Dying to be Me. Incredible!

Marcus T Anthony's new web site and blog can be found at: is www.mind-futures.com.

The universe works in mysterious ways. 

Last week I was out and about with my wife in the IFC Mall, one of Hong Kong's more pricey shopping establishments. Walking around on the third floor, I stumbled across a book shop and went in. There, right on top of a pile of books on a table near the front of the bookshop was a certain volume which caught my eye: Dying to be Me, by Anita Moorjani. I picked it up and did what I always do when deciding whether or not to buy a book: I stilled myself, bringing my mind fully present, then felt the book. My intuition told me that the book was for me, so I went straight to the counter and bought it.

I wasn't disappointed. The author, I found out, is a Hong Kong woman of Indian decent. Several years ago she was diagnosed with cancer. The book details her experience with the disease, and her remarkable visit to death's door. To cut a long story short, Anita describes how her condition gradually deteriorated, until she was admitted to hospital in a coma. Her doctor's had basically given up on her, and her organs had begun to shut down. One of the doctor's wrote down that her family should be informed of her true condition, meaning that he was convinced that she was about to die.

The author then describes the miracle that happened next. She had a classic near death experience where she was able to hear not only what was being said by doctors who were treating her, but she could also see into the minds of her close relatives, including a brother who was on  plane, rushing to see her. She saw her current life in a grand spiritual context, witnessed her past lives, and experienced an expanded state of mind which transcended time and space. This is mental state is what I call a classic experience of Integrated Intelligence (INI), as I outline in my book Discover Your Soul Template, INI is the experience of mind which extends out from the body and interacts with other people, places and even other times.

Anita Moorjani shares her wonderful spiritual insights with the reader. The message is clear. We spend too much of our lives denying our own magnificence, living for some future goal, or just believing that we are inadequate. It is these beliefs and attitudes that the author sees as being central to her becoming sick. Her cancer was an expression of a greater dis-ease in her mind. The genuine miracle occurred when Anita awakened from her coma. Within two weeks her cancers had reduced dramatically in size, and soon they had vanished from her body without a trace.

I love the book. In fact, as I read it I realised that I had a strong connection with its message. Although I have never had a near death experience, I have experienced many non-ordinary states of consciousness and had many spiritual experiences where I received insights that mirror those of Anita Moorjani.

As I was reading the book, I texted one of my good friends in the consciousnesses movement here in Hong Kong, transpersonal psychologist Doug Seiddon, and told him he should read the book. He texted me back saying that he had met Anita two years previously at the Hong Kong Consciousness Festival. He said she was a very nice woman. I felt rather envious.

What I will relate next is actually true, even though it may seem rather incredulous. I was seriously considering contacting the author, as we live in the same city. A scenario kept popping into my head during the first few days after I purchased the book. 

I am sitting in a public space. Suddenly I realise that Anita Moorjani is sitting right beside me. I walk over to her and say "Are you Anita Moorjani?" I point to her book, which I am holding.

In fact this scenario came to me just yesterday when I was travelling on public transport. It was as if I could feel Anita very close to my physically. There definitely felt like a connection.

So today, Sunday, I went out in the afternoon to the Pacific Coffee place in Discovery Bay, not far from my apartment. I sat down and began to do a little writing on my computer. Suddenly a woman's voice caught my attention. I looked up to see three people of Indian heritage sitting just a metre away from me at the next table. The woman, who was turned away from me, was talking about her publicist. I realised that she must be a writer. The idea immediately came to me that this woman was Anita Moorjani. I couldn't see her face clearly, but I could see a distinguishing facial feature on her right cheek. So I opened my copy of Dying to Be Me (which I had on the table) and turned to the author page. Sure enough, the woman sitting a metre away from me had the same feature in exactly the same spot on her face. I checked her energy intuitively, and saw that she had a soft and very feminine energy, and was very relaxed in her body. It was a perfect match!

I was just thinking about how I might interrupt their conversation (as I am not a natural extrovert) when suddenly the Indian man chatting to the woman got up and walked over to me. "Is that book any good?" he asked. He was smiling. 

"Yes! Is this Anita?" I asked indicating to the woman. They were all smiling.

Sure enough it was her. I kindly invited myself over for a chat with them! The man was Danny, Anita's amiable husband. We chatted for about twenty minutes or so, and I was delighted to discover that Anita was as genuine as her book suggests. But the synchronicity didn't end there. I discovered that the couple live in Discovery Bay too. But even more incredibly, we found out that we had both lived in the same tiny village of a few hundred people in Hong Kong's New Territories at the same time (2008) - at opposite ends of the village. They knew several of my friends in the village. The odds of that must be astronomical. I honestly can't remember seeing Anita or Danny there, but I must have seen them at some time, because the village is quite isolated, with only one mini-bus which takes about 25 minutes to get to the nearest train station.

 

Anita and Danny

What a wonderful series of synchronicities! 

