Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown

Derren Brown is a stage illusionist, extremely well known in the UK, less so further afield. He’s on television here quite often and is always worth watching. His stage personality is quite different from the norm. While many illusionists thrive on projecting the image that they have psychic abilities, Brown openly admits that he’s not in the least bit psychic. This approach works a treat when he goes on to perform the most baffling tricks that make you think, “This guy’s got to be psychic.” I’ve often wondered if he has a genuine psychic ability and he’s fibbing us that he hasn’t. But after having watched some recordings of his stage shows a few times, and relying on some of the information imparted in this book, I’ve been able to figure out some of his tricks. I would call Derren Brown the master of misdirection. He really is a marvel to behold. And his book is a terrific read, on many levels.

Tricks of the Mind is divided into six parts. Part 1 is entitled “Disillusionment” and is a short account of how Brown became an atheist after being a born-again Christian in his teens. Although I’m personally not a Christian, I found Brown’s reasoning not entirely satisfying. He clearly aligns himself with the “physical reality is all there is” brigade and this is something that colours his entire thinking. My personal view is that the reliance on evidence is a worthy scientific discipline, but there may well be many things out there that are true but simply don’t bow down to our personal requirement for proof. “Evidence only” is not something to shape your entire worldview on, in my opinion.

Part 2 is entitled “Magic” and this is where the book really takes off. I’ve amused countless people (and myself) by demonstrating a simple card trick that Brown takes us through. I’ve even developed my own variation on it, where I can do it blindfolded whilst letting the other person handle the cards. The trick is mesmerising, but really hinges on the most beautifully subtle piece of audience misdirection. Here’s me having a go …

Part 3: “Memory.” Now we go from the fun to the practical. Brown explains several memorisation techniques in depth. I’ve tried some of them and they work a treat. They all function on the little known fact that it’s far easier to remember pictures than it is to remember words and numbers. In short, you create visuals to represent words. For instance, a few months ago I committed several facts about Albert Einstein to memory, as a test. I can now effortlessly regurgitate the following facts and more about him: he was born in 1879, died in 1955, received Nobel prize for physics in 1921. He was Jewish, but raised in a Catholic school, and lived in Germany. To remember Einstein’s birthday, I have the mental image of myself sitting at a table wearing a jersey with the number 7 on it, in front of a birthday cake with seven candles. I’m posing for a photo and Albert Einstein is peering over my shoulder, looking silly and giving the camera a thumbs up. “Say what?” you cry. Well, here's how this works. I want to remember Einstein's birthday, so I'm interested in associating the number 79 with Einstein (I can drop the 18 to make things easier, since I know it certainly wasn't 1979 that he was born). The birthday cake in the image reminds me that the picture has to do with birth. It's my seventh birthday, which would have been 1979. So, when I want to recall Einstein's birthday, I simply bring this image to mind and quickly deduce the number 79 from it. For the Noble prize date, I picture Einstein receiving his prize while drunk. So, when I recall this image, I naturally ask myself, "Why did I store an image of him drunk?" And it becomes easy for me to recall: "Ah! Because 21 is the legal age for drinking in the US. 1921!" It sounds overly complicated, but when you realise how readily distinctive images stick in the mind, it becomes far easier to remember things this way than to memorise by constant repetition. If I had had this book when I was at school, I would have aced my exams.

Part 4: "Hypnosis and Suggestibility." Here you'll find instructions for how to actually carry out hypnosis and put someone in a trance (although Brown in not a believer in such a thing as an actual trance state, only in suggestibility). I have no idea how valid the techniques are as I haven't tried them, but judging by Brown's stage work I would have a lot of confidence in them. There's a lengthy section on NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming). My favourite section was on phobia cures, as these are personal exercises you can perform on yourself.

Part 5: "Unconscious Communication." This is all about reading people through their body language, and also exerting some level of control over another's perception of you by deliberately controlling your own body language. One simple observation can be that a lot of blinking indicates stress, and the frequency of blinking shows the speed at which we're processing information. Brown is also careful to note that the science of telling when a person is lying to you is not exact or easy.

