Winter

In the approach to the terrible events of the autumn of 2003, my dreams, signs and readings were almost unfailingly encouraging. Yes, there were warnings of difficulties but no suggestion that I was heading in the wrong direction and should be prepared to change course (as I had experienced, for example, while with Dawn and Cathy). Indeed, I remain convinced that what happened was inevitable and necessary and a natural part of the path. My personal troubles with Bettina in no way undermine the fact that this relationship was the most important I had ever experienced and that with her I had touched the deepest levels of consciousness, of love, that I had ever known.

Of course there are times when we do ‘go wrong’ in situations and relationships, when we make significant mistakes; we must try to develop the self-awareness to recognise these and have the courage to do something about them. But just because we are hitting trouble doesn’t of itself mean that we must have taken a wrong turn. These challenges can be the most important to us for our spiritual growth. Recognising what kind of trouble we’re in, however, can be incredibly difficult: it’s what being an aware and caring human being is all about. So the signposts are there to help!

Along with the warnings, I had also received a good deal of reassurance that I would be ‘safe’ (see especially the huge dream of 3rd October). And now, before the winter set in, a few further powerful clues presented themselves as if to strengthen me for the journey into the unknown ahead.

S 21st November 2003: Just two days before the solar eclipse and the eighth anniversary of my new home, I received an offer out of the blue to do some badly needed roof repairs to my house at low cost. I had been worried about this and simply could not have afforded the job in the normal way. This event represented ‘renewed security’.

S 23rd November 2003: The weekly horoscope (this was the last one that seemed at all appropriate for a considerable time) promised that “one issue really gets... sorted out. Somehow the truth will come out... associated with your attitudes towards a partner...”

Alice knew how significant this anniversary was for me and came round to keep me company. But for all that we had shared in recent years and despite her caring for me while I was ill, it was now quite evident that we were on entirely different paths. After our goodbye, that same night brought another detailed, beautiful and optimistic dream.

D 24th November 2003: I was on a long journey with a woman, first by bus and then by riverbus. It seemed that we might miss our connection to a ship for our ocean voyage ahead, so we got off and went on by foot. The woman was heavily pregnant and I was loaded down with our luggage. At dusk we came to a river, its banks flooded and muddy, which we had to cross. I called out and a man on the other side came to fetch us in a rowing boat; he was silent but friendly. On the way across we passed through a kind of marketplace where we saw baby clothes for sale and I talked about buying some for us. Then the water became shallow so to make things easier I got out of the boat, dragging our heavy box through a small square doorway before reaching the other side of the water. There I waited for the woman to join me, knowing that all was well and that we would make our connection safely. I heard the happy voices of people enjoying themselves and a small light came on nearby, shining into my eyes.

This is a classic ‘spiritual journey’ dream describing the stages through which we have to pass, the anxieties and the struggles with our load, but also suggesting that there is help from ‘the other side’. Moreover, despite the time of separation, there is a promise of ‘rebirth’ and deliverance, and a solution (the light) to our problems. Possibly, I thought, the symbol of pregnancy might be a clue as to when I might reach the other side of my present difficulties - nine months hence?! But I also knew that what I must accept is that the dream did not necessarily promise the rebirth of one particular relationship; rather, it was reassuring me of the development of a more secure and peaceful emotional life. That may or may not be focused on a special person. Each of us has our own individual path and our own choices to make along the way, and we can never force others to follow our chosen route.

Surely it is the frustration of our own personal desires and our attachments that cause our suffering - so we must learn to let go of them and surrender to the guidance we receive.

This is not to say that we should give up on our ambitions, or not fight with all our strength for what we dearly believe in. But our thoughts and feelings and words and actions must always be mindful, with the honest intention of caring for others. Living with the heart means to love life and ourselves and others, and it cannot be loving if we impose our will and desires on them.