Even better, if you go to Amazon.com you'll see Anita's book has become an instant best seller. I have to be honest and say I have read some spiritual best sellers which I would describe as simply awful - where I intuitively sensed that the author was not capable of walking the talk. Happily with Dying to be Me, this is not the case. I give it five stars out of five.

(* I have written a little more about the aftermath to this incident and a profound vision I had the next day in the following blog post)

Blessings,

Marcus

The Mind Hackers

Today I am posting an extract from the middle of my book, Light. In these two chapters of the book, Greg, the main character, is just beginning to work with the spiritual group called Journey of Light (JOL). He is also getting to know another JOL member named Joel. This section is significant because it details some of the ways that consciousness fields work through people via the human ego, and how these fields can be shifted by people who understand how they work. 

The book is nearing completion, and will be available within a month or two. You can read more of the book at www.lightmysterious.com

The FlexMan

I awoke the next morning feeling like crap. It was more than just the beer. It was like that one moment of eye contact with Angela had made my soul heavy. I spent the whole morning ruminating over what I’d done. If only it could have been undone.

It was a Saturday, and the Hall was pretty dead. It felt like a ghost town, and in my listless state I felt like a ghost. Then I got a text.

Heading for a workout at 2.00. Want to join me? Joel.

I still wasn’t quite confident about socialising with JOL members, but maybe a workout with Captain America was just what I needed. And in many ways Joel seemed like the most down to earth of those at JOL.

I rode my bike up to the gym and headed for the change rooms. I was hoping Joel wouldn’t be there at that precise moment. It would be bad enough competing with the guy in the gym, let alone the locker room. I had packed some baggy shorts and an oversized t-shirt. I whipped them on and strode out into the weight room where I saw Joel warming up in front of one of the very big mirrors. He was stretching and bending here and there, and of course his attention to his reflection was mere testament to his dedication to form. He was decked out in short shorts and a tank top, looking like Ivan Drago from Rocky 4.

When he saw me he smiled and shook my hand. Two of my fingers cracked. Luckily I was in a forgiving mood.

“Nice threads, man.” For once Joel was smiling as he checked me out. He must have thought my skinny legs were really funny or something.

“Thanks, you look pretty good yourself.”

“Today I’m doing chest and back. Is that okay with you?”

“Why not? I’m good for chest and back. I need a little extra work in those areas.”

“We’ll warm up first. I’ll do the first set, you spot me.” Joel threw about five hundred pounds on each side of the bar, lay on the bench and began to push while I stood over him. Not that he needed much help. He could’ve done the weight with one hand while checking himself out with a hand mirror held in the other one.

Next it was my turn. “Um, I’m a little rusty. I might need to go easy today.”

We grunted out a few sets. By the end of it I realised how out of shape I was. I asked Joel how much weight training he was doing.

“Not too much. Studying Mechanical Engineering isn’t that easy. I have over twenty hours of lectures a week. So I get in maybe four or five workouts. No more than two hours each time, though.”

“Shit. I could never do that.”

“No pain, no gain. You gotta push if you want anything in life these days. Nothing comes easy.”

“I noticed. But I like my down time.”

“Sure. That’s your choice. But the way I see it, either you take control of your life, or it takes control of you. If you wanna get big, you gotta think big.”

We moved onto another chest machine, and soon he was grunting out more reps on impossible weights. As I watched his ample chest pump up, I couldn’t help but thinking that something wasn’t quite right.

“What’s a guy like you doing in JOL? I mean, you don’t really look the new age sensitive type to me.”

“Who says you need to be sensitive?” He told me he’d started JOL a mere week before me, after just one session with Julie. I wondered why he hadn’t been asked to do a host of private sessions with Julie before being let into the group, like me. I felt a bit miffed about it. So I told him.

“You must have something that I don’t.”

Joel stood up from the machine, all puffed up like a rooster during mating season. He looked straight at me. “You are wondering why I got straight in? I can see why. It’s because I am straight forward. When I see a challenge I go for it. I don’t mess around or play games. If I like it. If I want it. I go for it.”

“Ah huh.”

Joel wiped his jaw with his little towel like he thought he was in a soft-drink commercial or something. “But you? You are still indecisive. This way, or that way? That’s the way your mind works. I can see that much.”

I looked into his steely blue eyes. What a fucking hero, you are! If I stuck a pin in your steroid-inflated arse, you’d deflate like a balloon.

But FlexMan didn’t pick up my vibe. He was on a roll.  “Control. Remember that. If you haven’t got control, you got nothing.”

I sat my butt down on the machine and ground out ten reps on a weight Joel could have done under Jupiter gravity. I didn’t want to make the big fellow feel too intimidated, after all.

After the workout I didn’t head for the locker room. I figured the room just wasn’t big enough for the three of us: me, Joel, and his ego. Instead I cycled back to the hall in my gym clothes.

