Wolfgang Held was born in Germany in 1964. He worked for many years in the Mathematics and Astronomy section of the Goetheanum, where he now runs the publicity department. His latest book, ‘The Quality of Numbers One to Thirty-one’ explores the fascinating characteristics of numbers in relation to our lives. Throughout March we will be featuring selected edited extracts from this book. Today, the 26^th of March, we are looking at the number 26.

Pierre De Fermat

The great mathematician Pierre de Fermat demonstrated that something applies to 26 which is true of no other number. Only 26 has neighbouring numbers that are a square (25 = 52) and a cube number (27 = 33). There are square numbers and cube numbers that adjoin each other such as eight and nine, with the satisfying reflection of 23 and 32. Square numbers and cube numbers can also meet in one and the same number. The smallest number this applies to is 64, which is simultaneously 43 and 82. The privilege of being both a square and a cube number belongs to all those where the number of the square is itself a cube number. After 64 (where eight is itself the cube of two) this applies to 729, which is both 93 and also 272. In the whole realm of numbers, however, there is only a single occasion when a number occupies a gap between square and cube, between, as it were, two and three dimensions. And this is 26. As in other instances, Pierre de Fermat published this fact but concealed the proof – in order to challenge other mathematicians. However the proof was so complex that his contemporaries such as John Wallis and Kenelm Digby failed to substantiate Fermat’s thesis.

The 26 is thus characterised by its special position between distinctive neighbours. This allows us to find another quality of 26 that likewise relates to its location — the Latin alphabet comprising 26 letters. This most widespread of writing systems consists of 26 building blocks, to which some languages add their own accented letters.

One of the mysteries of cultural history is that 26 appears as the number of written script a millennium prior to the Latin alphabet in the four Hebrew letters YHWH, the tetragram of the Creator God and Redeemer. As in other ancient scripts, vowels were not fixed in script, due to their high status. In Judaism, following the commandment ‘You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain’, this name YHWH cannot be uttered. Only the high priest was allowed to speak it at Yom Kippur, the highest festival. As this tradition was stopped after the destruction of Jerusalem in ad 70, the correct manner of speaking the sequence of consonants also vanished, so that it is unclear today whether we should say Yahweh or Yehovah. In accordance with ancient numerology, every letter corresponds with a numerical value. Many religious designations reveal something of their nature if one can decipher their numerical significance — which may seem surprising since the assignment occurs in a purely schematic way. In the case of YHWH, the values are ten for yod, twice five for heh and six for wav, giving 26. Thus 26 is the number of the inexpressible God. It is also interesting that in the biblical account, 26 generations extend from the Creation to the moment when Moses receives the script in the form of the Torah, so that something divine becomes earthly. This nature of script is expressed in the Greek word ‘hieroglyph’, which is a translation of the Egyptian ‘sacred sign’.

The Quality of Numbers One to Thirty-one by Wolfgang Held is available for £7.99 from Watkins Books http://www.watkinsbooks.com/catalog/product/view/id/10408/s/the-quality-of-numbers-one-to-thirty-one/

Wolfgang Held was born in Germany in 1964. He worked for many years in the Mathematics and Astronomy section of the Goetheanum, where he now runs the publicity department. His latest book, ‘The Quality of Numbers One to Thirty-one’ explores the fascinating characteristics of numbers in relation to our lives. Throughout March we will be featuring selected edited extracts from this book. Today, the 21^st of March, we are looking at the number 21.

The cannons thundered 21 times when the Crown Princess of Sweden said ‘I do’ in June 2010, and 21 times when President Obama was sworn in. And there is a 21-gun salute when the Queen Elizabeth visits a foreign state. Why 21?

When sailing ships were equipped with cannon in the fourteenth century, they were not allowed to enter harbour primed for battle. They therefore fired off the powder from their cannon without cannon balls, and this sign of peace led to the gun salute. Seven such shots were fired since these early battle ships each had seven cannon. Possibly because cannon on land could fire more quickly, the seven salute shots became 3 × 7 shots, and have remained so to this day.