So however much it may have been my instinct to interpret the dream in terms of a future with Bettina, I recognised that this powerful experience in these given circumstances was the point at which I must finally give way to God’s will. Of course I will not manage it, being as flawed as any other human being by personal weakness and ignorance and a hugely egoistic belief in my own identity and self-importance. Like any other recalcitrant child at school, I shall no doubt have to learn the lesson over and over again. But for the moment, at least, the teaching did seep in and I became more peaceful.

And this is the point of my book! When we do let go, there is spiritual guidance and renewed strength.

S 25th November 2003: The next day, ‘by coincidence’, I heard a BBC radio programme about the storms that beset our lives.

Mystics and spiritual teachers throughout history agree, it was said, that when the tempest rages we must not fight it but try just to be still. The storm has purpose. Perhaps it comes to change our direction or to clear the air and purge us of our falsehoods. It humbles us. The story of Elijah, I think, is among the most inspiring of all: rejected, betrayed, in pain and despair, he received the most wonderful angelic guidance. Yet he was still a man for all that and continued to be wracked by doubt. Ultimately, it was in the calm after the storm that ‘God came to him’ and brought him to triumph.

“WHEN THE STORM BREAKS” (a song)

When the storm breaks, waves like mountains, darkness closing in...

Hard to breathe much less believe a new life can begin.

Trying to find your way home on a winding path, running away out of sight,

Searching the shadows for footholds, keeping your eyes on a small distant light,

And just when you think you’re secure, you find yourself outside a door

That you’ve never seen before.

You turn to run but the storm has begun and you can’t find a way to return,

Yet how can you leave everything you believed in and let go of all that you learned?

You’ve lost everything that you owned and stand there entirely alone,

Facing the unknown.

Now is the time to hold on, now is the time not to fall,

It’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done, doing nothing at all...

Reach for the spirit within, lose your desire to win,

And a new life will begin.

When the storm breaks, waves like mountains, darkness closing in...

Hard to breathe much less believe a new life will begin.

S 26th November 2003: I started back at work today. On my way home I saw ... 121 DAN. Chapter 12, verse 1 of the Book of Daniel promises that at “...a time of great suffering... you will be delivered.”

In the first few days of December, two extremely strange things happened.

D 1st December 2003: There was a long and confusing dream, but all I could remember later was that it involved my sister and that when she left I was with Bettina. However, I awoke with the absolutely insistent thought that “Pleiades” was very important.

I had to look it up. This is the name of a cluster of stars in Taurus, also known as “the Seven Sisters”; I also learned the curious fact that only six of the stars are visible, one being hidden behind others. It seemed that the dream and waking experience were suggesting some kind of cryptic clue about my family life, though I didn’t understand it. However, just one week later:

S 8th December 2003: I received on my computer a fragment of an email sent to Alice by her son during a trip abroad. Checking with her later, I found that the message had been sent to her several months earlier though I have no idea how an incomplete section of it arrived on my screen now (I’m told it may be due to some kind of virus). The telling point is that the fragment, just two sentences, described “six people in the group plus the guide”.

This had an uncanny resonance with the Pleiades experience and was virtually a repetition of the ‘clue’. It may have been a genuinely random event; but its undoubted synchronicity with the dream suddenly made a new connection in my mind. Both events described a group of six people plus one other, while the links to Alice and my sister suggested that they were women. Now I also remembered the dreams of April 2002 in which ‘two fours’ (representing the two important periods of my path) had merged to form a pattern with six significant points, this number being repeated for emphasis. I realised that there had been six important emotional relationships with women in my life (not counting my mother, who nonetheless of course influenced them all psychologically). Bettina was the sixth, at the climax of my spiritual journey, and the deepest experience of them all. It seemed that these events were reassuring me of our place in each other’s destiny.

During this week there was one other dream, but it was of the sort that has to be felt to be understood.