Part 6: "Anti-science, Pseudo-science and Bad Thinking." This, for me, was the most disappointing part of the book. Some of it was excellent, such as the detailed explanation of a technique used by fake psychics called cold-reading. But Brown is attempting to make a blanket statement on the unreality of the whole arena of the paranormal, using only a few examples. I'm definitely a believer in the paranormal. My view comes as a result of learning how to do telekinesis and obtaining definite results under rigorous test conditions. I was amazed that Brown could spent so much time researching the esoteric and end up a disbeliever in everything beyond a purely physical nature. I was also alarmed by how readily he employs Ouija boards in his stage shows, believing the results to be nothing more than the unconscious mind. I'm not so easily convinced in the safety of them, as I have personal experience that there's more to life than known physics.

An almost brilliant book and definitely life-enhancing, written with wit and insight. Highly recommended for the excellent things you can learn about the workings of your mind.

Reality Is Plastic! by Anthony Jacquin

Reality Is Plastic! is a book on hypnosis. It’s extremely short, just shy of 100 pages, but those pages are packed with information. There’s less of an emphasis on understanding what hypnosis actually is, more on practical routines that you can try on your friends. The book provides illustrated step-by-step instructions, such as how to invoke paralysis in limbs, how to invoke amnesia in your subject, how to make your subject think you are invisible. It all sounds far-fetched, and it’s not something that I have personally tested, but I have a friend who swears by this book and has used the routines to great effect.

The book places great importance on the confidence of the hypnotist being one of the prime factors in hypnotising someone. It’s the idea that hypnosis occurs when your confidence creates the expectation in the subject that they will be hypnotised.

It’s true that this kind of esoteric knowledge can be used for ill intent, but equally true that it can be used for good intent, such as the curing of phobias and the releasing of addictions. Ultimately, knowledge is neutral. It’s how we use knowledge that matters. Personally, I’m all for learning as much as I can about the workings of the mind, and research into hypnosis is proving for me to be a great avenue.

The book will be more useful to those who are interested in street hypnosis – the fun side of things. But the insights apply right across the board.

The only downside is the price. Anthony Jacquin sells the book for £22.50 plus £2.50 postage from his website, which is an insult for a paperback book of this size. For me, esoteric knowledge is a joy to share, not an opportunity for excessive greed. Worse still, the book is ring-bound, giving it an air of amateurism. And the text hasn’t seen a decent edit, judging by the many puncutation errors throughout. It you want to self-publish, do it right.

That said, the book was a fascinating and worthwhile read. A useful book for any budding hypnotist to have in his library.

Tales from the Time Loop by David Icke

The book begins with a short autobiography, which I read with great interest, particularly to hear David Icke’s own reflections on his experiences in the early 1990s, when he had his brief “son of God” phase that caused so much public ridicule. The rest of the book is divided into four parts, or layers, as they are called.

First, “The five-sense conspiracy.” This is the largest section of the book and comprises some two hundred pages. Icke begins by filling us in briefly on the overall picture of the conspiracy, involving secret societies, hidden-hand leadership, pryamid power structures, and the various scams that are played on humanity. The bulk of this section of the book is taken up by an examination of the wars in Afganistan and Iraq in the wake of 9/11 – a tearing down of the propagana given to us by the mass media and a look at the US government’s real motivations, as well as the consequences of their actions for innocent Middle Eastern civilians. Icke’s previous book was Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Centre Disaster. Although I haven’t read that book, my guess is that the material in Tales from the Time Loop forms a sequel of sorts. The information quickly gets complicated to sift through, and I confess that at times I’m left not quite knowing what to believe. The chapter on civilian casualties is particularly moving, and at the very least the reader is left with a sense that he needs to question an awful lot more than when he hears on the TV news.

Layer 2 is “The extra-terrestrial/inter-dimensional conspiracy.” To call the information in this section startling is an understatement. Essentially, Icke’s claim is that many of the key people in positions of power (and throughout what is called the Illuminati) are possessed by entities from another dimension – entites that have a reptilian form. Icke was first introduced to this side of the conspiracy through receiving numerous reports in the late 1990s of people who witnessed another person “shape-shift” into a reptilian. When enough of these reports came to light, this indicated that there was something worth researching. 100 pages of Tales from the Time Loop is dedicated to this topic, merely a fraction of what went into his earlier book on the reptilians, The Biggest Secret, which I haven’t read. In summary, the secret rulers of the world can be traced back to antiquity, via secret societies and religions, right back to ancient Babylon and Sumer. The worship of the serpent, in various forms, can be seen far and wide in ancient religion. Human sacrifice is one of the primary ways these entities obtain energy. Such practices never ended, but go on in secret today, among the rich and famous. Reptilian shapeshifting is commonly reported in Satanic ritual abuse.

