still under construction
still under construction
The current incomplete page combines some of my earlier biographical material, and includes some new stuff. I'm writing it because I am no longer the same person as I was when I write the earlier material, and feel my (auto)biography should reflect where I am at the moment.
Writing a biography is something I have ambiguous feelings about. If there was not already this stuff on my website that needed revising, I would not do it at all. There is also the question of what to say and what not to say. In this biography, a number of things, including very important things in my life that have greatly shaped me, have been left unsaid. When the time is write I'll talk about them; probably not for a few years.
What we appear to be and what we often think we are is only the surface of a much deeper and larger existence. Most people live only in the surface of their beings; they are barely, if even at all, conscious of the depths within (and above, and around), and when they do receive flashes and intimations they call it God or Christ or Buddha or whatever.
The answer lies between and beyond secularism on the one hand, which only understands the surface (even if it does understand that very well, but its mistake is to assume that that is all that there is), and religionism, which is caught in literalist dogmas of some scripture or tradition, on the other.
Thus for anyone to write a biography properly, they would have to take into account past lives (which physicalist materialism doesnt believe in, nor do many religions), higher spiritual impulses that are at work (generally veiled) in the personality, the higher self and divine soul's activity and purpose for this personality, the semi-autonomous emotional-astral being, subconscious samskaras, miasmas inherited from one's parents (and they from theirs), racial memory, influences and formations from the subtle planes, spiritual and devic cosmecological evolutionary forces, and more, much more.
All these things fall outside the paradigm and dominant memesets of materialistic-reductionistic exoteric (not esoteric) judeochristian society
Without taking these things into account, anything that is written is ridiculous, a superficiality that appeals only to those who live in their outer or surface being. But if one does take thes ethings into account, then one risks being incomprehensible, because very often the thoughtform for these things does not exist, or if it does it is known only to the few, as part of an esotericist teaching.
In writing/updating my biography, I have tried to strike a balance between these two extremes
(Everyone has their own myth, whether they know it or not. And that myth is true, not fantasy (even if the motifs and forms it takes in the surface consciousness are imaginary). This is my myth.)
We all of us have many selves and many aspects and personalities, many selves or streams of consciousness; it is not just a simplistic evolutionary continuum, a linear sequence. Some of these lives and personalities are more spiritual or powerful, others more primitive, a few saintly, a few abhorrant, but most in between. It happens to everyone.
Here is the myth of one personality stream. "I" (inverted commas, because it wasn't "I" the current personality; the personality is mortal, the Divine Soul puts on a new personality with each life) am an exile, an outsider and an alien to this world and this universe, "I" have been exiled here to help, in whatever small way, in the spiritual transformation of the Earth. But unlike the gnostic mythos, there is no going back to "my" original home - "I" can only go forward. In almost every incarnation "I" have lived on the fringes of society, never quite fitting in, always contributing in some way or another. Perhaps becauise of the importance of the Work, or perhaps simply because of love of the challenge material existence, I have been keen to incarnate. Where many souls take rest for centuries between lifetimes, recovering from the trauma and hardship of physical life, I have rushed back in, keen to resume to work, sometimes two or three lifetimes in a century.
If the human side of "me" lived in "Atlantis" (regardless of whether Atlantis was on this Earth or some parallel reality) or in Ancient Egypt I don't yet have any memories, although there is my affiliation with the Kheper motif. The earliest civilisation of which "I" have clear association was Ancient Rome, reflecting perhaps my martial ideal.
Here is the myth of another personality stream. The non-human side of "me" has always been with the Earth, tracing and a part of Her transformations; I stilllove paleontology; it is the memory of the phylogeny of life on Earth. It is this life as a whole that will inherit the Divine, not just one arrogant species, H. sapiens, no, it is this life, the biosphere as a whole that will be transmuted to partake in the Supramental Transformation, the Divine Life on Earth.
Here is another myth. I (this life, so no inverted commas) used to think in these previous lives "I" was alone (alone but not lonely), but I (due to limited experience, limited knowledge, and limited awakening) was mistaken, because "I" wasn't. There are many working for the Divine Victory, and two integral avatars who have blazed the trail. "I" was never alone. And "you" - in whatever path "you" take, were and are never alone either.
In attuning to my past lives, I have picked up traces - whether pure imagination, metaphysical fact, or more likely some combination of the two - of many past lives. i used to believe that these were all part of a single stream or continuum; i now no longer consider this to be so. In fact the idea of a single continuum, moving from past to future, a la Hinduism, Theosophy, etc , I now consider simplistic and rationalistic.
For one thing, linear time does not seem to apply on the subtle levels (Robert Monroe illustrates this in his astral experiences - see e.g. 
Far Journeys p.83 ). Hence (from one perspective), all incarnations are in a sense simultaneously (Jane Roberts Seth material, need ref), or (from another) they follow their own particular logic
For another thing, these various lives do not necessarily belong to the same personality stream. They are many streams, and the present personality can resonate with all of them, some more strongly than others.
So for example I had a life as a citizen of ancient Rome, another as a Gnostic, another as a Mongol, several in China, several in India (one for example as a Jain), and so on. With one exception, all the lives were human.