D 4th December 2003: I had been away somewhere, attending some kind of ‘spiritual convention’. During a free afternoon, I walked down a certain road I know and looked around a shop of magical artefacts and antiques, seeking something particular but unable to find what I wanted. (There is no such shop on that road.) Then I returned to where I was staying where I observed myself sleeping. There followed some scenes in which I gave and received healing, and then I met my father who was caring towards me and promised that I would be safe.

This was not so much a dream as a journey on some deep inner mental plane, and I awoke feeling as if I’d travelled far, far away and met with beings in a different world. As I came to, my whole body and brain were flashing with electrical energy as if having difficulty readjusting to being physical, though my thoughts were calm and clear. I could also very definitely still feel other

‘beings’ nearby, as realistically as one does in the normal world. The experience was deeply moving. I shall never know the truth of it, but its meaning was clear enough: there were no ‘magical solutions’ to my present situation, there just had to be a time of rest and recovery.

And so it proved. Almost from this very point I seemed to lose the ability to access those other states of consciousness wherein I had been receiving so much paranormal information on an almost daily basis. Life became much more ordinary and less intense. This was actually rather hard to deal with, since I felt that I was now setting out quite alone on an entirely new journey with very few signposts. Apart from one psychological ‘therapy dream’ in early January - a car journey in which I found myself in the wrong lane but managed to turn back the right way, only to find myself on an unfamiliar road before again being able to move back onto the correct one, finally arriving at my destination, a stadium where I was given a refund and change - I remembered virtually no more dreams for more than three months. I still noted small synchronicities and registrations and they helped to keep my spirits up but, frankly, they usually weren’t very informative. This was new territory indeed!

But the turn of the year still held a couple of astonishing surprises for me before, as it were, the winter set in.

S 23rd December 2003: Just before Christmas I took a gift to Bettina’s house and left it outside. Yes, despite everything I wanted to express my love. Hoping that she might respond once she saw it, instead of going home I decided to find a local pub and wait for an hour. I didn’t know the area well so went into the first place I found along the road, a fairly rough and noisy ‘local’. It was quite a big place but I could only find one free table at the far end of the lounge. Sitting there on the table, as incongruous in this place as it could be, was a knight chess piece. There was no sign of any other pieces anywhere else in the place. Recalling my dream of the previous February that had predicted meeting Bettina, this brought tears to my eyes. And then the nearby television began playing the song The Power of Love.

No, she did not respond. But that little piece of wood spoke volumes about the need for courage and determination on this path.

IC 1st January 2004: My habitual question for the year ahead yielded Hexagram 2, “The Receptive”. This is the archetypal description of the feminine (yin) qualities of devotion, gentleness and calm perseverance. In this state one does not take strong action or seek to make things happen, but is instead quietly receptive to guidance. The moving line described the onset of darkness and of cold, as in winter, the time of “dissolution” - my present state. (That is, there is nothing that can be done but wait. This was echoed in a reading concerning Bettina the next day which described our inability to move forward and the need for inner resolve.) But to what does this lead? There is a natural cycle to our lives and there will always be change, just as winter must give way to spring when “the darkness is past and the light returns” and there is “a natural transformation of the old ways to the new”. The resulting hexagram was number 24, “Return - the Turning Point”.

You may perhaps be wondering about my Christmas cracker ‘sign’ this year... Especially after the last one, I approached the dining table with some trepidation this time and even considered ignoring the cracker - well, I didn’t know how much more I could take just now. In the event, it contained a plastic alphabet stencil, which I immediately associated with writing.

You’re reading it!

Throughout this account I have been using the metaphor of life being a ‘journey’ and the unfolding of a ‘path’. Some of you may think that this is not entirely reasonable, and may put unnecessary restraints on the way we think about our experiences. So I’d like here to explore this idea further, so that we may perhaps understand better some of the things that happen when we try to live more consciously.