That’s just a fraction of the story. It reads like a science fiction extravaganza, and I can’t get on board with all of it. Icke’s big problem is that he never pauses long enough to let the reader catch his breath. The revelations come thick and fast, building one of top of the other, and the reader (me, anyway) is left behind somewhere along the way amidst a fog of information that he can’t hang on to as provable. Icke relies heavily on quotes from other written souces, particularly authors Zechariah Sitchin and Stewart Swerdlow. The former has written books which take an alternative view of human history and the latter claims to have had access to an underground base where reptilians were operating from. I simply don’t have enough information to make a decision. I wish Icke had simply tackled a few aspects of the reptilian theory thoroughly instead of trying to cram everything into a small space. For instance, I find it very interesting that the ancestry of the vast majority of American presidents can be traced back to Charlemagne. If that’s true, then there has been something very big and very fishy going on for hundreds of years outside the public eye. I also find it very interesting that so many Freemasons were involved in the formation of America, and that government people participate in a secret dark religious ceremony at Bohemiam Grove every year. It is unquestionable that there is something shadowy going on in the world that the public is not privy to. I just wish these themes were developed fully, but all too often Icke says, “You can read more about this in my book, X.” To be fair, though, Icke’s summaries do raise important questions and open up many avenues waiting to be explored. Every chapter has thorough footnotes about where you can go to find out more.

Layer 3 is called “It’s all an illusion”. This is where the book goes in the direction that I really appreciate, where we delve into the philosophical and the intuitive. Physical reality, as we know it, isn’t solid. Three-dimensional solidity is just a perception of the human body and brain. Underneath all of this, the universe is really an energy field. Now, you can believe that, or you can believe that physical solidity is the basis from which all else stems. Either way, it’s a belief, and none of us can get outside of our perceptions to find out. You might ask, what does it matter? Well, if the physical universe is just a perception, perhaps consciousness is a far greater thing we have imagined. Perhaps all that exists is one gigantic consciousness, and every human life is that consciousness undergoing an experience of separation from the full magnitude of what it is. The cornerstone of this part of the book is an experience that Icke had in Brazil, where he was invited to take a psychoactive drink called ayahuasca as a means of opening the door to a higher perception of reality (a similar account is told by Aldous Huxley, regarding mescaline, in his book The Doors of Perception).

Layer 4 is “Transforming the illusion.” The focus is on waking up from all the nonsense we’ve been conditioned to believe is normal life and all the traps that keep us hypnotised. The ultimate conclusion to all this is that we learn to laugh about life – to realise that this tiny life is just a game, full of endless possibilities, on the great canvas of infinite awareness. Really insightful stuff.

There were moments, in the earlier parts of the the book (especially the reptilian section), that I thought I was going to be giving this a bad review. But overall, when I’ve digested all 450 pages (and they’re pretty big pages), I find myself yet again impressed with David Icke’s insight. Once more, my mind has been stimulated to learn more and more from the wealth of information that lies ignored just outside the mainstream.

Trance-formation of America by Mark Phillips & Cathy O’Brien

We all know that the world of politics is a manipulative and sometimes seedy realm. Politicians and distrust are two words that go hand in hand in the minds of many people, and the reality of this is borne out by the broken promises and sexual scandals that often hit the news media. I got the first hint that this was merely the tip of the iceberg when I read a chapter called “The Depths of Evil” in David Icke’s book I Am Me, I Am Free. This offered a brief condensation of Trance-formation of America, and the reading of it left me thinking, “Surely this is simply too outrageous to be true – that the world I’m living in is nothing like the way everyone thinks it is?”

The trouble is, I’ve been discovering that, in general, the world really isn’t the way most people think it is. Most people are blind to the fact that the food instrustry is destroying health. Most people are blind to the fact that the pharmaceutical industry is not about health, but wealth. Most people are happy to continue raping the planet of all resources and poisoning it with pollution, and will think of this situation as normal life. This book challenges the reader to get to grips with information claiming the governments of the USA (and other countries) are rotten to the core – so rotten that the word diabolical is maybe the only one that fits.