More recently there was a life as a Polish Kabbalist in the late 18th/early 19th century; because of a wrong attitude (this person wasn't very spiritual) he died prematurely (perhaps late 30s???). Significantly, lots of Kabbalists seem to die at around 40 (Moses Luzzatto, Isaac Luria), so did Suhrawardi; in astrology this is the "Uranus transit".
There was a life as a 19th century English gentleman-scholar, philosopher theologian and naturalist,perhaps dorset way (where there are a lot of fossils in the cliffs, e.g. Lyme Regis); he seems to have lived off a comfortable fortune. He may have even travelled to India, a country "I" have a strong link to, and was greatly impressed by the experience. But he was not sufficiently considerate or sensitive in my dealings with another; he "played by the book", doing what he thought was right, but he should of listened to his Heart instead. I (personality in this life) know this because of my karma in this life.
I wish I could say I had a life with Max Theon and his Cosmic Group, but I don't feel that I did. Or if I did i don't recall it.
There was a life in the early to mid 20th century, as a German Soldier who was killed early in World War II. He was a big guy, but he abused his physical strength, and his ideology leaved a lot to be desired. But he was intelligent and thoughtful too. His last thought was "Next time I want to understand the meaning of things, how this came about".
It is said that one's thought at the moment of death determines one's next life time. Because of that, I (personality in this life) have dedicated this life to understanding. And also to growing spiritually, and working through "my" karma. "I" have gathered so much karma in so many lives, now is the time for it to be finally transmuted
I was born in East London, South Africa to non-religious Jewish parents (my mother was agnostic, my father, a deist). My mother was born in Poland; all my grandparents are from the region of Poland-Belorus-Russia (the borders keep changing). My maternal grandfather (who I always felt a very strong connection with though he died when i was only little) travelled widely (including to America and Argentina), and lived through the Russian revolution and saw the atrocities first hand. He could see how 
Kerensky's weakness at not having Lenin killed when he had him in prison led to ultimately to the deaths of millions. During the 1940s and early 1950s, when intellectuals all loved and worshipped Stalin, my grandfather would say about his portrait "look at those eyes, those schemi8ng murdering eyes". He later wrote two books based on the tragedy of the communist revolution in powerful and moving Russian (my grandmother said reading it brought tears to her eyes), unfortunately the original Russian manuscripts were since lost and all that remain are very poor translations in broken English.
Both my parents had university degrees (my mother, an extremely talented woman who was creative in music (piano) and dance, had two degrees, one in psychology, and one in law). East London was the town where (well, near which) the 
first live coelacanth was found, twenty years before. The coelacanth, a "living fossil" barely changed since the age of dinosaurs, and previously considered extinct (ironically, it is currently threatened by overfishing and climate change, what a tragedy that would be!). Considering my connection with the history of life on Earth, this is an interesting synchronicity
I remember only snatches of my time in South Africa. My mother told me that when I was two I could read the alphabet; she would put me on the shop counter (my grandparents owned a shop) and would hold up the letters and I'd read them and everyone would be amazed. My parents, who disliked the apartheit regime, emigrated to Australia when I was 4. We lived in Pymble, Sydney, where at first I was happy, and drew precocious pictures of trains (with Thomas the Tank Engine type face, although this was before Thomas the Tank Engine, in 1962), showing artistic perspective. I was, as much as I remember, loud, active, and an extravert.
At age five something happened; a part of life force, or maybe it was my orectic personality, left, and from that moment on I became shy, introverted, physically small and weak for my age, asthmatic, and stuttering. Also my drawings were no longer happy steam trains showing perspective, but - when I drew a train, it was sleek, fast, cold and ahrimanic. My mother says this was because I had to do repetitious colouring in at school (kindegarden), which screwed upmy creativity. I don't remember anything of the first year at school.
Neverthelss, all my creativity and spiritual soul had not departed. I was still, in these early years, interested in things like UFOs and ghosts and haunted houses, science fiction, the idea of time travel, dinosaurs, prehistoric life, palaeontology, shell collecting, and in nature and science in general. All these things really stirred my imagination. My mother bought me some of the 
How and Why Wonder Books, a truly excellent series of books that introduced a generation of kids to the wonders of knowledge and the universe (this was in the days when people still read books). I cannot remember when I started what would eventually accumulate over the years a large shell and fossil collection, maybe I was 4 or 5.
There is another thing to mention. From a young age I remember my parents used to argue a lot; theirs was an unhappy union, but they stayed together because it those days that is what one did (baby boomers changed all that). There was never physical violence thank god, only - as befits unhappiness between two intelligent individuals - verbal abuse from both sides. Later on I noticed there would be on average five shouting matches a day. If you grow up in a home without love between the beings that made you, it does affect you, although I only became aware of this much later. I don't blame my parents for this; both their lives were tragic, each in their own way. Each of them deserved better; each of them deserved love. But they too were caught in the web of karma, and to work out their own lives, their own karmas, just I have had to mine.
One of the happiest times in my life was the 9 months we spent in Grafton, in 1967. Okay I hated going to school as always, but for the rest, I love the tropics (well, subtropics, Gradfton is in northern NSW), and hope to move north one day. At that time my eyes suddenly got weak. It was because my mother was giving me anti-asthma drugs and they were screwing up my eyes. My uncle told her to stop immediately, and she did, and my eyes stopped deteriorating, but I'm still short sighted. I owe my uncle the gift of my sight, and also, in a strange way, Sri Aurobindo. In fact my uncle, Rubin Levin, was the eccentric of the family, I always felt a special closeness with him (and with my maternal grandfather in South Africa, who died when I was still little).