To my surprise I actually felt good after all the exercise, and I came to realise something. Perhaps it was the cooling effect of the winter air rushing past my face, or the towering presence of the tall gum tress that lined the road that brought about the insight. Joel was onto something. As I peddled along, I relaxed and did a quick check to see if I was projecting any energy bat Joel. Actually, it was more like I knew I was sending him some strong messages, and it was time to pull my fat head in.

Fuck you, you big hero! You think you’re so damn good. I’m better than you are! I don’t need a pumped up body to make me feel I’m good enough. You are a fucking wanker!

It wasn’t that surprising to see what I was doing. The thiughts had been floating through my mind during my entire workout with the big fellow.

Next I reversed the process, and read Joel’s energy as it was being projected towards me.

I’m superior to you! Look at you! You’re puny. You haven’t got a chance with women when you are around me. I’m number one around here and don’t you forget it. You should be grateful I let you work out with me.

It was obvious, and had to admit it. I was threatened by Joel. I was just as much a wanker as he was. We both thought we were better than the other. As I rode my bike into the Hall carpark the whole drama suddenly seemed absurd, and I laughed. And as I did the way I saw Joel shifted. He wasn’t much different from me. We were just a couple of young guys making our way through the world. He was okay.

Back in my room I stripped off my shirt and hit a few double biceps poses in front of the mirror. I made a promise to myself not to be so insecure next time I had a workout with Joel, nor to judge him so easily. Besides. He was right. No pain, no gain. I needed to be more disciplined. I needed to get control of my life.

I made my way down the hallway and to the showers bare-chested and wearing only a towel. Sadly there were no chicks there to see me before my pumped-up muscles deflated back to their normal, puny size.

 Mind Hacker

The next few weeks were uneventful, except for the fact that the insight into my issue with Joel had lifted my spirits. Rather than get lost in silly little conflicts with people, I could simply look inside myself to see what was pushing my buttons, then deal with the emotions I was feeling. That meant I didn’t have to waste energy on the bullshit dramas that plague most people’s lives.

It became clear to me that I didn’t need to go round seeing others as opponents, something I’d unconsciously been doing all my life. Joel and I met up again several times for workouts, and I found myself enjoying his company. He had a lot of knowledge about exercise and weight training, and because we were also in JOL together, we got on pretty well. I also started to put on a little bit of muscle, which I was happy about. I was even becoming a bit of a muscle head. I would get home from the gym and start flexing in front of the mirror. I reassured myself that I wasn’t becoming a total meathead, though. Those are the guys who pump up and flex before the mirror inside the gym itself. No sir. I was not like them.

Another reason my spirits were picking up was that JOL gave me a positive focus. Like magic, the world came alive again. I was able to see and feel at a deep level, just as I had a few months before. My uni studies blossomed too, as if the light had penetrated not just my spiritual insight, but my academic mind. My results picked up, and I was getting distinctions and high distinctions for my essays and reports. I felt smart again.

 The darkness that had engulfed me after the breakup with Amanda and my problems with my studies had lifted. I had rediscovered my abilities, my light. But I didn’t just reappear in their old guises. They began to expand.

That was wonderful. At first. But the one thing that I was learning was that the universe loves to test us, to find out just how committed we are to what new think we believe. That next big test came on a Saturday morning at a JOL gathering.

“Okay, Greg, let’s see what Joel is up to today.” Julie was looking at me. I knew from the way she leant forward on her cushion and from her intense gaze that she was expecting something from me, something a little more than the usual.

The thing is that Joel had not turned up to the group. I had assumed that he had merely been held up. I was wrong.

“Joel has been given some time out.” She began. “He needs time to work through some issues that have come up for him.”

I stared at her. Time out? “When will he be back?”

“That depends on him. Just these past few days I began noticing quite a bit of dark energy channeling him. He was starting to psychically attack me. It has to do with some pain he experienced as a child, and his anger about women. He was sexually abused by his mother and older sisters.”

There were several gasps, but I’m sure mine was the loudest.

“Because I am an authority figure for him, he began to project the energy at me. His Little Boy was mistaking me for his mother. When I started seeing all this, I gave Joel a call, and we did a session at my place on the issue. As you can probably appreciate, this is not something that is easy for Joel to deal with. The pain and the shame of it run very deep within him. His Little Boy is deeply wounded. I connected with his inner child and showed him the truth of it. Unfortunately he hasn’t processed the consciousness at all. He is in denial. As a result his need for drama is too great right now. His consciousness field is really messing up the group. I can’t channel properly when people are trying to shut me down.”

I felt my stomach tighten. This was first exposure to the idea that you could be removed from JOL if you didn’t get your act together. What if Julie discovered some dark energy within me, and I couldn’t deal with it? Would I be kicked out?