But there are also deeper reasons for this twenty-one-fold thunder: twenty-one is a grand number, less in terms of quantity than due to its inner properties. It is the product of three and seven. Beside the three totals produced from opposite numbers when playing dice (1 + 6, 2 + 5, 3 + 4 = 21), three and seven are also both powerful numbers in their own right. Three is the number of the spirit, of the divine Trinity, and seven the number of development, of time. Thus 21 is the union of spirit and time. At the age of 21 the human spirit stands fully within time, or in other words in the earthly here and now, and has reached the age of majority in the fullest sense.

Whenever an enumerated list appears in religious texts, the number invoked is rarely chance. Probably the biggest single list that appears in the Bible itemises 21 qualities of wisdom in the Book of Wisdom, in the Apocrypha. These are, one can say, a 21-gun salute as hymn of praise to the divine value of wisdom. A spirit is said to live in wisdom that is ‘intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, mobile, clear, unpolluted, distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen, irresistible, beneficent, humane, steadfast, sure, free from anxiety, all-powerful, overseeing all, and penetrating through all spirits that are intelligent and pure and most subtle’. (Wisd.7:22f) The human capacity for wisdom is nothing other than the faculty for drawing from the world of ideas, the eternal world, something that fills language and memory and is thus introduced into temporal conditions. Eternity is brought into time through the interplay of seven and three, the two factors of 21.

In Tarot cards widely used to interpret or predict destiny, the twenty-first card is highest in worth, and represents the world or the whole universe.

The Quality of Numbers One to Thirty-one by Wolfgang Held is available for £7.99 from Watkins Books http://www.watkinsbooks.com/catalog/product/view/id/10408/s/the-quality-of-numbers-one-to-thirty-one/

Wolfgang Held was born in Germany in 1964. He worked for many years in the Mathematics and Astronomy section of the Goetheanum, where he now runs the publicity department. His latest book, ‘The Quality of Numbers One to Thirty-one’ explores the fascinating characteristics of numbers in relation to our lives. Throughout March we will be featuring selected edited extracts from this book. Today, the 14^th of March, we are looking at the number 14.

The number 14 is twice seven, the second step in the seventimes table, and therefore, like that number, connected with time and development.

Salt

This is particularly apparent in human biography. School in Germany, Scandinavia and in Waldorf Schools begins during a child’s seventh year – that is, between the age of six and seven, when physical development is far enough advanced to allow intellectual development to begin, with writing, reading and arithmetic. At age 14 – or somewhat earlier today given good nutrition – soul maturity succeeds physical maturation, awakening in love for the opposite sex but also in enthusiasm for ideas and ideals. From being an ‘offspring’, one becomes a member of humankind. Thus it takes 14 years, or 14 steps, to come to belong fully to the human race. It is perhaps due to this that in the sixteenth century the idea formed of the 14 Stations of the Cross on the path to the Crucifixion. The sentencing of Christ, shouldering the cross and the first fall are the first three stations, while the fourteenth is the entombment of the body. Though enhanced in a great mythical image, this path also corresponds to the goal of becoming human. Another Christian tradition seems to be derived from this: the Catholic idea of the 14 holy helpers – saints and martyrs of the early Christian period to whom one can appeal at times of dire need.

Fourteen also surfaces as an important factor in the world of physics, in a realm quite opposite to the spiritual path of development. The French mathematician Auguste Bravais investigated the different means by which the tiniest particles in space can arrange themselves to form a crystal lattice. Table salt, for instance, forms a so-called ‘cubic face-centred lattice’. This means that the smallest structure is cube-shaped, with one atom respectively situated not only at the eight corners of such a conceived cube but also at the centre of the six faces or planes. Accordingly, a cube of this kind has 14 particles.

In Islamic number mysticism, this breadth of the number 14 is well known. There it is regarded as the number of the moon, since there are just about 14 days between new moon and full moon. It determines the rhythm in which the moon, as the bridge between earth and cosmos, grows to full size and fades away again to nothing. Thus 14 is a mediating rhythm between heaven and earth. Crystals, with their special relationship to the light, likewise stand in this heavenly-earthly axis, as do the birds we mentioned at the start.

The Quality of Numbers One to Thirty-one by Wolfgang Held is available for £7.99 from Watkins Books http://www.watkinsbooks.com/catalog/product/view/id/10408/s/the-quality-of-numbers-one-to-thirty-one/

How much does our ancestry shape our identity? How relevant is it to our lives today? In this highly practical and inspiring book, experienced family researcher Cherry Gilchrist takes us on a fascinating journey to the heart of who we really are and demonstrates how looking at our past can change the present.