We left Grafton because my father's boss at work, a guy named Korf (I never met him), was an antisemitic arsehole who made my father's life on the job hell. My poor father would come home from work and rage about Korf this and Korf that. I don't know if he's alive or dead by now, but if he's dead I won't shed a tear. But yes, karma again (because in my last life I was on the side of the nazis in WW II)
We moved back to Sydney (Artarmon this time). I used to love playing in the quarry down the hill. I still hated school. My parents made me go to Judo classes for self-defence, which I also (being not very physical) hated. At the same time I retained and strengthened my interest in the history and evolution of life; my mother would buy me increasinglk more advanced books on dinosaurs and prehistoric life which I would study eagerly.
.Here is something strange. Over a period of several years when I was about 10 to 12 or so I went through that religious phase where I was very religious and liked thinking about God, but never in a fundamentalist way. e.g. I thought (after my father had once said this in a conversation) "maybe God is a machine" and thought what a Divine Machine might be like, things like that. But I believed in God and really loved Him/Her/It (mostly I thought of God as an It, I never ever in my life believed in an anthropomorphic God, not even when I was 10 or so) and would even every evening at one point pray to It, not to ask for anything, but simply to Thank It. My heart filled with love and joy when I did that.
When I was about 11 my father got a job with the Water Resources Commission in Deniliquin (country NSW) so we moved to the country. By about age 13 or 14 or so I had totally lost interest in God, I just stopped thinking about and praying to It. Then I went though a phase for a few years where I was a vehement materialist and atheist. By now I was reading more advanced textbooks on paleontology; my favourite books were those by American paleontologist Edwin Colbert, such as The Age of Reptiles and on Dinosaurs and vertebrate paleontology (Dr Colbert actually introduced an entire generation of students to the wonders of paleontology; I wrote a short bio on him on Wikipedia). I also would draw "evolution charts"; I was fascinated by the concept of phylogeny (although I didn't know the word, I just would say "evolution") and how one species or genus evolves into another over time. I rember seeing in a book in the library once (the title of which I did not recall) drawings of prehistoric South American Ground Sloths etc to scale, arranged vertically by time and connected by lines; this one image had a huge effect on me and I tried to emulate it in all my evolution charts (which would mostly be about Mesozoic reptiles). I had a kid's microscope but it was enough to reveal the microcosm of life in a pond; a wonder that has always remained. At the same time I had very little social life and didn't relate to other kids; essentially my only social life was through friends of my brother (my brother - who is four years younger than me - being the one who is more competant and grounded). This is due to the fact that my physical and especially emotinal development always lagged behind, whereas my intellectual development and imagination was very advanced.
At the same time, my alienation was so great that I remember thinking at this time that I really might be a martian.
I used to read to superhero comics which I would get at the local coner shop 2nd hand - mostly black and white DC comics because they were cheaper, but I really preferred Marvel. There is something about comics and geeks. I also read a lot of science fiction, essentially science fiction books of my father's (he and I shared a love of SF, and he absolutely raved over Asimov, considering the Foundation Series the most brilliant books ever written), or ones that he got from the library
Having seen the effects of both communism and nazism, the twin demons that afflicted Europe during the 20th century, my parents had an entrenched political conservatism that was however common to people of that generation. Thus I grew up thinking that " Labour was too communist" and that the peace movement was a KGB front. Representative of this time was Michael Barnard, a columnist of the Age at the time who had a typically McCarthyist type worldview, he once referred to the Friends of the Earth, who used to (and perhaps still do) go by the unfortunate acronym FoE, as "the aptly named FOE". My mother however despised the National Party (country party) for their love of guns and hunting.
When I was fourteen or fifteen, my uncle, in a letter to my mother which she read out to me, said that he felt it was "his destiny" to tell me about Sri Aurobindo, He also mentioned a "French lady" who had taken over the task of leadership of the ashram. This was either in 1972 or early 1973, I don't recall. The Mother passed away later in 1973, but it was when she was still alive. I was at the time still too immature and materialistic in outlook to appreciate what my uncle was saying. Even so, the memory fragment has stayed with me.
My mother was - due to my uncle (who, remember, saved my sight) - into naturopathy. When she was 50 she contracted breast cancer - this was due to her - in her unhappy marriagae - not being able to have the opportunity to express love, keeping all those feelings pent up inside. She used alternative healing techniques to heal it, despite having to put up my father shouting at her "if my foot's gangrenous, I'd cut it off!". I was too young and emotionally immature and self-absorbed to understand, she had no-one except for her brother, my uncle. He didnt know much either, he advised her to go to a quack healer whose name I now forget who put her on a distilled water fast. The world is full of quacks; it was then (in the mid 1970s) and it is now. She even had her breast cut off, but refused radiation treatment (I cannot recall for certain if it was radiation or chemotherapy, but it was the follow-up at the time, I think it was radiation, because I only became aware of the word "chemotherapy" much later). In the end she somehow cured herself, despite the fact that after having a masectomy but without radiation treatment she was worrse off than she would've been if she had never had the operation, through a combination of natural food, wheatgrass, meditation and creative visualisation (she corresponded with and met 
Ainslie Meares, and had the greatest respect for him). One often hears of cases of people who contract cancer and use alternative methods and still die. My mother is proof that one can heal oneself. In fact I think that the mass media, conservative as it is, loves to publicise cases of the failures of alternative healing, while ignoring cases of its success.