JOL was beginning to feel like home to me. It was the one place in the world where I really felt that people could see me in all my humanness, all the darkness and light, and still accept me. Sure, it was stressful at times, and the requirements asked of us were great. But where else in the world could I find a place like this?

Julie continued. “When he gets the lesson, then I’ll be more than happy to have him back.”

Jane seemed just as concerned as me. “What if he doesn’t get the lesson?”

Julie was looking intently at Jane, even as she spoke. “Then he will have to deal with his stuff in his own time. It simply isn’t my responsibility to be a surrogate parent for naughty children. And I want this to be a lesson for all of you here.” She was looking around at each of us. “If you don’t shape up, then I will ship you out. That’s just the way it is.”

A nervous shudder went through me. What kind of spiritual teacher tells her student to get the hell out when the student goes through a rough time? What kind of woman would just remove intimate friends from her life? I didn’t need to wait for an answer.

“I like to think of you all here as family. But if you want to be part of Journey of Light you have to accept that in here I am the queen, and I have the final say in matters.”

I was fighting a sense of anger and judgment at what I was hearing. I was fighting it because I was scared that if Julie “saw” me, I’d be the next guy in deep shit. Fortunately her gaze turned back to Jane, who was voicing her fears.

“But how do you know Joel was sexually abused?” Jane was looking at her little brown boots as she spoke, not quite daring to look Julie in the eye. “Maybe Joel is just standing his ground to you.”

“The truth is, Jane, that there is a lie behind what you just said. Joel has full memories of the events. They occurred over a long period of time. So that is not the issue. The issue is his refusal to accept how the abuse has imprinted deep shame into his psyche and left him with intense anger at women.”

“Oh, sorry.” Jane was suddenly looking even smaller than usual.

“To be quite direct again, Jane, right now you too are really angry with me, and so are a few others here.” She threw a slightly intimidating glance at all of us, scanning the room from right to left. I could feel myself shift into a state of fear. But was Julie being paranoid? “The energy in the room is beginning to deteriorate because the doubt and fear that Joel is putting into the room right now, and I simply cannot work this way.” I had never seen Julie so serious. We could all see how important she thought this was. “And Jane, his energy is coming through you. Right now Joel has possessed you. He has got control of your Little Girl. This is how dark energy works. It seeks pathways that it can use to pass from one mental field into another. If we don’t deal with Joel’s energy right now this will get out of control.”

“Greg.” The sound of my name made me flinch. I was in the crap again.

But no, it was something rather more flattering. I was being asked to help out. “I want you to channel Joel. Cecilia, I want you to play out Jane. Show us what is really going on here.”

I stood up, more than a little nervous. It was the first time I was being asked to channel energy in front of the group. Would I be able to do it? What if nothing came to me? Still, I was relieved that it wasn’t me that was being focused upon.

I stepped into the circle, and I stood opposite Cecilia. But Julie hadn’t finished speaking yet. She was waving a thin finger around like a stern mother chastising naughty children.

“Don’t anybody here dare judge what we are about to see. I’ll be really pissed off if you do. It is your duty to witness this without judgment. If you care about Joel, if you care about Jane, this is whjat you must do.”

She sure wasn’t mincing her words. There was urgency in her voice. This was something important. Just how important we didn’t yet realise.

I looked over at Jane. The poor girl looked terrified, and I couldn’t blame her. This was about as invasive an act as was humanly possible: having another person delve into the depths of your mind and display your innermost thoughts and desires for all to see.

I turned to Cecilia, looking at her pale blue eyes. Then I let go. I brought Joel into my mind’s eye, then felt myself slip into his energy field. Instinctively I placed my hands on my hips and thrust them slightly outwards. I knew that this was something sexual. I gave voice to what came to me first.

“You want me, don’t you, Jane? Admit it, you dirty little woman. I’ve got it and you want it.”

Cecilia-as-Jane took a step closer to me and fell to her knees like she was worshipping some male god. “Oh Joel, you are so handsome. You are so masculine. I love you! Please take me, now!”

There was an echo of nervous laughter in the room. To some degree this type of channeling involved hamming it up, and what came out often revealed the ridiculous side of human intentions. But you had to stay true to the essence of the knowledge being revealed.

I could feel Joel’s contempt. He had no actual love for Jane. He was just playing a game, teasing her. “Yeah, beg for it! That’s the way I like it. All women are whores. They’re only good for one thing anyway.”

Cecilia was kneeling before me, and to put it bluntly, she was moving towards my sexual regions. I, as Greg, was a bit worried she might actually act out something explicitly sexual. But what I was to learn in my time at JOL was that when it came to channeling such projections of the psyche, we toned it down. Everyone would get the gist of it, without actually having to act it out to the letter. In this case there was no doubt what Jane was doing. She was giving Joel some good old fashioned sexual service.

“Oh Joel, I love you. I want you so much!”

I could feel that Joel had a deep control over Jane’s psyche. It was as if whatever Joel said, Jane would be compelled to act out.