A ‘journey’ implies a definite destination, whereas none of us really knows what that might actually be at all. Moreover, while there may be many alternative routes to a destination, the metaphor implies that some of these must be good and worthwhile while others are clearly bad or in the wrong direction. But at the end of the day, as it were, it may not matter all that much which way we went or how long it took us or how many mistakes we made in getting there, as long as we arrive. Perhaps we could say, then, that life is an exploration rather than a journey.

In metaphysical terms, many spiritual thinkers have described the process of human life as ‘a return to the Source’ or as achieving ‘oneness with God’ or ‘cosmic consciousness’ for example. It seems inevitable that we should assume some sort of end-state, for as rational beings we are driven by goals and by problem-solving as a means of achieving them. If we want to achieve something through our careers (whether it be status, power, financial security, personal satisfaction etc) then we adopt strategies that will lead towards those aims such as gaining qualifications or experience or personal contacts. If our goal is to achieve a contented family life then we must try to understand and care for those who are close to us, balance our needs with theirs, provide a secure environment, perhaps establish a support network of friends and relatives, and so on. These processes are often unconscious, but nonetheless we all have such goals and we are the more successful in achieving them - which is to say happier - the more mindful we are of our own nature and in our relationships with others. If we are mindless, we tend to hurt and alienate others and we achieve little happiness.

I suggest that much the same applies to our spiritual goals, however we might phrase them. Although there are those who would argue that spirituality has little to do with reason (supposing it to be somehow a ‘higher’ way of being), surely we cannot deny our nature as rational beings who live in a material world. There can be no virtue in trying to ignore or to transcend these facts of life. Not only would this be an abnegation of our basic responsibility of care, towards ourselves and the others who share our world, it would be the ultimate insult to God.

Alternatively, of course, you could deny the existence of any God or of any spiritual purpose in life, but then you’re probably not reading this book. Purposelessness is not far removed from mindlessness, with similar consequences.

So if we do adopt a sense of spiritual purpose, then we are setting goals and we must be at least as thoughtful and careful in our strategies towards achieving these as we would be in, say, our careers - actually more so, for the destination is much less obvious.

Moreover, there is a great deal more that we don’t know about our minds than, say, we do know about business practice.

A spiritual approach to life is then, surely, an exploration and a kind of journey, and we should go about it in that manner.

Suppose I am going on a driving holiday from my home in London to the south of France. This analogy will of course be flawed but it might be fun to look out for the useful bits of it. Now, I know where I’m starting from and I have a fairly definite goal - I might even have booked it. I also have a limited time in which to achieve it since I have other responsibilities back home (family, a career, a cat...). If the trip is to be enjoyable then there are certain things I need to do before I even set out, such as service the car, look at some maps, book a ferry and perhaps buy insurance, pack some clothes and food and ensure I have money available. If I don’t do some of this preparation then there is certainly a risk of serious frustration on the trip that might make it unhappy or even worthless.

When at last I set out, I could of course head north towards Birmingham. When and if I do arrive in France, I could of course head east towards Belgium. Such excursions are certainly possible and could even be quite interesting in their own way, but they are not helpful in getting me where I want to go; they might even ultimately prevent me from getting there at all since I would lose time, run the risk of mishaps or getting lost, and I might miss my ferry. Suppose instead that I have got myself into France and am driving south (with some caution since the road layout and customs are unfamiliar), there is still a variety of routes that I could take. Motorways are fast and easy but a bit expensive and not very interesting. Trunk roads show me more of the country and its towns and people but are slower and will involve more stopovers and costs. Either way I am going to have to read maps and understand signs; even so there is a chance that I will miss or not understand the signs (or there may not be any when I need them) and I could get lost. In this case, some knowledge of the language is going to be useful, so that I can ask for help. Getting to my destination enjoyably and safely, then, involves a good deal of preparation, thoughtfulness, care and learning along the way. There could be some great unplanned adventures too: it might be a good thing not to have my mind so fixed on the south of France that I miss out on some of the other pleasures that the rest of France has to offer en route.