At about 17 or 18 or so I read a book called "Three Magic Words" about the Power of creative visualisation and positive thinking, which spoke about the Universal Mind, and with references to Jesus etc, but as an example of someone who had reached this level, not religious preaching. The three magic words are, you guessed it, "You are God" Anyway I thought this book was pretty neat (now i'd just think ah yeah another creative visualisation book, without even esoteric insights into planes of consciousness etc, but at the time it was all knew). So by this time I had outgrown my atheistic materialism. Also around this time, when I was 18 or so, I read Life after Life ( Wikipedia page), by Raymond Moody (near death experiences) ; it made a big impression on me.
I was also at this time - yeah this is dumb - became very superstitious and scared of things like tarot cards, dabbling in the occult, etc. Even though I knew that was fundamentalist Christian propaganda and fear-mongering, I guess my subconscious was susceptible. So I was interested, but also superstitious.
When I was 19, I moved down to Melbourne. I was tired of living in a small country town and wanted to live in the big city, and Melbourne was the nearest big city to Deniliquin. At this time I was still extremely emotionally immature and arrogant. I rteurned home a few times and then back to Melbourne. When I was 19 I went to the second Confest, in 1977, at Mt. Oak near Bredbo,
but was again much too young and immature to appreciate it spiritually, although obviously I thought the naked girls looked cute! I rember Jim Cairns gave a talk, in which he raged against Kerr's sacking of Whitlam (that was the only thing I remember, although he said other things too. I met Cairns and his wife briefly at a much later Confest when he was quite elderly; I felt and feel he was a very decent man).
At some point, I can't remember when exactly, I was in Sydney (where my uncle lived with his mother my grandmother in Waverton, on the North Shore) and we (him, my mother, my younger brother and myself) were driving around in his little van when I saw some student grafitti about anarchism equally freedom or some such. At the time, my thinking was still determined by simplistic anti-communism and Michael Barnardism, and I made some disparaging remark at that. My Uncle said "You've got a lot to learn Martin" ("M." in my name means "Martin"). In a rare moment of humility I replied "I know I have." Perhaps impressed by my reply, he said "and that's the first thing to learn, that you have a lot to learn." It would however probably be another couple of years before my thinking switched from right-wing conservative to leftist environmental.
At around age 20, I bought a book called "What the Great Religions Believe" which was just a very simple book with a chapter on each faith. I was most attracted to Buddhism and Hinduism I guess; the concept of karma, reincarnation, godhead etc (although these were described in very simple terms). By this time I wanted to be a writer, and tried broadening my reading away from SF to general action like Alistair MacLean and Frederick Forsythe, although I could never enjoy that genre as much as science fiction.
Then one day - I was about 20 - I was thinking about all this stuff, when I just thought to myself, "why should I be scared of tarot cards? I don't believe in the Christian devil (or the Christian god)". And with that one thought (or something like that, I don't remember exactly, this was 27 years ago :-) , the scales fell from before my eyes (as St Paul said), and I could see clearly, and I understood everything, such as that the Godhead is within (as the Three Magic Words book said), and that what the fundamentalists say with their fear-mongering is all garbage, and it's ok to study all these things. So I just bought books and started reading, and have never looked back.
It's pretty funny looking back at this now - I guess (re my fear of tarot cards and "dabbling in the occult") that these were residual samskaras from a past life (perhaps as an English Gentleman-Naturalist) where I used occultism negatively. Add to that the whole collective miasma of fear created by the Christian Church; especially the Catholic Church, where all those revolting Omen and Exorcist films emanate from; the whole aura of fear and obsession these people have is incredible! And if you are susceptable, but not yet awakened esoterically, it is very easy to get sucked in with this sort of thing, and so to connect with those "lower astral" realities.
At this time I had a friend called Daniel, a young Yugoslav guy (this was when there was still a Yugoslavia; he would be Croatian now), who was schizophrenic and hyperactive, but a really nice guy, not at all intelligent but very feeling centered, tall, social and emotionally developed and easy going, extravertive and talkative, obsessed with sex, and would go on all the time about things like how long his dick was, which I really wasn't interested in hearing about. He was the opposite of me who was (and still am) short, intense, moody, intellectual, private, emotionally backward (not now, but then). Because my name was Martin he used to call me "Little Luther", or just "Luther", after " Martin Luther KIng". But because I used to read superhhero comics as a kid I would think of Lex Luther, the evil scientist who was Superman's nemesis, which was sorta cool in a way, because Superman used to anoy me, he was always so squeaky clean. Anyway Daniel and I used to walk the streets of Melbourne together, a bit like Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight in 
Midnight Cowboy. He was one of my few close friends, although we were quite opposite in almost all respects.
