Blogspot Review of ITLAD and "The Daemon"

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).

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

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.

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.

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!