Co-author Cathy O’Brien suffered sexual abuse by her father Earl as a young child. When it was found out by the authorities, the US government offered her father immunity from prosecution if he would agree to have Cathy introduced into the MK-Ultra mind-control program. Child abuse victims are specifically targeted because because of the effect on the mind caused by trauma. The mind becomes compartmentalised, learns to close off memories as a coping mechanism, and develops Disassociative Identity Disorder (what used to be termed Multiple Personality Disorder). After much painful training, Cathy developed numerous personalities which could be switched by various programmed methods. Each personality was hidden from the others and she lost all awareness of the passage of time. This compartmentalisation allowed her to be used in various criminal activities: prostitution to high-ranking government people, government sanctioned drug-running, “carrier pigeon” secret messaging.

In adulthood Cathy lived with her handler Alex Houston in a sham marriage. Houston was not her first handler; there was also Wayne Cox, with whom she had a child, Kelly. Like Cathy herself, Kelly was introduced to MK-Ultra at an early age and was soon taking part in child pornography and prostitution to members of the government. Cathy eventually became what is termed a “Presidental Model,” and was in close contact with the likes of Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr., Bill & Hillary Clinton. Some of the sexual stuff that Cathy claims went on between her and these people almost beggars belief. One of the worst was when Bush took Kelly into another room and violently raped her while Cathy had to listen to her daughter’s cries on the other side of the wall. This book took so long for me to read because at times I just couldn’t take it. I had to put it aside for a while and read other things. It was too terrible.

Co-author Mark Phillips first met Cathy by going into business with her “husband” Alex Houston. When Houston eventually put some trust in Phillips, this paved the way for Phillips to find out what was being done to Cathy and Kelly, and to make a plan to rescue both of them. After a lot of running, and much learning about mind-control, he was able to de-program Cathy and eventually bring about her complete recovery – and uncover all the memories that the government thought it had so effectively hidden. Kelly was not quite so fortunate and remains in psychiatric care.

So, what should we make of a book like this? Are Cathy O’Brien and Mark Phillips a couple of sensationalist attention-seekers wanting their fifteen minutes of fame? After having read the book and also seen Cathy talk about her life on video (see below), I just don’t get that impression. She does not seem the slightest bit unhinged. And it strikes me that you would have to be more than just a little unhinged to write the sort of things she writes and risk prosecution from countless famous names.

For me, the thing that really pulls this book firmly out of the realms of fantasy is the picture section. We have photographs of Cathy and Kelly, pictured with some of the people mentioned in the book. Business cards, with addresses and phone numbers, are supplied for many, many people involved in the events of Cathy’s life, any one of whom can be easily contacted to verify information. There are several letters from the government, demonstrating Cathy and Mark’s ongoing quest for justice. There are medical reports on Kelly, showing evidence of her sexual abuse and her ongoing psychological trauma.

It’s no surprise that this book is self-published. What publisher would dare to take it on and risk prosecution? For me, therein lies the most convincing aspect of the story. There are countless high-profile people named and shamed in this book, and yet here it is in publication with not a single charge laid against Cathy and Mark. Why? Is it perhaps because it’s a true account and to draw attention to it through a legal battle would only bring the awful truth out into the public eye? Or should I perhaps give the government the benefit of the doubt and simply say they are innocent until proven guilty?

People who read conspiracy books are often accused of wanting the world to be a more exciting place than it really is, trading the mundane for the sensational, swapping rational investigation for wish-fulfillment. Well, here’s a book that will really put you to the test. Because there is nothing to like here, nothing pretty, nothing that makes me feel good. It only makes the world seem like a much darker and more foreboding place than I thought it was … if it’s true. Is it? I may regret saying this, but I’m inclined to believe it.

The remainer of this video (seven parts) can be viewed here.

The Hypnotic World of Paul McKenna by Paul McKenna

If you judged this book by the choice of title and cover art, you could be forgiven for dismissing it as a piece of sensationalist trash. Inside, it’s nothing of the kind. Some glowing reviews led me to employ the “don’t judge a book by its cover” philopsohy and give the book a try. At present, I’m keen to learn all I can about the nature of human consciousness, in order to get a better understanding of myself and hopefully of life. I’ve gone in this direction due to the failure of religion in my experience, and to my delight I’m gaining invaluable insights that have been hidden to me until now.