Once when we were walking down Swanston Street we saw this guy on a soapbox (well, one of those plastic milkcrates) outside the town hall. Anyway we stopped and listened and he was talking about things like spirituality and so on. The guy's name was Michael, he was only a young guy in his twenties, but very serious-minded. A Christian in the true sense, he wanted to encourage people to do good deeds, and had gathered a small group around him. I would go to the city to listen and talk, and this was the trigger that made me decide I should go to university, where there would be many other such intelligent young people.
I was 21 when I finally went to La Trobe University, Melbourne where after some indecision I decided on an Arts degree, majoring in Philosophy. The best thing about La Trobe was their huge (by the standards I had previously known) library. It was at this time, in 1979, that I first became really interested in states of consciousness, comparative religion, mysticism, occultism, esotericism and spiritual philosophy. This was when I was reading and studying Jung, the Willhelm-Baynes edition of the I Ching, the Evans Wentz edition of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and books on Occultism and Hermeticism, such as McGregor Mathers' the Key of Solomon the King, and Dion Fortune's The Mystical Qabalah
The initial obligatory marijuana-addled student experience gave me only a few interesting experiences. The most intriguing (indeed one of the most fascinating experiences of my life) was one where I was able to see the fourth spatial dimension by manipulating pens (I had to use 6 pens, plus my thumb for the seventh axis), which raised my consciousness moved me into a another state of consciousness where I was challenged by a 60 cm (thereabouts) wide crab in the corner of my room, by the front door; which was angrily clicking its claws (it had small claws like a spider crab, although the body was large and flat and round). I suppose the creature was angry because I had imposed on its domain. I saw and heard it for perhaps 5 or ten seconds, then it disappeared. This was not a "hallucination"; (of course the whole subject of hallucinations is problematic from a phenomenological point of view; it is just an excuse materialist sceptics use) I had had a "hallucination" on marijuana (incvolving both sound and visuals) and this was different. Rather, this petained to an actual realm close to the physical, what i now call the Subtle Physical. Later I would read of an LSD experience involving ."hallucinations" of insects; then there is Franz Kafka's metamorphoses; so it is evident this is a genuine realm. Science-fiction writers (especuially pop sci fi) who also write or make movies about giant insects are also tapping into the same realm.
Unfortuantely, marijuana accentuated my stutter big time. A good friend and fellow-student at the time, a guy called Lindsay Gawain (I've probably spelt his name wrong) who was in a rock band, was surprised by this, he thought i would be able to talk better by feeling more relaxed. But in fact drugs made me became more tense and introverted). When I got to the stage when I would open my mouth and could literally not make a single sound come out, I mean it, I couldn't make a sound, I knew it was time to forget drugs and get seriously into meditation. Unfortunately, I had and still have problems when meditating with obsessional thoughts (what William Sargant in Battle for the Mind; A physiology of conversion and brain-washing calls "ultra-paradoxical" thinking. If I didn't have this resistence that comes up every time I try to meditate, I might be very advanced by now. Or maybe I would be no different to how I am now, as it is very easy to be lazy.
In the next year, 1980, I began taking classes on phenomenology from Moshe Kroy and Indian philosophy from Ian Kesecardi-Watson. It was probably also that year (unless it was in 1979), that I encounterd essays by Ken Wilber in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, and a little later his books Spectrum of Consciousness and
The Atman Project : A Transpersonal View of Human Development. Also in 1980 I began for the first time reading the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, which exerted a huge influence on me. I began buying more esoteric books, to pursue these subjects more deeply
Moshe exerted a big influence on my thinking at the time, although he would later come to a tragic end, an example of what happens if you embark on the spiritual path without humility and guidance. But when I knew him in the early years of the 1980s he was at his peak, a charismatic powerhouse. He would come into his lectures and speak at a thousand words a minute (well, it sounded like it!), and everyone would go, huh, what? He influenced many, I am sure. At the time he was right into Sathya Sai Baba, an Indian Guru who would later become notorious for sexual abuse of his devotees. I knew nothing of this then, nor would I believe it when I did, as I had a very naive view of gurus. Moshe was very persuasive in telling me about Sai Baba, and I was very niave and immature, and wanted to believe all the stories about miracles and so on. I feel that, as with Evangelical Christianity, Sai Baba attracts a very emotionally immature class of devotee; the sort of people who wants to believe in a big daddy who waves a magic wand and grants their every request. So Moshe introduced me to Sai Baba, who I became enthusiastic about, while I introduced him to Sri Aurobindo, who he became enthusiastic about. At some time, Moshe also travelled to America and met Wilber; the two got on famously, and Wilber would later give a fairly accurate account of Moshe's philosophy in Boomeritis.
