviews the uncanny real life of science fiction master writer Philip K. Dick, whose many writings became such well-known film adaptations as Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and more. Peake reveals how in real life Philip Dick was a prime example of all of the different elements of his Daemon-Eidolon Dyad, though many outside of his fan base are unaware of these matters. (Peake talked quite a bit with me about Dick in my interview with him posted in the December 2007 #119 issue of this magazine; plus you might well also want to read Brad Steiger’s Philip K. Dick’s Phylogenic Memory and the Divine Fire in the November ’07 #118 ish) Dick even experienced a doppelganger (double) of himself it seems. Peake cites various doppelganger accounts in his book, and on a separate but nonetheless, I suspect, significant note Ray Fowler’s book SynchroFile(just mentioned at the beginning of my Reality Checking column) describes a probable doppelganger account in chapter 8 of that book. (Hmmm there’s chapter 8 again!) So indeed the potential connections and data can be found everywhere!

This book is extremely challenging and thought-provoking, and no matter what your particular orientation or mindset, if you’re interested in mysteries and unexplained phenomena, or have any curiosity at all, then this book is an absolute must read! "

It is reviews such as this that makes writing so rewarding. I have written my books to make people think and debate my theories. This review implies that, at least as far as Brent is concerned, I have succeded.

Please do check out his website. It is well worth a few hours of your time. It deals with many itladian-related topics. -

www.mysterious-america.net