Probably the most obvious flaw in this analogy is that, spiritually, most of the time we don’t know where we’re going!

There are those, of course, who believe that they do know exactly what our destination is, and some even claim to have booked a place there by virtue of their membership of a particular faith - they’ve bought some insurance. My only observation to this is that if such arrogant certainty were possible then life would be entirely unnecessary.

It is the essence of being human that we do not entirely know what it means to be human.

But on the other hand, neither are we totally vague about our destination. We have the testimony of those who have gone before us and who can offer us, if not maps as such, at least images of how the journey may unfold. We can prepare ourselves in the setting out, and check ourselves along the way, by referring to this literature and teaching; our learning must be critical though, for there are many misleading guidebooks written by rather too self-interested authors. Fortunately we also have our own instincts to guide us - we are all spiritual beings, after all, with some degree of inner awareness. And provided that we take care of ourselves, so as to be healthy in body, mind and heart (we service our vehicle), then we can trust that awareness to help us along the way. Taking care of ourselves is important. We must develop our personal resources (the equivalent of spare clothes, food and money), for this trip into the largely unknown could well require mental strength and flexibility, calmness under pressure and perhaps courage. We shouldn’t set out until we know we are ready.

But although we may often be unsure about the road and where it leads, and even about our own ability to continue following it, surely the most important attribute for us to pack is our attitude to the journey, one of purposefulness and caring about being the best that we can possibly be. We must want to be good and loving people and to develop our minds fully, to be open to others and what they have to teach us, to treat others as we would wish to be treated. If we are seeking an ultimate goal of happiness and peacefulness, we have no hope of achieving it unless these principles guide our every step and we try to develop them in all our thoughts and feelings and words and actions. Gosh, how difficult is that?! This expedition is certainly a challenge.

Suppose that we are now ‘on the way’. Is there an equivalent of having ‘a limited time’ available to us? Well, we just don’t know! Certainly, many of the precognitive experiences that I have described suggest that we have a very incomplete notion of the nature of time anyway. My synchronistic experiences (not to mention the enormous body of evidence now in support of, for example, telepathy and clairvoyance) further suggest that human consciousness extends far beyond the normally accepted limits of materialism. Some will undoubtedly take this as evidence for the existence of a human soul that endures beyond physical death. I can only repeat that we just cannot know this.

So rather than adopting the comforting attitude that it really doesn’t matter what we do or how much we mess up because there’ll always be another chance for us later, in Heaven or by reincarnation, it is surely more responsible to assume that we may only have this one lifetime. So we should do everything we can to make the most of it and of ourselves. Whether it is true or not, the mindful way is to think of ourselves as material beings with limited time. We also have limited resources and abilities. And of course we also have down to earth responsibilities to others that limit our personal freedom. The implications of this are that we cannot just wander about aimlessly on our journey, as it were via Birmingham or Belgium, and there certainly are wrong directions to beware of. Hopefully we can recognise these by our loss of sense of purpose, or by noticing that we or others are being hurt avoidably and without good reason.

But clearly there are many possible alternative right directions. No-one has the authority to say that one particular path is the true or correct one. It is for each individual to find his or her own way according to one’s interests and abilities and needs. The alternative roads of France all offer their own joys and discoveries, though if we do know something about what we want or need to experience this will guide us to some of the appropriate places. Again, we can prepare ourselves by heeding the advice of others who have gone before, especially if they warn us of particular hazards that we are likely to meet - the storms, the roadworks, the Channel...!

Our trip is now proceeding apace but we are in foreign territory where a great deal is unfamiliar to us. This is where the signs become so important. Sometimes they give us really important information such as which particular turning to take onto a new road, or about some danger lying just ahead - we may have to slow down or give way or stop for a while. Sometimes they tell us how far it is to the next recognisable landmark. Sometimes they are almost incidental and merely tell us that we are on the right road, which is nonetheless reassuring. The synchronicities and omens that I have described fall into each of these categories. Such signs, however small, are available to all of us and are immensely helpful.