Next, the energy shifted, and I felt Joel messaging Jane, instructing her on what she had to do. I pointed to Cecilia-as-Jane, and then to Julie. “Get her, Jane. Get Julie! She is a witch! She can’t be trusted. Destroy her!”

Cecilia-as-Jane stood up, walked over to Julie, hands outstretched like a serial killer programmed to kill, reaching for her next victim. “You must die!” Cecilia gently grabbed Julie by the neck in a feigned attack.

I had to admit that there was something about the way that Cecilia went about business at JOL that pushed my buttons. As I watched her go through this channeling before the group, I couldn’t help but also see the shadow side of Cecilia’s mind. It seemed obvious to me. Cecilia enjoyed the attention of it all, and craved the power that profound perception gave her. It wasn’t that I didn’t think she had any noble intentions, but the essence of what I saw was a young woman who wanted to be the boss. And there was more; there was something almost terrible I could sense within her, like a cold, ghostly wind sweeping across a barren landscape. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was exactly. But is scared me.

This is why, even as Cecilia and I were doing this channeling before the group, there was a troubling question playing out in the back of my mind. Why wasn’t any of this being brought forward by Julie? Was she blind to the shadow side of some of the students? Did she only approve of those she liked, and give those she didn’t like a hard time? Was she playing favourites? Whatever the truth, I kept the thoughts to myself. I didn’t want to make any trouble.

Julie had seen enough of the drama with Joel and Jane. “Okay, I think we get what is happening here.” She gestured for Cecilia and I to sit down.

I went to my cushion. But now there was a new feeling surging through me. Not only had I just read the psyche of another human being successfully, but I had been able to act out his energy in regard to one of his relationships. I felt genuine pride.

Then I looked over at Jane, and the feeling immediately shifted as regret flooded my system. She had her hands on her face, and she was sobbing. The drama that Cecilia and I had just acted out must have been humiliating for her. But had we even gotten the channeling right?

Julie spoke, breaking the silence. “I want everybody to fully acknowledge what they are feeling right now. It is not your responsibility to do anything except own your own feelings and projections. You are not to offer Jane a rescue. It is important that she get the lesson here. Any time you are feeling sorry for another person, you invite them to give their Little Boy or Girl to you. And while you are possessing them there is no way they can feel their pain, and no way that they can heal. We are not in the business of rescuing people here.”

As she spoke, Jane began to wail like a little baby, tears flowing down her face like warm rain. Warren Chen got up and threw a box of tissues in front of her before retreating to his cushion. Jane grabbed a handful of tissues and blew her nose, making more noise than a bugler on Anzac Day. Her body rocked back and forth, sobbing uncontrollably. To be honest, I was scared. What had we done? Was it an act of love just to let her sit there like that bawling her eyes out? Was this what JOL was all about?

After a minute or so Jane looked up, her eyes red. “Yes, it’s true.” She managed to get in short sentences between sobs. “I do feel for Joel. I never said anything of course, but I guess I have a crush on him. It’s just that nobody really cares about me. I don’t have anyone to love in this world.”

That really set her off. The wailing sounded like a cavernous echo across a broad valley. This was really hurting her. Big time.

Julie pointed to Michael. “I want you to act as her father.

“Okay.” Michael stood up with his usual minimum of fuss. He collected himself for a moment before moving towards Jane. He stopped when he was a metre or so away, and cleared his throat.

“Who are you? I don’t know who you are.”

Julie intervened. “Jane, this is all about your father. I think you know that. What would you like to say to your father right now?”

Jane pulled her head up, looking at Michael. She blinked, eyes red, sniffling, but didn’t say anything.

Michael-as-Jane’s-father continued. “Who are you? I don’t know you. I don’t have any daughter.”

“Yes, yes you do!” Jane wailed, resuming her rocking. She looked like a baby in its rocking chair. “I’m your daughter! I just want you to love me. Is that asking too much?”

 “I don’t want you. Piss off.” Michael sat down where he was, turning his back to Jane. He moved his hand up to his mouth. “Yes, I feel like a beer. That’s what’s important right now. I don’t want any other responsibilities. I don’t have any children.”

Jane’s voice became even higher than usual. With her diminutive stature, it wasn’t hard to see her as a little girl. “Yes! Yes you do have a daughter!” She was angry. She thumped the cushion beside her.

“Nope. No I don’t. I have a nice, cold beer, that’s what I’ve got.”

Suddenly the air was pierced with a frightening scream, and it was coming from Jane’s mouth. She began banging on the cushion. There was rage, absolute rage written into her body, her face, her spirit.

“Yes you do have a daughter! I am here! I am here! Please love me Daddy, please love me!”

By this point several other members of the group had started to weep. Julie was going around, whispering to them, even as she gave out tissues. “Just own your feelings,” Julie spoke bluntly to everyone. “Don’t anybody dare rescue her!”

