Preface

This is a very personal story. Telling it is the only honest way to give an account of the extraordinary spiritual phenomena that I have experienced over many years of a journey to learn more about the nature of this life and our part in it. I hope you will not think it self-indulgent; indeed in many ways it has been painful to describe intimate details. Risky too - I fully expect to be ridiculed by many, not least because several of the events recounted are almost literally incredible. Well, have you ever heard of Divine Guidance by car registration plates...?

The trouble is this: there are many New Age writings which purport to teach us about aspects of ‘the spiritual path’. Some are very thoughtful and genuinely helpful; many more are just ephemeral or bald statements of ‘channelled Truth’ which can insult the intelligence. (By the way, you should know right away that this book will not tell you The Secret of Life, let alone The Truth About Everything, because I don’t know it; I dare say that there may well be some inescapable conclusions to be drawn from my experiences, but so far I have managed to escape most of them.) Most of these writings, good or bad, tell us that there is much ‘guidance’ to be had along our way, from the spirit worlds or from signs and omens, if we only knew “how to listen and look”.

But very few of the writings ever actually describe this

‘guidance’ or give down-to-earth examples of it that the rest of

us can understand or evaluate.

So how is anyone to learn how to recognise it? How are we to know which state of mind to cultivate? Most importantly, supposing we have got as far as to receive some guidance (perhaps, for example, simply through recalling an important dream), how are we to learn how to interpret it - sort the wheat from the chaff, the vision from the desire - unless we share these experiences with each other, discuss different ways of analysing them, and profit from each other’s mistakes? Maybe only then can we begin to learn what it really means to be human...

So this is an honest and verifiable account of the phenomenal guidance that I have experienced on an almost daily basis during a particular period of about ten years. I believe that everyone can experience and learn from similar events. My story also includes many mistakes and foolish misinterpretations. I hope that others may learn from these.

Please try to read this story with an open mind or at least an open heart, and focus not so much on the ragged course of my life (though I’m sure many will recognise the same personal troubles that I have known) as on the mysterious events that accompany and sometimes illuminate it. That’s why I’ve taken the risk of writing this.

After all, what does it mean ‘to live spiritually’? For me, it is trying to live ethically, trying to be honest, to care for others and try not to cause hurt, to make one’s life meaningful and experience it as fully as possible, to grow in understanding, to become all that we are capable of being - and to recognise the inevitability of messing up in all of these things! But, surely, we are human insofar as we can hold our hands up, try to make good and try again - living with an open heart, being prepared to take risks.

I believe that the experiences described here have extraordinary Implications for our understanding of the mind

And of what it is to be a human being.

May you be blessed on your journey.