However, while many of them are simple and clear and abundant (although your particular trip might be through, say, the Sudan rather than France), many of them will be in a foreign language and involve words or idioms that are totally unfamiliar. Obviously, this is not a reason to ignore them! How small-minded is the materialist who rejects the paranormal or mystical because it doesn’t fit comfortably into his present knowledge. The first purpose in writing this book is to show that there are many different signs to guide us and that we can learn to understand them. On our journey through France we would gradually come to know the meanings of what we observe and become familiar with the way things are done there. How much more important, then, is it that we should be prepared to look for and learn the meanings of the symbolism and signs that our minds present to us on the most important journey we can ever undertake, the discovery of the soul?

However, despite all this rational stuff about purposefulness and preparation and experiential learning, let’s admit that it is virtually inevitable that at some point we will get lost. Reason alone will simply not be enough, for the exploration we are on is through lands far stranger than France.

Even France can be bad enough. At the very outset of my own odyssey described here, I actually did take a holiday trip to France; and although I was in fact fairly familiar with the country and its language, this time I planned a new route that would take me close to Paris in the early hours of the morning. But despite my maps and notes and normally good sense of direction I was, like so many others, defeated by the Peripherique! It was an extraordinary and unsettling experience: there came a point where I simply had to stop the car in a layby and admit that I had absolutely no idea where I was or which direction to go. It was dark and there was no-one about. Fortunately I had packed a sandwich and a flask, which were comforting, and I silently prayed for some kind of help. After a short while another car pulled in just ahead of me, the French driver apparently taking a rest, so I approached him with my map and haltingly asked for directions. He didn’t tell me which way to go. Instead, he smiled and said “Follow me”, then led me for twenty minutes back to the junction I needed before turning round with a wave and disappearing.

Was that man not an angel? This was one of the most important lessons I have ever learned and it came precisely at the time I needed it. We do get confused and lost, and however brilliant our minds there are limits to what we can know by reasoning. But if we can remain calm and humble and open, then guidance comes to lead us back to our path. This may be from some spiritual source beyond our understanding, but it may equally be from an ordinary stranger in the street. So should we not all be prepared to offer whatever support we can to others on their journeys?

The reason for the philosophical excursion of the last few pages is to put in context the final part of this account, the early months of 2004. I had embarked upon a deliberate spiritual journey with particular purposes and experienced many wonderful and some terrible things, joyful and painful, and I had received much phenomenal guidance along the way. But one of the strangest aspects of it all, perhaps, was the gradual realisation that there was a definite pattern and period to it. It was an intensive journey of eight years with an identifiable rhythm: two equal halves, four learning relationships of certain lengths and with repeating challenges, and so on. I would not suggest that every spiritual path can be described in this way; but it may be fair to observe that there can be definite periods in our lives when we need or have the opportunity to learn particular things, so we should try to be alert to what the events of our lives are challenging us with. 5[5]

I would also not suggest that I had successfully learned everything I needed to know on my path, or that my work was done! Actually I feel that I failed in several important respects and that I shall have to repeat certain classes. Having read this far, I’m sure you will agree! But there are limits to what we can achieve and to what we can endure. Life is a continuous cycle of change and nothing stays the same forever. Whatever my personal desires for my life, that period needed to end, facing me with a new path and new challenges.

As Paolo Coelho says, I had to pass through that doorway and enter “a dangerous and unfamiliar world...” - Just at the time when I wanted a good rest! Having done my best in France, as it were, I was perhaps crossing into Italy where I’ve never driven before and know hardly any of the language.