In late 1981 I connected with Barry Pittard, an important Sai Baba devotee who lived in Sydney. Barry seemed to me be a very spiritual and authentioc person. I don't recall how I got his contact details when I was in Melbourne; perhaps it was through Moshe. Latter Barry would be among many important devotees who would break with Sai Baba, but at the time all this was still in the future, and we all beleived that Sai Baba's claim that he wasthe avatar of the age. Barry orhganised for me to travel to India with a small group of other western devotees, including both newcomers like myself and old-timers. This was in the summer (northern winter) of 1981/82. We visited Sai Baba's two ashrams, one in Puttaparti and the other, Whitefield, at Bangalore. I had a really amazing, fantastic experience in India. Bangalore was a really nice city too; I don't know what it is like now. It was the only place I saw young Indian women in jeans rather than saris. After a month I left the Sai Baba group and travelled around the south. I can tell you that a tourist stop-off called Kovalam Beach sucks, the Indians I encountered there have become ugly through grasping at the ugly young drugfucked western hippy tourists. (to be fair there were also some friendly Indians, some helped me find seashells, but lost interest when i couldn't give them money). I couldn't wait to get out of the place. I dobn't even want to imagine how bad Goa must be. So I went further south,. I stayed for a few weeks at Cape Kumari, the southern most tip of the country, and my favourite placxe. I would go collecting sea shells, I went in the local temple (if you were a guy you had to remove your shirt, the HIndus were quite stroppy about it), saw a genuine sadhu, I mean a real yogi, meditating motionless, had lots of fresh grape juice, and even looked at some small dung beetles playing in the dirt by the beach. the scarab of course is sacred to me, but an Indian walking past didnt understand, and said "they are dirty creatures" and with my stutter and shyness I couldn't be bothered explaining.
In 1984 I went to the "Sky to Earth" alternative festival in the Daylesford area. ("Billed as ‘Australia’s first National Occult and Alternatives ConFest’, Unicorn Star Enterprises’ Sky to Earth ConFest, a non-DTE event held at Glenlyon in 1984" - Graham St John, 
Alternative Cultural Heterotopia: ConFest as Australia’s Marginal Centre ). It was organised by a local group of the OTO (who follow Crowley) and was absolutely amazing, far more inspiring than the Down to Earth Confest. They had some really great speakers, and one guy gave me a Christios past life session, where I tuned to a Roman era Gnostic or Christian? life. In this, we were having some meeting when a bunch of soldiers burst in and killed everyone, including my lover whose throat was slashed. I don't know if it was real or fantasy, but the guy suggested that's why I have a stutter now. Anyway, at this time I still had a lot of bittreness and negativity, I remeber one hippy style woman ca,e up to me and said I shouldn't be so negative. That annoyed me because I didn't feel negative, it must have shown in my aura and on my face. Anyway, I must've been negative because I started coming down with a bad cold (I can't recall if this was after or before this hippy female had approached me). I knew once I had a cold I would be screwed, I would be sick as a dog the whole weekend. I prayed desperately to Sai Baba, then I felt his astral presence (it was definitely his aura, that is the sense of a personality that I felt when looking at his picture or reading stuff about him) and his hands grabbed the yuck (the congestion whatever) and took it away. I could sense it on the astral. This was no illusion. From that moment on my cold receded and the next day I was better. Since at the time I tended to get very bad headcolds this was unusual, and it has never happened before or since.
At Sky to Earth I met Tim Hartridge, a pagan, who had a group called Dark Circle. While Tim has been criticised by some other pagans (there is a lot of factionalism in the wiccan/neopagan subculture), I found him to be a really decent guy, and a true friend. He lived in Sydney, where I visted him a few times.
In the mid to late 80s and early 90s, I lived an alternative life, associating with like-minded friends who combined spiritual consciousness with political activism. I went to alternative gatherings, several confests, the free Vegetarian meals at the Hare Krishna temple in Dank Street Albert Park on Sunday, and to one of Tim's pagan gatherings (called Eostre Gathering) where I met some really great people.
I had moved to the formerly bohemian, but now increasingly gentrified and trendy suburb of St Kilda. where my mother bought me a flat. At the time I thought this was a good decision but I can see now it locked me in to one location. For a person who loves freedom, that is no good. Indeed, it brought great suffering. Yet I always had this self-destructive side of making bad decisions. Ultimately I would have to suffer, in order to grow spiritually.
I had already spent years (both at Uni and after) studying esoteric philosophies. I work best on my own, and I'd say that 99% of what I've learned has been self-taught, through my own reading and contemplation. For years I practiced meditation and worked on self-transformation. I would sometimes go to groups, but every group I went to felt constricting. So it was more of a social; thing for me, I didn't need to learn anything spiritually
From 1987 to 1990 I produced, with my friend Steven Guth (who I had met a few years earlier), a magazine called Eco-Gnosis, providing a forum for ideas concerning a synthesis of spirituality, esoteric-occult knowledge, and planetary activism. I would distribute it at Confests, and elsewhere. It ran for eleven issues, but production was halted when I lost the use of the cheap photocopying facilities.
In the end I had to stop going to ConFests, because the incessant marijuana use there made it impossible to do anything other than walk around in a drugfucked haze. Truly, this is where the alternative movement lost the boat. Rather than become a force for transformation, they became a force for drug-addled inertia. This would later inspire in me the idea of an authentic alternative community, free of drugs. So far however I have gotten very littrle response
My other big project at the time (beginning in the mid 1980s) was a book on esoteric-occult cosmology, an integrated map of all possible states of existence, which flowed naturally from my meditation and study of of esoteric philosophies. I had been immersed in the study of comparative esotericism long enough that I felt I could and should write a book. I had left university (havings tayed on too long) and didn't know what to do with my life, except present my own unified theory of reality. This would be a universal involutionary (pertaining to the decent of the Absolute into matter) and evolutionary cosmology which would explain all states of existence. Although the central orientating perspective was that of Integral Yoga philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, I also followed the "perennialist" thesis that Reality can be understood through studying the different interpretations and misinterpretations in various spiritual teachings, thus arriving at a common truth. I hoped to show how the various esoteric and occult philosophies were all talking basically about the same thing.
