The Daemon: A Guide To Your Extraordinary Secret Self by Anthony Peake Arcturus Publishing Limited 26/27 Bickels Yard 151-153 Bermondsey Street London, England SE1 3HA 2008, 336 pages, ISBN: 978-1-84837-079-1 Reviewed by Brent Raynes He’s back! That’s mighty right, British author and researcher Anthony Peake is back with a second book exploring the mysterious hidden world lurking within the non-dominant right hemisphere of each human’s brain. This higher self, variously described as a “sensed presence,” a “hidden observer,” fits in quite well, Peake found, with the description of the immortal Daemon, a guardian spirit of the Stoics and the Platonists of ancient Greek and Roman pagan belief systems. Peake’s book, appropriately enough entitled The Daemon, is a virtual tour de force of thought-provoking and startling revelations in modern neuroscience and quantum physics, with a comprehensive and global exploration of the historical and religious background of a myriad of significant belief systems from the Hawaiian Kahuna philosophy to the Zoroastrians, Sufism, Judaism, Gnosticism, to name but a few isms. This book is an absolutely mind-boggling and riveting analysis of many historical events and scientific discoveries that, while a lot of them are familiar to many of us, no one has delved into them with the same depth of probing and unique mindset that Peake has focused upon them. This “higher self” psychologically equates with the unconscious part of the brain (right hemisphere) while the conscious ego-self is the awareness the majority of us are aware of the majority of the time (left hemisphere). To the early Greeks the “daemon” of course was the higher self and the lower conscious self was called the “eidolon.” Peake felt that this ancient concept of daulity identified pretty well the two separate components of consciousness that he came to refer to it as the Daemon-Eidolon Dyad, a concept that seems central to many global spiritual belief systems and isms (as just mentioned) that evolved around the world and have emerged within the field of today’s neuroscience. Peake cites the late psychologist Julian Jaynes’s Bicameral Mind theory as making an important contribution of how this split in consciousness evolved. Furthermore, while Jaynes himself came to research this aspect (as a result of a mysterious voice speaking to him) should also fascinate the reader, as well as the stories of Joan of Arc, Carl Jung’s Philemon, Socrates’ “divine sign,” and a host of many others. Peake finds connections and data emerging from everywhere. Visionaries, near-death experiencers (check out the Raymond Moody account at the beginning of chapter 8), people with déjà vu, temporal lobe epilepsy, schizophrenia, and even migraines. His Daemon-Eidolon Dyad overlaps and integrates so much material, from so many different backgrounds, that it appears to be a candidate for what scientists call TOE (Theory of Everything). Chapter 6 is entitled “Precognition,” and parapsychologists should want to take heed of its contents. How do these people so often get warnings and previews from their “daemons” about events in their future? And, while many of us are fond of saying that truth is stranger than fiction, you should want to read chapter 10 which reviews the uncanny real life of science fiction master writer Philip K. Dick, whose many writings became such well-known film adaptations as Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and more. Peake reveals how in real life Philip Dick was a prime example of all of the different elements of his Daemon-Eidolon Dyad, though many outside of his fan base are unaware of these matters. (Peake talked quite a bit with me about Dick in my interview with him posted in the December 2007 #119 issue of this magazine; plus you might well also want to read Brad Steiger’s Philip K. Dick’s Phylogenic Memory and the Divine Fire in the November ’07 #118 ish) Dick even experienced a doppelganger (double) of himself it seems. Peake cites various doppelganger accounts in his book, and on a separate but nonetheless, I suspect, significant note Ray Fowler’s book SynchroFile(just mentioned at the beginning of my Reality Checking column) describes a probable doppelganger account in chapter 8 of that book. (Hmmm…there’s chapter 8 again!) So indeed the potential connections and data can be found everywhere! This book is extremely challenging and thought-provoking, and no matter what your particular orientation or mindset, if you’re interested in mysteries and unexplained phenomena, or have any curiosity at all, then this book is an absolute must read! ________________________________________________________________ 2012, The Fourth Dimension: Book One of the Lyra Legacy Chronicles by Manda Trafford Publishing 2657 Wilfert Road Victoria, BC, Canada V9B 5Z3 Website: www.trafford.com http://www.manda2012.com 2007, 169 pages, ISBN: 142511755-4 Reviewed by Brent Raynes Chris Carter’s X-Files, though fiction, incorporated a great deal of the “real”, so to speak, into its show. That is to say, there was the abduction phenomenon, MIBs, even MUFON, plus an appearance in one of the shows by Art Bell himself! Sinister conspiracies lurked around virtually every corner of each episode and the material had all kinds of fictional elements borrowed from “real” fields of pursuit like ufology, but others as well, including cryptozoology, parapsychology, and just about any and all ologies of weirdness. 2012, The Fourth Dimension, does a lot of material borrowing too from the so-called “real world” for its fictional scenarios. However, it’s agenda is a little different and it’s generally geared toward a younger audience, ages 12 to adult, and is intended more as an educational exercise, complete with a long list of websites and published periodicals for the reader who may be curious and want more factual information. Essentially, the story revolves around a group of young boys and girls from five different families, of different cultural backgrounds, who get together to participate in a series of Cultural Enrichment Programs. You the reader join them on their journey of self-discovery as the delightful fictional characters in this novel learn about the “Earth Changes” as predicted by Gordon-Michael Scallion (heralded by Newsweek as a modern day Nostradamus), the potential significance of the end of the Mayan Calendar date for December 21, 2012, as well as Hopi spirituality, prophecy, the