At and near the frontier there were still some recognisable signs to encourage me, which I described earlier in this chapter. So I felt that I was safely heading in the right direction and, even if I didn’t quite know where I was going, I wasn’t exactly lost. The fact remains, however, that I was in very new territory and in keeping with that I was simply unable to remember any significant dreams for virtually three months; moreover, life became very ordinary and uneventful. Sometimes this was worrying - had I lost contact with the inner consciousness? Not at all. Learning from the patterns of our experience, we have to recognise that there will always be periods of rest or consolidation or perhaps even retreat when we can do little but wait quietly and with inner resolve, having little apparent influence in the world. The seasons come when they will and we cannot make them do otherwise, however frustrated we feel and however we try to force them. In February 2004 I even attempted to ‘move things on’ deliberately by doing the same sort of clearing and cleaning work that had seemed so symbolic and successful the previous year - to absolutely no avail!

On the other hand, at such times there are still some signposts along the path to let us know that we are heading the right way. They may be sparse and often not very informative, but they are there. Here are a few examples:

S 5th January 2004: I started an evening course in Raja Yoga meditation, hoping that this would help me to keep a peaceful mind during these difficult days, and on the way to the first session I saw the registration ...RAJ. During the next week or so I saw different ...RAJ or R...AJA plates three times, ...REX twice (both raja and rex mean ‘king’) and ...TAO twice. After the course ended I did not seen a single ...RAJ again for months. These signs are of the ‘not very helpful yet reassuring’ type.

S 11th February 2004: My computer again received that same stray piece of email message described on 8th December 2003. On the same day I started listening on the radio to a serialised book about precognition, called The Probable Future. These synchronicities seem more like ‘deliberate messages of support’.

S 13th March 2004: Just as I was writing the section of this account which dealt with my breakdown, my computer crashed! It turned out to be a rare but serious fault which took quite a while to get fixed and which delayed my writing considerably. This may have been just a weird coincidence, but with hindsight later I saw that it was not such a bad thing - I needed a little more perspective on the last few months before describing them. Perhaps this kind of synchronicity illustrates that our minds are somehow very much connected with our physical environment.

D 17th March 2004: At last, another dream! I observed myself overlooking a large area of ground that had just been completely cleared in preparation for rebuilding. My unconscious mind seemed to be encouraging me that my life was now ready to start moving forward again.

S 17th March 2004: This same day I saw the registrations ...RWP (my father’s initials), then ...NEW and ...LYF together; later I saw S...HOK and ...ANS. The first group of these was in harmony with my dream while the others suggested some surprising news ahead (in maths we write ‘Ans’ as short for Answer).

S 18th March 2004: The next day I saw M 869 ARK which refers to one of Christ’s miracles. That evening I indeed received some wonderful and extremely unexpected family news - my daughter had decided to be baptised. The signs of these two days were therefore actually precognitive.

S 1st April 2004: I saw the number plate JOY... and just a few minutes afterwards received a completely unexpected and nice text message from Bettina. Later the same day I finally received my computer back, now mended - the breakdown was over! Both a precognition and a neat synchronicity to encourage me that somehow all would be well.

S 3rd April 2004: I arrived home to find the car ...CLU parked outside my house. Once indoors I settled down to work through a previously unseen A Level revision exercise, preparing answers for my students. Question six was about the Pleiades stars! I had taken the original dream about this on 1st December 2003 to be some kind of ‘clue’ about Bettina’s importance in my life. Was this synchronicity perhaps reassuring me of that?

During these few months there were many other such instances, most of them just generally reassuring although a few more were definite advance warnings, about mistakes I might make in daily life or, notably in the last week of April, about some nastiness coming my way from others. One may perhaps question whether there is any purpose in receiving such notice if the unpleasant situation cannot be prevented. Well, for one thing it does help to prepare one’s mind, to be calm and resolved, especially when one has learned to trust such signs as I have.

But the real significance of it is that this sort of event simply shouldn’t happen at all according to conventional wisdom. The now demonstrable fact that precognition of any sort is not only possible but can occur regularly completely shatters our common understanding of the nature of time and of the relationship between mind and body.