The book was never completed, because I kept changing and revising my ideas in the process of writing them down. In the process of writing them down I would also rethink them, and hence have to further rewrite them. You can imagine it got pretty frustrating after a while! Ultimately I was still working on the level of the "middle mental", guided by flashes of inspiration from the Higher Mind. I knew that many of the current esoteric-philosophical systems were deficient, being too culturally or dogmatically limited. But I didn't yet know enough to provide a replacement.
At some point in the early 1990s I am ashamed to say I decided to let my meditation go, because I wanted to experience a "normal" life. As a result my consciousness went right down. This was a real screw up. So I can assure you, if you are into meditation, that it is incomparably preferable to the so-called normal life (and what is normal anyway)
I will say however how thankful I am to my friend Dee, who in the two years we were together in a relationship, helped me to develop my E.Q., so I didn't look like an out-of-place hippy (though maybe i still dress like a slob at times).
Around this period, I spent several years addicted to computer games. I spent at least 18 months addicted to Sid Meier's Civilization. Can you imagine, doing nothing but playing Civilization for 18 months? A bizarre experience.
 A picture of me, late 1990s. Sorry about the red-eye flash thing. This is me at the helm of Enterprise. |
For some time (in the 1990s) I tried writing science fiction (especially cyberpunk), this was no more successful completion-wise as any other projects. Here is chapter one, which I made into a self contained short story. Except for very minor changes this material dates from around 1994 or 1995, and was inspired by my reading of Jeff Noon ( Vurt), William Gibson (Neuromancer), Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting), and other such writers . Currently I have yet to finish a novel, and it is most unlikely I will do so in the foreseeable future, as I have so many other things happening at the moment.
I also started writing a paleontology book (although I never finished that thing either!).
I have always had a bad speech impediment and circa 1997 or so completed the first stage of the McGuire program, which gives amazing results, much better and more natural than the smooth speech technique - and I can strongly recommend it to anyone at all who has a problem with stuttering and associated lack of self-esteem etc. And even though for a number of reasons of my own (I couldn't afford the hotel accomodation, little as it was; there wasn't much motivation for me since I don't work in an office job or anywhere like that where you have to talk to people; and I cannot function in any sort of real life group - good or bad!) I didn't follow it up, my speech now somewhat better than it was. However, since I very rarely socialise, and since most of my communications are on-line, it is no big deal now whether I stutter or not, so it is no longer the issue it once was.
I late 1996 I finally went online, and here was an opportunity to do something with all those incomplete book chapters. It would be some time before I finally posted all my unfinished and half-finished fragments up as web pages. A metamorphosis from static print (or at least wordprocessed) media to dynamic Internet media. This has turned out a much bigger task then I thought, because the material has to be edited and converted to HTML, and various links chased up. The result was the Kheper website, although some it has been edited or added to since. I had by this time given up the idea of writing a big picture explanation of everything. If you want to read what's here so far, start at the "reality" index page.
I set up my first website in May 1998; this was the original Kheper site. Over the years this has grown greatly, and branched out into several other sites. I have always had an attraction for really grand projects, and each of the three sites I maintain and participate in are huge innovative endevours; one, Kheper, an encyclopaedic coverage of esoteric knowledge, one, Palaeos, a comprehensive overview of the history and evolution of life on Earth, truely the "greatest story ever told", and one, Orion's Arm, a revolutionary project in hard SF worldbuilding. Originally they were all part of the Kheper website, but as the size of each project increased, and also I could see that my own perspective is just one among many, I ended up going into partnership with like-minded friends, and arranging with them to have seperate servers, so each project is a distinct shared endevour.
Me looking philosophical - 2003 |
 Some of my room, 2003. Books, photocopies, and potted plants. Yep, my room is a mess! I have heaps more books in the hallway and living room, but unfortunately the cable on the webcam (which i used for the screen capture) doesnt extend very far, so for now there are only pictures of my room |
In this period I used to (and still do) sometimes ride my bike along the foreshore.
For a while I (around 2000 - 2004 or so) I was working on Kheper I am currently working with Steven Guth, with Palaeos with Toby White, and with Orion's Arm the other folks of the Orion's Arm Worldbuilding Group.
Beginning in 2004 I worked on a new Integral Paradigm and Theory of Everything that will provide a framework ffor explaining all possible states of conscious and existence, all phenomena, all things, and so on. This is a very hedgehogish activity; the last person who tried something like this was (and is) the American transpersonalist-integralist philosopher Ken Wilber (see his "AQAL" Integral philosophy).