Growing Your Family Tree: Tracing your roots and discovering who you are

‘It happened one summer night, a few years ago. I had been working on my Welsh line of ancestry, trying to figure out the branch of the tree which I could now trace back to my 3 x great-grandfather, Edward Owens of Abbeycwmhir, a soldier who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. All that night, my sleep was disturbed by what seemed like a babble of voices. I heard people chattering insistently, and I knew that they were my Welsh ancestors. I could not make out what they were saying, but I had the distinct impression that they wanted to be ‘found’ again, and that they wanted their story to be told.’ (Chapter Two: Growing Your Family Tree)

It was a shock when I discovered that ancestors are not just names in birth, marriage and death records, but may still be intimately connected to us. I had held out against family history, and laughed off my father’s pursuit of it until at a certain age my perspective changed. Then I became intensely curious about my ancestry, especially on my mother’s side; going up the female line had an intrinsic appeal. Taking the plunge into the world of genealogical websites, microfiches and dusty documents, I began to trace the past, and found myself in the middle of an exciting detective story. Names were wrested from the shadowy past, faces unexpectedly put to names when photos turned up, and stories of heroes and villains built from nuggets of evidence. Overall, I found lives which were examples of love and endurance. There were no noble names on this side of the family, but I didn’t need them – there was enough nobility of being to inspire my loyalty.

But family history doesn’t stop with the stories either, as my encounter with ‘the Welsh voices’ shows. Was I just a victim of my imagination? All over the world, I reasoned, in times past and present, people have made a connection with those that have gone before them, in what anthropologists now like to call ‘ancestor veneration’. Ancestors are seen as protecting, guiding, and sometimes even disruptive influences – but they form a part of ongoing human life. I discovered, on my travels, ceremonies on Bali and on Easter Island that celebrate and invite the presence of the ancestors. So perhaps our practice of family history is at root a form of this. And when I began to interview other family historians, in the process of writing this book, I found that many of them shared this view that our ancestors are, in some sense, still present in our lives. Whatever terms we see this in – as a living chain of DNA recognised deep in our bodies, as a web of spirits or an imprint of historical events that can never be erased from consciousness – it is powerful and inspiring, and may be a dimension that we can reinstate in our lives. Even the diagrammatic family tree is a version of the Tree of Life, which features in so many myths and in core spiritual practices.

The subsequent chain of events in my life showed to my own satisfaction that this was not just imagination on my part. When such contact with the ancestral chain is made, the course of events may change.

‘Within a couple of months extraordinary things started to happen. A seemingly random hit on a website for a Welsh chapel led me to finding two separate lots of new cousins, also direct descendants of Edward Owens, and still living in the same region as my ancestors in mid-Wales. I had previously thought that everyone had moved away from the area. When I met up with Harold, my third cousin, he shook my hand, looked deep into my eyes, and said, “You’re the first member of the family to come back for a hundred years.”’

***

About the Author: Cherry Gilchrist is the author of nearly thirty books on relationships, personal development and culture. She runs an annual course on life story writing at Marlborough Summer School. Cherry also works with patients at a local hospice, helping them to set down their life stories and she has participated in creating a training programme for new volunteers. Growing Your Family Tree is her latest book.

By Simon Small (Article from Watkins’ Mind Body Spirit magazine, issue 29, February 2012)

There is no escape from the Greatest Question.

Yet individuals can spend a lifetime refusing to acknowledge its existence; civilisations, eons.

Every now and again it forces its way into the open at a personal level, for most to be resolutely reburied as expeditiously as possible. Even more rarely, if ever, does a whole culture turn to look the Greatest Question firmly in the eye.

Star Pilgrim is a novel, set in the near future, about a civilisation that does just that. It is about an old, incredibly advanced alien race that has realised that only this question ultimately matters. It has become their all-consuming quest.