Naturally I was giving a great deal of thought to these ideas now as well as reading about others’ research and theories. This effort was eventually rewarded by one final (for now) dream that seems, to me, utterly conclusive.

D 18th April 2004: I dreamed that I was a man who had dreamed something very important, then woken up and recorded it. But during the telling of the dream to others he was interrupted by someone challenging it. He then went back to sleep and had another dream which confirmed the first. He woke up knowing that this was of great significance for many people.

I actually woke up at this point and thought about the dream in a hazy, semiconscious way. But then I drifted back to sleep and experienced the exact same dream again, identical in every way except that this time the main character was a woman.

Most interpreters agree that to dream of dreaming is to access a very deep level of consciousness wherein lies our most esoteric and fundamental understanding of life - a spiritual awareness beyond the psychological. Moreover, for a dream to be repeated exactly is a clear indication of its absolute importance; this is information that has to get through.

Consider the content: there is a dream, an awakening and a challenge, then another dream that confirms the first. Then I did wake up and challenge (analyse) it before the entire dream was repeated, and this repetition was a confirmation of the first dream. So the first dream was a clear precognition of my waking and then having the second dream.

There is another momentous element to this experience. It is commonly argued by sceptics, and not without some justification, that to remember and record a dream (which later turns out to seem to be precognitive) is to set in motion thought processes that eventually bring about the events described in the dream. In other words, the dream is not a genuine precognition; instead, having the dream causes the events. I think this may well have some truth to it in the case of what I have earlier called ‘wishful’ or ‘therapy’ dreams: on the inner levels of our minds we may be programming ourselves to think and behave in future in certain ways that will bring about what we want or need. It is the same sort of thing that we might do in our conscious lives through, say, ‘positive thinking’ or ‘affirmations’. This seems very healthy, provided that we don’t try to force others to think or behave according to our own desires.

But on the other hand I think I have shown with many of the accounts in this book that dreams can often foretell events (i) of which no-one has any knowledge or control over at the time, and (ii) which were entirely beyond my own influence anyway. The last pair of dreams described is a succinct illustration of this. My having the first dream cannot have ‘caused’ the second because the first dream contained an account of the second - it had already happened.

Is this not a logical proof of precognition, of something that should be entirely impossible if time is linear (proceeding from the known past to the unknown future at a steady rate)?

I want to suggest to you that the experiences described in this book (all of which, with very many others, are fully documented) clearly demonstrate two things:

1. Human beings are able to access knowledge and guidance that help to promote our psychological and spiritual growth, by means beyond our normal senses (in my case through dreams, synchronicities and the I Ching). This may also imply that the individual human mind is connected, at some alter state of consciousness, with other minds.

2. Our common notion of time is wrong. It is certainly helpful in our physical lives to think of time as linear, and we make sense of events by their being in succession; the idea that an ‘effect’ follows a ‘cause’ is fundamental to our success as a species. This notion is not false but it is limited, in the same way that to think of ourselves as purely physical is limited. We own states of consciousness that are entirely non-physical and in those the ‘future’ exists ‘now’.

To the extent that a future event can be perceived now, some have even argued that the future is therefore a cause of our present awareness, the effect. This is of course non-sense because it breaks the rules of our definitions of the words used. We simply don’t, yet, have words adequately to describe the true nature of time. Similarly, precognition does not mean that our experience is wholly predetermined either, because the very word ‘predetermined’ presupposes linear time!

Aren’t human beings the most wonderful things?

5 Of course, like the school student who is not yet comfortable with quadratic equations, we can choose not to accept the challenge even if we do recognise it, for we may not be ready for it yet. It does require a certain confidence and preparation. Moreover, our circumstances may not allow it if, for example, we have important responsibilities towards others. It is still a good thing to recognise that there are lessons for our souls that we shall need to meet sooner or later.