This was difficult; sitting there watching this small, plump, vulnerable young woman lose it. She looked no more than about fifteen years old as she cried like a helpless child. I had an instinctive desire in me to make her feel better, to go over and give her a hug. But we all had to keep our feelings on track. This was Jane’s battle, and nobody else’s.

Jane was repeating the same thing over and over. “What did I do wrong Daddy, what did I do wrong? Why don’t you love me?”

Michael-as-father was getting agitated. “Shut up! You are not allowed to talk. Shut your ugly little face!” He was still sitting, turned away from her.

But Jane’s energy was beginning to shift. She was moving out of the victim state, and more into her power. “No!” She was yelling. “No! I will not shut up! I will be heard!”

Julie moved in beside Jane, gently channeling her Little Girl. “I am worthy of love.”

Jane yelled the words. “I am worthy of love! I am lovable! I am here!”

“What is it that you really want to tell your father, Jane?” Julie was trying to get to the bottom of the issue. And as I looked on I could see clearly what it was that Jane wanted to do, to say. She wanted to tell him to go and fuck himself.

“I don’t know,” Jane sobbed. “What did I do, what did I do wrong, Daddy?”

Julie again: “And…?”

I don’t know, I... I just want to say…”

Julie pushed her. “Fuck you. You just want to tell your father ‘Fuck you!’”

“But I can’t! He’s my Dad.”

“He’s not a Dad.” Julie said quietly. “He’s a man-child. He doesn’t know the first thing about being a father. How can he be your father when he never grew up himself?”

“That’s right. I’m not a father.” Michael-as-Jane’s-father said nonchalantly, looking away from Jane. “I don’t care about you. I have better things to do.”

“Shut up! Shut up! Just shut up!” Jane pulled herself up, and something shifted within her.

“No, you shut up,” said Michael-as-father. You are just a child. Nobody wants to listen to you. I’m going away now.”

That did it. Like a great roar the words screamed from Jane’s lips like a jet plane roaring through the sky. “Fuck you! Fuck you! I hate you! I wish you were dead!” She was pounding the cushion with the last of her strength, almost exhausted. She fell forward, weeping uncontrollably.

Sensing that it was the right time, Julie moved over, grabbed the doll that Jane brought with her to the group, and sat down beside her. Jane took the doll, cradling it like a baby. For perhaps two minutes she simply cried. I had never seen an adult human being is such a state. She was a complete mess, and I couldn’t help but wondering whether this had all gone too far. But Julie seemed to know what she was doing. She was measuring energy every short while. Finally, she intervened.

“This is your Little Girl, Jane.” Julie pointed to the doll in Jane’s arms. “What do you want to say to her?”

“I love you. I’m here for you now.”

Julie gently assisted Jane to let her Little Girl know that everything was alright.

“Tell her it’s not your fault.”

Jane did just this, and I could see her energy begin to lift. Somehow Jane, as a little girl, had believed that it was her fault that her alcoholic father wasn’t there for her. She had blamed herself for his abandoning her and her mother. Now she was setting the record straight.

As the minutes went by Jane slowly returned to something like her normal self. But there was something different too. She had reclaimed a lost part of herself. Then there was one last thing Julie wanted Jane to do.

“Now, as big Jane, the person you are today, what would you like to say to your father. Remember that at some level, he can hear this. His spirit is involved in this process today.” Michael-as-father had turned around to face Jane. Jane’s voice became stronger, firmer. She was a young woman again.

“I want you to know that I am a woman. I am not your little girl anymore, and I will never give my power away to you again. I am a womanR! Do you hear me?”

Michael got up and stepped back. He was acting out the fact that Jane’s father’s energy was beginning to retreat from her, as she reclaimed her Little Girl from him.

Julie clapped her hands and smiled. “That’s it. If anyone would like to give Jane a big hug, now is the time.” There was relief all round, and I felt myself breathe easy again. “And you guys should all give her a big thanks, because this has been a real gift for all of us.” One by one we all came forward and embraced her. I was last. Maybe that was because I felt a little awkward towering over her. Or maybe it was just that the whole thing had scared me.

As we sat back down in the circle, Julie spoke again, her face wearing a smile. “Notice how the energy in the room has changed? Joel’s energy isn’t coming through Jane any more. It can’t. She has taken control of that needy part of herself that he was using to possess her.”

Everyone nodded. I could feel it too. It was as if the room was filled with fresh air. The heaviness was gone.

I looked around at everyone. There was just one thing I was thinking in that moment. This was an incredible gathering of human beings.

Marcus T Anthony TEDx Talk 2012

In March at the Hong Kong TEDx conference at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University I gave a talk called "Cosmos, Psyche and Our Brilliant Futures". In the talk I make some bold predictions about the future, especially in relation to the way an improved understanding of the non-local nature of consciousness will play a seminal role in science, education and society. Previously I posted the first three minutes of the talk here on 22cplus. This video includes the entire twenty minute talk. I hope you enjoy the talk, and feel free to leave comments.