***

About the Author: Simon Small is chaplain to the Abbey House retreat centre in Glastonbury. He also works independently in the field of spirituality – writing books, leading retreats and seminars across the UK, and acting as a spiritual guide to individuals. Simon lives in Glastonbury UK with his wife, Jane. The great passion of his life (apart from Jane) is exploring and sharing the awesome mystery of existence. In this quest he is inspired by the great spiritual traditions and the insights of science and philosophy. “Star Pilgrim” is his latest book.

Psychic – of or relating to the soul or mind.
Intuition – the ability to understand something immediately without the need for conscious reasoning.

When I opened my hypnotherapy clinic 20 years ago it seemed necessary to be perceived as ‘normal’ by keeping away from subjects deemed ‘out there.’ It was important that the establishment: whether medical scientific, knew that I was a clinician and not a floaty fluffball. After a few years, as my practice grew and after I had suppressed my own psychic and intuitive abilities, it became clear there are no rules about beliefs.

Many people told me their star sign the moment they met me. More and more clients wanted past life regressions or future life progressions. Then they started asking about chakras and auras. On any particular day I could see a client for pain relief, to stop smoking, lose a phobia, maybe a medical referral for depression or someone needing confidence in front of a camera. My diary was pretty varied.

The tipping point was on the day a surgeon; in a very Doc Martin way with a phobia about blood, came for past life therapy and I decided to step out of the witchy closet.

As my practice continued to expand and I began coaching creatives, giving talks, hosting retreats and salons the book slowly began to form in my mind until no longer able to ignore it tapping on my mind I acknowledged and birthed it.

For me it is important that there is choice. Not everyone wants to remember a past life or look forward in time to future ones. Some are instantly attracted to hypnosis, giving psychic readings, working with spirit guides, seeing auras or balancing chakras. Others want to know about cosmic ordering and why it isn’t working for them or how they can use a pendulum to clear their thoughts, heal or balance.

I hope that whatever the reader seeks, they find in the book. Not necessarily the answer but the way for them to discover their own answers.

As your intuition develops and you recognise your inner skills and abilities your life will be enhanced. When the little voice says, ‘do it, do it, do it.’ Or ‘don’t do it, walk away’ you will be able to trust and believe in yourself. All the times when you ‘knew’ but didn’t act will come to your mind as evidence of your success and you will be truly in the flow.

The Psychic Way is available from Watkins

Excerpt:
‘Living the psychic way means different things to different people as I have discovered each time I’ve mentioned the title of this book. For me, it is a way of life: trusting intuition, being in the flow and trying to be helpful to others. It isn’t always easy but when you ‘get it’ it is blissful.

The Psychic Way shows how, by practicing hypnotic meditation combined with a mix of techniques, you can develop your inner skills and improve your well-being. The book does not deliver a one size fits all approach but more a toolbox to dip into while discovering your fortes.

I believe that we all have natural but often hidden or ignored abilities and talents that are tucked away in our psyches. A lot of the time these skills are usually out of sight as many people have decided that our sixth sense and innate gifts should be ignored. Personally, I have my magical life and scientific interests sitting together very nicely with absolute respect for each other, clash-free and with many crossovers.

Using the techniques outlined in this book will help in all areas of your life: personally and professionally. You have probably already had intuitive moments, but maybe they were disregarded. Have you ever met someone who you instantly disliked but went against your judgment, only to find out later you were right to be concerned? Likewise, you have probably been drawn towards a person who seemed warm and approachable and they were exactly that. Have you ever said, ‘I knew that would happen’? Or not been in the least bit surprised at an unusual event’s outcome? These examples perfectly demonstrate that you already know a lot more than you ‘know’.

This is your route for ‘tuning in’ to awaken or build the skills within your natural self. The subjects covered can be for self-use, if you are seeking to develop as a light-worker, to enhance the talents you are already using or if you wish to take over the world.

Together we will remove the weird, the wacky and the woo-woo without losing the magic and charm available to you in your inner and outer world. You can live the psychic way by fine-tuning your intuition.’

Please enjoy the book and remember to claim your gift of a free meditation download.

About the author
Barbara Ford-Hammond is an author, hypnotist, muse and retreat host. She is the publisher of 6th Books, the paranormal/parapsychology imprint within John Hunt Publishing. For more information please visit http://www.barbaraford-hammond.com/

The list that follows only represents a small cross section of what we have on offer, and should make for a good introduction to the section in its various aspects – metaphysical, spiritual, mythological, whimsical…

Basil Bunting – Briggflats
Described as “the finest long poem to have been published in England since T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets.”
Briggflatts is a great poem of love and loss, identity and vocation, restlessness and belonging. It moves with supreme grace over cultures, continents, emotions and varieties of music. The central theme, however cunningly elaborated, shines through clearly today.