By November 2005 I thought it was about time I did something about getting some work in print! So I am now giving a much higher priority to my writing. I did intend to start a sci fi novel, classic "hard science" space opera, set in the Orion's Arm universe, but that project fell by the wayside. I did however start Am currently working on an esoteric book, which I tentativeely entitled Towards Esoteric Metaphysics, inspired by my Integral Paradigm ideas. Because of limitations of time, and other reasons, I closed the Kheper forum (or rather renamed it; it is no longer associated with this website), but if at some future time my books are successful and encourage discussion, then I will restart the group (or a new group)
By December 2005 I renamed the book will be entitled Towards an Integral (or Integrative) Metaphysic, or - because it will have more cosmology than metaphysics - Towards an Integral Cosmology. The book, inpired by the "theory of everything" approach of the Integral theory of Ken Wilber (but also pointing out many of Wilber's failings) will present a new paradigm and understanding of reality, beyond both physicalism and religionism, and also rejecting the chaivisnism, sexism, and specism of traditional esotericism
Around May 2006 I started a blog at Zaadz, which I write entries in from time to time.
I am writing a long essay that will refute Wilberian thought and abusive guruism from an esoetric and Aurobindonian perspective. Following Wilber's famous outburst, I lost interest in him (although I still consider him an important figure in terms of being a catalyst for the Integral Movement, but not comparable to Sri Aurobindo, Teilhard, etc). However most of my essay is finished so I might as well complete it, then I can return to my book. The process of writing this essay has been very useful because it has helped me clarify my thinking, and move beyond the limited mental sphere that had previously determined my outlook, and more from the spiritual and divine perspective. The book has been renamed again, tentative title Evolution, Metamorphosis, and Divinisation, tentative summary here. It will be based on the the "Integral Yoga" of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, although also bringing in other esoteric systems of thought. For me spirituality has to be about transformation in this world, not a flight to an otherwirldly nirvana, which solves none of the Earth's problems. The individual spiritual transformation has to extend out to the collective consciousness and the Earth as a whole (and ultimately beyond that to the Cosmos as a whole)
In July 2006 I started a new blog at Blogger com.
From late 2006 to early 2007, two very significant things happened to me; spiritual initiations so to speak. The first was seeing Gangaji . In November 2006 I went to two of her "satsangs" - I always feel a bit embarrassed at the way that Westerner's appropriate these Indian terms, a sort of New Age "cultural cringe" - which were held just up the road from me. In her photo I had sensed an amazing light radiating from her, and this was even stronger in person (this is on the subtle level). The teaching didn't do anything for me (I did say some nice things about her in my Zaadz blog, but that's more in relation to her Light); they are very simplistic. I'm not saying they are wrong, just they represent one path, a very simplistic formulation, and not even representative of Advaita as a whole. But what affected me was not the teaching, but rather the light that shines from her. Gangaji didn't do anything deliberately, yet I received something. This Light I assume she received from Papaji, and Papaji from Ramana Maharshi
And the thing is, it was and is Ramana's Light. In this manner, Ramana Maharshi, who is the ultimate source of this Light, became my Guru, along with Sri Aurobindo and The Mother (yes there is no reason why wone cannot have several gurus, and honour all of them equally!).
And Ramana's presence, and the connection with Ramana, has been constant. So I know he is an avatar, a sadguru.
The second, and more recent transformation, was in the start of Februrary, when I did a Theta Magic course led by Simon Rose. This really made me revise all my defeatist beliefs, and understand the way that Thought shapes Reality (and not just our psychological subjective reality, but also objective reality; everything is interconnected). In a way it was a perfect complement to Ramana; Ramana represents the gentle principle of love and non-action, the witness, theta magic, and magic in general, represents the power of action, the shakti, and these two are both equally principles and aspects of the Supreme that have to be reconciled; as they are in Sri Aurobindo and The Mother's path of Integral Yoga
I had a "high" for about a week or more after the course, then itreceded. Intriguingly, the theta presence is not constant the way it is with Ramana; I have to work at it. This is just another aspect of the polarity. But also I had to make it my own (because it is belief work, so it has to fit with my beliefs if I am to use it). I refer to my own practice with this now as theta work, rather than Theta Healing. I'm just using the term "theta" for convenience, as I've already merged the technique with my own revelation based on elements of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother's teachings.
But regardless, I've been using this to transforming my subconscious, clearing out all the built-up dregs and self-limitations I've imposed on myself and built up throughout this lifetime, and which also would include inherited miasmas and past life samskaras, as well as astral-physical attachments etc. All this stuff has to be cleared out, and can be cleared out. This technique is proof of that. The amazing thing is that there are other very similar techniques around. Bruce Lipton bases his book Biology of Belief on something called PSYCH-K which as far as I can see is almost identical to Theta Healing but without the latter's religious element (both use kinesology-type muscle testing, almost identical affirmations (abundance affirmations, which are standard across the New Age movement), NLP type reprogramming of the subconsciousness, and so on). But on the other end of the spectrum, A Course in Miracles represents the religious element of Faith Healing. The Alice Bailey -inspired Rainbow Bridge material also has areas of similarities too. So all this has given me a new insight, respect, and understanding for many different teachings and practices.
I've also decided that I need to spend more time working on my books, and less time on-line, otherwise I'll never get my books finished!
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Bonnie and me. Bonnie was a beautiful Rhode Island Red hen who taught me a great deal about the sensitivity if animals. This photo was taken in July 2007 |
I have a great spiritual love of the animal kingdom which is why I reject anthropocentrism, and are a vegan.)
(More needs to be added. A lot has happened in 2008 and I have changed a great deal)
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