importance of UFO sightings over Hopi land, complete with illustrations taken from Hopi petroglyphs. Who were the Ant People that the Hopi described? Is it a coincidence that ancient drawings of them resemble the greys? What did the Hopi mean by the Fifth World? How did the Dogon culture of Africa know so much about the Sirius star system? Do the ancient dragon lines, stone circles, pyramids, spirit paths, and the many ancient megalithic sites around the world tell us anything about a powerful earth energy? What is geomancy? What insights did Plato and Pythagoras have into any of this? This book is an easy and enjoyable read, and an educational one at the same time. ________________________________________________________________ Dragons and Rings: Stone & Crop Circles, UFOs, & The Paranormal Quantum Theory — Put the Magick Into Your Life With Steve Mitchell Produced by Reality Films Available at: www.amazon.com www.realityentertainment.com www.soulpath.info 2008, 60 plus minutes DVD, $24.95 (USA) Reviewed by W. Ritchie Benedict The standing stones of Stonehenge have always been one of the ancient wonders of the world. Who built them and what purpose did they serve? An astronomical observatory, or something a good deal more mystical? This film is intended to illuminate some of those mysteries and illustrate how some very obstruse mathematical and scientific ideas may play a role. The idea that ancient monuments might be linked by invisible energy paths was promulgated by Alfred Watkins in the 1920s.These lines were known for centuries earlier however to the Chinese, who referred to them as “dragon paths.” In North America, the native people marked such locations with medicine wheels, believed to be centers of not only healing, but also supernatural occurrences. Dowsing, or water witching, is the ability to find hidden water, minerals and objects by the use of a forked stick. This ability seems to lie in the user’s consciousness rather than in any properties of the wood. The ley lines and the locale, however, do play a major role. Wilhelm Reich, whose experiments with orgone energy were often contentious in their day, did become alert to the possibility that strange and unknown events happened with regularity in certain areas, and that somehow this energy was responsible. To understand what is going on, we must consider the impact of individuals such as the French philosopher Rene Descartes (I think therefore I am), Maxwell and especially the geometry of Pythagoras. Mathematics shows us how a single point can generate all dimensions. Linear time is not as restricting as we suppose. Everyone and everything appears to be embedded in a matrix of energy. The energy we interact with is defined as physical, which it is. Various energy forms combine to form new configurations (this sounds much like sex!). The film supports the possibility that no Big Bang created the Universe, but that instead it is a hologram that has always existed and always will. Our perception intersects with a very small portion of total reality and when we suddenly observe something totally at odds with our perception, it seems to be magical and supernatural. At the very beginning, there was a sound, the Word, vibratory energy in other words. On the sub-atomic level Quarks seem to reflect our perceptions of what they are. It is impossible to know if they have any independent qualities apart from what we attribute to them. The world as we know it, is in effect an illusion, and humans are multidimensional creatures (as may be dogs and cats and many other life forms). The trouble is that we don’t know that we are. These dimensions may extend to the right and left of us, and above and below as well, although there is a point where such terms lose their relevance. By examining how crystals interact, we can finally reach an understanding of the real purpose of Stonehenge. The standing stones are part of a field structured on pre-existing ley lines, multi-dimensional energy nodes. The Central Stone, or King Stone, create right angled energy spaces that can act as a gateway, a gateway to the other realities mentioned above. The whole thing gives new meaning to the line in a popular song: “Let the circle be unbroken.” Of course, the circle has become unbroken with the decay of the standing stones of Stonehenge, some of which were deliberately removed in past centuries by farmers and those who had no understanding of the importance of the monoliths. There is good news and bad news regarding this production. The good news is that it conveys information about difficult subjects in a way that is easy for the average person to comprehend. The bad news is that it does tend to repeat visual depictions of the ancient stones and I found some of the subtitles to be a bit jittery when I watched them on a 17 inch screen. Nevertheless, the soundtrack should be singled out for its soothing music (which is also present in a short featurette). In short, this title is good, it does excite the imagination at some points, but some of the other films from the same company have been longer and stronger. A near miss perhaps, but worth watching nevertheless. ________________________________________________________________ The Viking Serpent By Harald S. Boehlke Reality Entertainment 2008, 92 minute DVD, $24.95 RYE: 1043 Reviewed by Brent Raynes This video documentary takes you the viewer on a breathtaking tour along the back roads of Norway where you’ll first meet author and researcher Harold S. Boehlke at his private and cozy little home nestled in a remote and forested region. He begins explaining about his thought-provoking research into the ancient history of this magnificent land, and then you travel with him as he takes you across this magical countryside to visit ancient Celtic churches, to sites that were at the very heart of ancient serpent worship. Boehlke will show you how he unraveled the symbolic language of these ancient people and how their sacred sites, drawn out on a map of the country, form a huge pentagram across the landscape. You’ll learn what Christianity’s three greatest symbols of evil, 666, the pentagram and the snake, all have in common. At the very center of this enormous geometric pentagram we find the ancient Gnostic serpent church of St. Thomas. Boehlke has given us much thought-provoking new information to ponder and again the imagery in this video of ancient sites and countryside is pretty awesome. | ||