Mikahil Bulgakov – The Master and Magarita
The Devil, and his entourage descend upon Moscow, what ensues is a fascinating story, spanning 2,000 years. Disappearances, destruction and death spread through the city like wildfire and Margarita discovers that her lover has vanished in the chaos. Making a bargain with the devil, she decides to try a little black magic of her own to save the man she loves…

George Orwell – Books Vs Cigarettes
Beginning with a dilemma about whether he spends more money on reading or smoking, George Orwell’s entertaining and uncompromising essays go on to explore everything from the perils of second-hand bookshops to the dubious profession of being a critic, from freedom of the press to what patriotism really means.

William Burroughs – Naked lunch
Needs little introduction, as one suspects anyone interested in the less ordinary will have come across this classic, if not the book, the horrifying and by turns brilliant David Cronenberg film, that was inspired by rather than based on this book. It’s easily the best example of Burroughs’s work with the cut up technique – i.e. the book is written as series of routines, then cut up and arranged in a seemingly random order. It holds together despite this, story lines intersect, and die down, inter-sped with poetic passages and darkly humorous routines, moving at the speed of the human stream of consciousness.

Neil Gaiman – Sandman Series 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
I would happily recommend the entire Sandman series, Gaiman’s unique gift for storytelling, and perfect blending of so many genres makes for mesmerizing reading, great novels that just happen to be graphic/comic. Throughout the series Gaiman effortlessly blends mythology, reality, social commentary, and fantasy – this first book in the series draws mainly on the occult, and horror – and features cameos from some familiar faces from the D.C. Universe, and although not generally thought of as a stand-out, Preludes and Nocturnes contains three of the best single chapters of the entire series (24 hours, Passengers, and “The Sound of Her Wings”).

Dan Simmons – Ilium
Dan Simmons expertly weaves three separate story lines, across an epic tale that draws on Science Fiction, the Iliad, Shakespeare and Proust. Brilliantly written and gripping to the last.
Taking the events and characters of the Iliad as his jumping- off point, Dan Simmons has created an epic of time travel and savage warfare. Travellers from 40,000 years in the future return to Homer’s Greece and rewrite history forever, their technology impacting on the population in a godlike fashion. This is broad scope space opera rich in classical and literary allusion.

Jon Ronson – Them
Them: Adventures with Extremists leaps into the heart of darkness, with Jon Ronson, as ever playing the picaresque, neurotic reporter in the middle, trying to make sense of it all. Involving 12-foot lizard-men, PR-conscious Ku Klux Klansmen, Ian Paisley, the legend of Ruby Ridge, Noam Chomsky, a harem of kidnapped sex slaves, David Icke, and Nicolae Ceausescu’s shoes. Jon Ronson is chased by men in dark glasses whilst trying to infiltrate a Bilderberg conference in Greece, unmasked as a Jew in the middle of a Jihad training camp, and witnesses CEOs and leading politicians undertake a bizarre pagan owl ritual in the forests of Northern California. He also learns some alarming things about the looking-glass world of them and us. Are the extremists right? Or has he become one of Them? This is a fascinating investigation into extremists of every stripe.

The Lovecraft Anthology. Vol: 1
A graphic rendering of some of H.P Lovecraft’s best short stories. This book is a fun read for anyone already familiar with the world of Lovecraft and his “weird tales” – What is at the foreground here is the vision of the illustrating artist – but even with economical text, the comics are true to Lovecraft’s original tone, and bring the hideous often indescribable horrors of the original tales to life.

Bryan Lee O’malley – Scott Pilgrim series
If you’re hip to the Universe you will enjoy Scott Pilgrim regardless of your age. The six volumes deal with themes of Love, dreams and memory – like Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, for the 21st century…except these books have a lot more Ninjas.