Regards,

Marcus

Light, Ch. 33: The Appointment

Happy Chinese New Year! If you are wondering why there has not been a lot of blog activity here lately, it is just that my energy is focused on other things at present. There will be a few more posts coming up soon, though. Meanwhile here's a little more from my new novel, Light. Currently I am re-writing much of the novel, and restcruturing some of the plot. I won't be posting all of it online. The novel will be available in its entirety in e-book and softcover form in a few months time. As mentioned, this novel is semi-autobiographical, and this chapter reveals some of the kinds of healing methods I have experienced in my own journey. All characters are fictional, even the main character - although he's probably about 70% like me. I'm far too boring to write about! There's an extract from the chapter, below. Click on the heading to read the whole chapter.

Marcus

 Light, Ch. 33: The Appointment

Julie shifted again, and I saw my mother before me. I was a child again.

“You are not allowed to be angry. You are just a little boy. Get down!” Julie was standing over me, pushing me down from the shoulders.

I could feel them on me, the chains of imprisonment. From within my own darkness the rage erupted. I screamed, pounding the pillow with clenched fists. “I will kill you, you fucking bitch! Fuck you! Fuck you! I will kill you!” My face was red with rage, my arms pounding the pillow, rising and falling like a woodchopper felling a great tree.

Julie pushed down harder. “Stop this nonsense at once! You are not allowed to feel. You are just a worthless child. Sit down and shut up!”

I sobbed the tears of a helpless infant. “Why? Why are you doing this?”

“You are a boy. You must never become a man. Mean are dangerous, dirty, perverted, sexually deviant beasts. They must be destroyed, all of them.’

I could take no more. I sprung up, drawing myself to my full height, standing towering over Julie, over the darkness that was my mother. The words came out as a great roar of violence. “No, no, no! I will not shut up! I am a human being too! I am not your whipping boy! I am a man!” A great primal roar came busting through me, the rage rising from my lower back and thrusting skyward into the havens with my scream. I knew it was the rage of lifetimes of repression, of persecution, of playing the role of victim.

The torrent of energy evaporated from me, and I fell down to the floor, sobbing so deeply that for a time I lost all sense of who I was and of who was with me. Hot tears flowed down my ruddy cheeks, mucus running from my nose and down my shirt. I cried the tears of a thousand years. It was the first time I could remember truly crying since I was an infant. Slowly my awareness returned to my surroundings. I was exhausted, yet somehow liberated of the burden of a great weight.

Julie handed me my teddy bear. “Your little boy is yours now.”

Spiritual Tossers and Spiritual Sages

The following is an extract from my upcoming book, Leading with Spirit. All of the terms in bold are found in the glossary of the book. Unfortunately I can't reproduce the glossary here.

Not that long ago I ran one of my intuition workshops, and I asked participants to pair up and to begin Channeling the Spiritual Ego of their partner. Channeling the Spiritual Ego is a particular process which I often teach because I feel it is very important that people realise how the ego influences the way we think, feel and act. The process entails psychically connecting with the deep mind of the other person and bringing forth the agendas and projections of the shadow (the name Freud, Jung and depth psychologists gave to the hidden parts of ourselves that we would rather not know about). Individuals in the New Age and consciousness movement are particularly prone to developing a strong spiritual ego.

In this workshop there was an odd number of participants, so I paired up with a man we shall call Trevor. Trevor was a writer and speaker; a notable figure in the local spiritual community of that city, and often appeared in the media whenever a radio or TV station required commentary on spiritual issues.

To begin the process, I looked at Trevor, relaxed, and allowed my awareness to become one with his. I centred myself and brought my attention into his body and began to give voice to the information that came to me.

Look at me! I’m superior to everyone. I am above all this. I know best. In fact I already know everything that you are teaching here. You are not a real spiritual teacher (referring to me). I am! I’m better than what you are. I’m enlightened! I don’t really need to be here because there is nothing you could possibly teach me.

Connecting with the Ego is quite confronting to that same ego, especially for those in spiritual circles. It exposes the trickster, the hypocrisy that inevitably arises when we are not honest about what lies within us. Part of the mythology of spiritual discourse is that spiritual people are supposed to be Christ-like. Perfect. In other words, not really human. Of course there is no way that any human being can possibly meet such expectations, so the individual begins to hide from himself. He starts to fake it. He begins to fraud. As he denies parts of his psyche, the unwelcome thoughts, desires and projections become lost in the murky world of the shadow.

Channeling the ego brings the ego into the light, and helps the individual become more transparent to himself. But it is a process fraught with difficulties. It requires that the person being channeled have a high a high level of emotional intelligence. If the person has a low level of intention to actually acknowledge his ego projections, the result can be drama. The person may become angry, and attempt to invent an alternative narrative to explain away what has been revealed. Commonly this involves rejecting the message and psychically attacking the channeler. This is the spiritual equivalent of shooting the messenger! Connecting with the ego is not an easy process to pull off, for either party.