This book covers a wide range of topics, including the history of hypnosis, childhood programming, the nature of trances, how to perform a hypnotic induction, stage hypnotism, hypnotherapy, self-hypnosis, past-life regression, neuro-linguistic programming, mind control. And that’s just some of it. The book is a mere 232 pages, and it took me absolutely ages to read because there is so much concise information packed in, and I wanted to grasp it all.

Of particular interest to me was the understanding that we enter trance states naturally, as a part of everyday life, without realising it. This casts quite a different light on the common fear people have of being placed under hypnosis. I now understand why television adverts are done the way they are done – why the producers use a completely irrelevant subject to advertise a product. What they’re doing is creating a positive association in the mind. When you hear a song you like on a TV ad, or see a celebrity you admire, or watch an experience you recall feeling good about, this is all designed to make you associate the good feeling you get from that unrelated thing with the product on offer. Later, in the supermarket, when you see that product, you experience the same good feeling without understanding why, and this becomes a powerful motivator to get you to buy the product. I keep recalling Michael Jackson, back in the late 1980s, advertising Pepsi, singing, “You know I’m bad, I’m bad,” followed by the modified lyric, “And Pepsi’s cool, yeah, cool.” Always struck me as a bit odd and pointless, that. Now I understand it perfectly. Pretty manipulative, eh?

I have a friend who has a fear of cameras. I originally thought this had something to do with her feeling insecure about her looks, but we had a chat about it once and I discovered the real reason. When she was a young child, her parents used to hire an official photographer for each birthday party. She found this man scary, and over time she unwittingly built up an association between the camera pointing at her and the negative feelings brought on by the photographer. So, nowadays, right into womanhood, any camera causes that same effect of dread, regardless of who’s holding it, or how irrational the dread is. With a little knowledge of how the human mind works, it all makes sense! This also empowers me to look for the negative and unhelpful associations that I’ve created in my life (and, oh boy, there’s a big one I can see!), and deal with them through self-hypnosis. It’s almost laughable how much guilt I’ve put myself through over something that’s nothing more than “bad wiring” in my head – and absolutely fixable.

That’s just a fraction of the insight gained from reading this book. I feel like I want to read it all again, because there was so much to take in. I find myself marvelling at the human mind in a new way. And even more than that, I find myself not identifying with it. My mind is not me. If it were, I would not be able to re-program it, but I can. There is something beyond mind: call it soul or consciousness. You can choose to be a slave to your desires, to your emotions, and also to your mind states – or you can change them. I feel that so many people are going through life like computer programs running on automatic, unaware of how much of what they are is nothing but conditioned responses to stimuli. For want of a little insight, they never become conscious enough to realise they can break the programming and be what they want to be.

One of the best lines in the book, and a great quote, is: “If you don’t take responsibility for programming yourself, then someone else will.”

The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley

This short book came about as a result of Aldous Huxley performing a one-off experiment with the the psychotropic drug mescaline. Mescaline is derived from the peyote cactus and was (and is) widely used by the Native Americans in their religious practice as a means of seeing beyond the physical world. Apparently they used to suck on the cactus root to produce the effects. Although it’s illegal today, it’s apparently quite a benign drug. The book claims there are no addictive qualities – the user feels no need to use the drug subsequently – and no toxicity issues. Oddly, according to Wikipedia, a concession has been made to Native Americans, for whom mescaline remains legal. Tsk-tsk – a little favouritism there.

Huxley is best known for having penned the classic science fiction novel Brave New World. I’ve never read it, but it’s one of those novels I’ll definitely get around to. The Doors of Perception caught my attention because of Huxley’s standing and my personal interest in gaining a better understanding of human consciousness.

After taking the drug, Huxley reports staring at a table leg and being utterly absorbed in the brilliance of its form. He was able to walk around, and yet his vision was unconcerned with things like depth and distance. Looking at a flower evoked a kind of timeless contemplation about the flower’s “significance.” The book continues with information about how Huxley felt when being shown a series of paintings.