The reason I mention all this is because Trevor wasn’t too impressed with what I’d channeled, and just said simply, “I don’t feel that is correct”. This is of course his right, and so I just let it go without judgment. It is important not the judge the ego, because any judgment of it can really accelerate the potential for drama. It is certainly possible to work with the resistance of the ego, and to gently confront people about their denials. However in this case I let it go because I intuitively felt that Trevor had absolutely no intention to look at the truth of himself.

Trevor didn’t come back for the second workshop, and in fact didn’t even bother to contact me to tell me he wouldn’t be there. I was not surprised.

However about eight months later I ran into Trevor again in another city, after a consciousness conference. We ended up having an extended chat over a cup of coffee. I knew that there was no energy on bringing up anything to do with the spiritual ego, so we just enjoyed the beverage. After a few minutes of chatting, it became clear that Trevor had completely forgotten about the Connecting work he’d done with me previously, because he began to criticise the other practitioners at the conference. With a contemptuous wave of the hand he said that other practitioners and organisers were “not enlightened”, and that he did not have a high opinion of them. I decided to humour him, and asked him if he was enlightened.

“An enlightened person would never say that he is enlightened”, he responded.

I looked at him, trying to suppress my own ego projections, which went something like this:

 “Get your hand off it, mate, before you hurt yourself! In all my time dealing with spiritual practitioners you are right up there with the biggest tossers out there!”

Well, that’s what my spiritual ego really wanted to say. Instead just I nodded and got back to my cofee. I gently acknowledged my own projections, and made a commitment to let it go. This wasn’t exactly easy, as I admit if there is one thing that pushes my buttons it is when I meet spiritual folks who think they are above everyone else. That is because there is part of me that thinks exactly the same; that I am smarter, wiser and more spiritual than the rest of the lowly dregs of humanity.

As they used to say when I was a kid: it takes one to know one. The only difference between Trevor and I is that I have developed a closer relationship with that part of my psyche, and in doing so I am able to control my ego-based behavior, and most importantly, indirectly control the psychic energy fields that move through and around me. For one thing that I now understand is that the human mind is not confined to the head and body, but is embedded within streams of fluid consciousness. It is the reality of the extended mind is central to the idea of Sage Leadership that I present in this book. The leaders of yesterday were, for the most part, completely unaware of the fact that their minds were greatly influenced by the extended mind; or the fact that their own psyches greatly affected the minds of those they led via the psychic interconnectivity of the human species.

This story about Trevor and I exemplifies a key part of what I am going to teach you in this Leading with Spirit. This book is intended for the leaders of tomorrow, what I call the Leader-Sages. Leader-Sages can be found in all walks of life, not merely amongst those leaders in the spiritual and consciousness movements. We also see them in business, the arts, the media, politics and so on.

Being a Leader-Sage is not about becoming something super-human, and like Neo in The Matrix transcending the system and flying above it all like superman. Nor is it about pretending to be very spiritual, wise and holy. By my definition, Trevor is very “spiritual”, not a Leader-Sage. In fact, in some ways Sage Leadership is about allowing yourself to become more human, not less. A Leader-Sage is not merely an empowered individual with a genuine capacity for Integrated Intelligence; one who can comfortably read the psyches of those people around him, tap into consciousness fields and seek guidance from spiritual source. A Leader-Sage is a person of humility, who knows that his Integrated Intelligence is a God-given gift that requires genuine compassion and great responsibility. He also realises that all ego eventually falls. It dies. And he understands that the Leader-Sage does not need to do anything about that.

*   *   *

Leading with Spirit will not be available till 2013. However you can read more about becoming a responsible Leader-Sage in my other book, Discover Your Soul Template, as well as how to develop Integrated Intelligence.

Light, Chapter 29: The First Time

Light, Chapter 29: The First Time

You can read the rest of the chapter here: Here's a short extract.

“Can you acknowledge any of that, Greg?” Julie smiled.       

I sighed. “Sure. I’m a wimp and I know it.”       

“Don’t beat yourself up. We are simply being transparent here. It’s important not to take this personally.” She smiled gently at me. She then addressed the group.

“Each of us is here on earth at this time to take absolute responsibility for our energy. That’s part of the deal. That is what God is asking us to do, and it’s part of what Journey of Light is all about.” Then she turned to me again. “I’d just like to thank you for coming today, Greg.” Her smile was soft, her face suddenly taking on the look of a young woman, and quite a pretty one at that. “It isn’t easy to do this kind of work. It really does take guts.” I looked at her, and then around the room. Everyone was looking at me, but the faces were soft, smiling. They accepted me. The sense of fear that had possessed me ever since I had entered the room began to abate.