Interestingly, Huxley discusses the human body as a limiter, using the term “Mind at Large” for the full magnitude of what we are, i.e. we know everything. This is exactly the same concept I was introduced to though the writings of David Icke, only in different language. Icke would say we are are all collectively Infinite Consciousness, and the body is just a vehicle that allows us to experience physical reality. Huxley theorises that by the use of mescaline, the valve between mind and Mind at Large is loosened, allowing more of Mind at Large to come through. He talks about a feeling of timeless contemplation that caused him to be unconcerned about matters of physical life. This is in keeping with the understanding I embrace, that beyond this physical realm, with its illusions of separateness and time, there is a single collective consciousness existing in one eternal present.

This is the second time I have been surprised by the concept of “oneness” (or something close to it) cropping up unexpectedly in my reading material. It also happened recently when I read Upton Sinclair’s Mental Radio, where he theorises that a collective human consciousness is what allows telepathy to be possible.

One of the effects of mescaline on the brain is the inhibition of sugar. This got me wondering if the true reason behind the religious practice of fasting (something I never understood when I was a Christian) was to achieve an altered state of consciousness that would allow the person to get in contact with the realm beyond the physical – the divine, in other words.

The Doors of Perception was an intriguing study that helped provide a rational basis for ideas that I believe in through intuition, i.e. we are all one consciousness and the physical world is just a frequency that we perceive through the five senses. There is far more going on that what we see, and we are far more than what we think we are.

The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav

In my quest to come to a greater understanding of consciousness, I was initially excited by the names given to some of this book’s chapters (twenty-four in all): Evolution; Karma; Intuition; Intention; Choice; Addiction; Souls; Illusion – all of these leapt out to me as subjects that I knew a little about and was hungry for a deeper understanding.

The book is literally jam-packed with information. You have to read it slowly and carefully or you will find yourself quickly confused. Actually, you may find yourself confused anyway. Things started well as the book talked about humanity evolving from five-sensory beings into multi-sensory beings – something that I feel is true from my own personal awakening. External vs. internal power is discussed and the important distinction between the personality and the soul. All excellent material.

Things started to sit a little badly with me in the following chapter, Karma. The idea behind karma is that life is a learning experience, and anything you do to harm another being will ultimately be inflicted back upon you, in this life or a future one. To my ears, that is just too much like the old religious idea of punishment for sin that locks you into a fear-based morality. Besides, it just doesn’t make rational sense. If I torture someone, and thus create negative karma upon myself, someone will later torture me and create negative karma on himself. So in order to clear negative karma, you have to create more negative karma. This massive abnormality is not brought to light by the book.

Another “insight” that didn’t sit well with me was the way the author categorised how we talk differently to different groups of people – how we reveal a greater or lesser extent of who we are depending on who we are in conversation with. Zukav accepted this as the way things are, whereas to me, an important spiritual leap that we all need to make is to express ourselves without fear of what others think of us – to express what we truly are, and not a false projection of what we think is acceptable. For instance, after being a Christian for many years and accumulating Christian friends, I eventually changed my mind about religion, and I had to share my new beliefs with my friends, otherwise I would be allowing them to relate to a false me. I also had to face the loss of several friends, as they branded me unacceptable. We need to be who we are truly are and take the heat for it. Sadly, this is not the attitude portrayed in the book.

At times, what I was reading became so structured and complex that it was almost like reading religious doctine. And I had to wonder, where does all this come from? Because it’s presented matter-of-factly as “the way it is,” without any evidence to back it up. I found that if I come at it from a rational left-brained perspective, I don’t get very far. That is to be expected. On the other hand, if I come at it from an intuitive right-brained perspective, I find that some of it gets through to me, some of it screws with me, and some of it I just don’t know what to make of.

One question I kept asking myself as I was reading was “What about the idea that everything is one, that we’re all one consciousness?” I kept expecting that to turn up, because it seems to be a widely held belief in this kind of literature. The topic finally did come up, but I was surprised that so little time was devoted to it. I feel this the foundation that allows so much more to make sense. Oneness is the very thing that allows us to see why love is what life is all about. And yet the book concerns itself largely with the ins and outs of our separation from each other. Separate souls, reincarnating from life to life, learning and evolving with the aid of non-physical spirit guides. I learned more from one of David Icke’s simple, sharp insights (paraphrased): “If we are Infinite Conciousness, if we are everything that was, is and will be, if we already know everything, how can we possibly evolve by experience?”

The Seat of the Soul was a useful book that gave me some insights, but I feel it’s also expressing a mentality that doesn’t quite get to the really big questions that need asked about what life is all about.

I Am Me, I Am Free by David Icke

I first heard of David Icke on the Terry Wogan show in 1991. I was about nineteen at the time. Icke had once been a famous footballer, until his career was cut short by arthritis. He then went on become a BBC television sports presenter. The reason why he was being interviewed by Terry Wogan was because he had recently published a book called The Truth Vibrations, where he claimed to have undergone profound spiritual changes and was in contact with beings from a higher dimension. The audience was very amused. Even more amused when Terry asked him if he was the Son of God. Not given time to explain the difference between a son of God and the Son of God, hilarity ensued. For me, the outrageous nature of this made the Wogan interview one of the unforgettable moments of television, and the name David Icke was firmly locked in my mind, forever shelved under messianic crackpot. Well, not quite forever, it seems.

Earlier this summer, whilst browsing the website of Christian conspiracy theorist Mark Dice, I came across an audio interview of Mark interviewing David. I thought it was a strange combination of interviewer and interviewee, given their opposing backgrounds, and so I got curious. I can’t remember what specifics in the interview caught my attention, but I was enthused enough by David’s presentation to seek out some of his books.

I chose I Am Me, I Am Free first, primarily because I was more interested in Icke’s spiritual views than his conspiracy theories or his radical theories about shape-shifting reptilians. Why was I not put off immediately by the knowledge that he believes reptilians are walking among us in human bodies? I don’t know. Maybe the Mark Dice interivew sounded too sane, and maybe the fact that I couldn’t marry this sanity with the outlandish claims created a sense of intrigue in me. In any case, I chose not to jump straight in with his reptilian book, The Biggest Secret, but rather to break myself in gently.

I Am Me, I Am Free disturbed me from the first chapter. And it disturbed me because it was chipping away at a closed-minded attitude that I possessed and didn’t know I possessed. It disturbed me because it seemed to be right. Some way into the book, I felt that I was finally starting to understand the greatest spiritual battle of my life: the battle between athiesm and Christianity. Icke woke me up to the “mind prison” that is conventional science – the idea that the world should only be understood in terms of “this is all there is,” that the burden of proof is the only measure of rational thought. But wait, he doesn’t stop there. He also makes an attack on religion, too. This was the most problematic aspect of the book, because I was a Christian as I was reading it, and had been consistently a Christian for about seven years.

But for the first time in my life I started understanding that there was an alternative to dogmatic religion and equally dogmatic science. And that alternative was the pursuit of truth without any attachment to an “ism,” without the necessity of taking on a strict set of beliefs, without fear of damnation. Just the breaking free from closed-minded assumptions you’re not even aware of and the openness to all possibility. I dared to deconstuct my Christian beliefs and start again from the ground up. Guess what? I can’t accept the Christian view of reality any more. One personal example of this (not from the book) is the way we can encounter things in the Bible like God commanding the Israelites to slaughter the men, women and children of Amalek (1 Samuel 15). We can’t understand this, so we put it on a shelf in our mind, thinking that we’ll get an explanation some day. But you know, it never comes down the from shelf. It just gathers dust. But you start to wake up to some of the craziness you’ve allowed yourself to believe, when you dare to deconstruct your beliefs and attempt to put them together again. Suddenly the bricks don’t fit as neatly as you thought they did.

The book covers much more ground than I’m mentioning here. There’s some excellent material on self-esteem and a particularly difficult chapter on mind control, which makes some terrifying claims that need further verification. But it’s the sort of book that contains much in the way of self-evident truth, and it’s the sort of book that you don’t have to accept hook, line and sinker. You can gain something from it and leave what you find unacceptable.

For me, this was a totally life-changing book. I didn’t expect this to happen to me when I started out. I know the world is full of people making all sorts of claims to enlightenment, and I don’t consider myself an easy man to fool. Richard Dawkins didn’t get very far with me. I’ve been waking up to a lot of things over the past few years, and this book has served only to step that awakening up a gear.

David Icke is an extremely important thinker in today’s world, and I am a better person for having discovered his books.