Dylan Horrocks – Hicksville
Yet another comic, this one is more or less about comics, it’s also about finding yourself, or just working out who this “self” that you’re finding actually is. It’s endearing, hilarious, sweet and heroic – it avoids all of the possible pitfalls of the medium, and wonderfully exemplifies everything that is good about comics.

by Maureen Seaberg

Like the Marine who becomes “Avatar” in James Cameron’s astonishing film, there are people among us whose perceptions may place them in a rare category of consciousness right here on Earth. They are synesthetes. And like the Na’avi of Pandora, they are my tribe.

(c) Petr Vaclavek, Shutterstock

Synesthesia is defined as “a neurologically-based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.” Despite a prodigious memory like most synesthetes (the additional sensations act as a mnemonic) I’ve never been able to memorize that definition, which falls so short of the wonder of seeing phosphorescent color around my letters, numbers, days of the week, months and some music. To me, it is only a tiny part of what goes on in a synesthete’s mind. And to me, synesthesia is not just some neurological glitch (crossed neurons or lack of inhibition between them are the two dominant theories) but a form of consciousness and even an interface to the quantum.

Scientists are discovering now that beyond seeing colored music, or tasting words, or seeing auras or having facility with metaphor, synesthetes have a proliferation of “mirror-touch” neurons present in all of us which may actually communicate with other people’s mirror-touch neurons. This means that synesthetes are highly empathic. In addition, leading Near Death Experience researchers Dr. Pim van Lommel and Dr. PMH Atwater have written of NDE experiencers “returning” with synesthesia where there was none before. Dr. Atwater herself saw the return of her childhood synesthesia (it is sometimes outgrown) after a dramatic NDE. I myself have had lifelong Out of Body Experiences, (OBEs), and feel more research must be done here.

Tasting the Universe by Maureen Seaberg, available from Watkins Books

About two years ago I left breaking news to depart on a quest to understand what more I believe there is to know about synesthesia. Used to covering crime stories and mysteries, I found the history around synesthesia both: a crime because what was previously known about it was forgotten during the rise of the school of psychology known as behaviorism, and a mystery because though new scientific research now burgeoning around the world had found many important clues to its nature, the meaning of it, be it the biological or the metaphysical nature of it, remained just out of reach. And no one seemed to want to address the vast spiritual literature mentioning the trait despite the scientific imperative to follow the thread where it leads, no matter where it leads. And though I humbly submit, I’m just a layperson, my discoveries were frankly, historic. The resulting book, Tasting the Universe (available from Watkins Books in the store and online [on orders over £30 free delivery + free Watkins Review: Mind Body Spirit magazine]), has just been released through New Page Books.

My research gathered the first-time testimonies of rumored tribe members violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman and Billy Joel who generously spoke to their fellow synesthete. In addition, thanks to my professor Dr. John Michael Lennon of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony, where I studied on scholarship, previous writings by Norman Mailer on Marilyn Monroe were found to reveal his description of her synesthesia. It was later confirmed by a surviving niece. The great mentalist the Amazing Kreskin, more yogi master than showman in my estimation, also gave his first-time testimony. And one open synesthete, three-time Grammy Award winner Pharrell Williams spoke at length for the first time about what he believes is the gift’s metaphysical nature.

With the help of many leading theologians, and the especially gifted Tibet House Director of East West Research Dr. William C Bushell, I found religious literature from the Bible’s Exodus to the Kabbalah to Buddist writings by Zen Master Dogen all address the trait through the ages in the context of an enlightened awareness. And while I pondered God for a time in my manuscript, agreeing with Pharrell Williams that synesthesia is a conduit to the Creator, I knew there was a new pulpit to visit: quantum physics. Why do the lighted photisms, those colorful forms synesthetes see, look like subatomic particle trails sometimes or even stars being born?

I reached out to the affable and brilliant consciousness researcher Dr. Stuart Hameroff of the Center for Consciousness Studies in Tucson, Arizona. “Synesthesia is a deeper form of regular consciousness,” he tells me. “Synesthetes have a lower threshold to quantum consciousness.” He believes the phenomena associated with synesthesia (colored music, for example) happens at the quantum level, perhaps in the tiny microtubules of the neurons and even deeper. He believes that people with synesthesia have had their threshold altered so they tend to inhabit quantum consciousness more often than regular people. “And dreams, I think, are more quantum-like. Dreams have deep inter-connections, multiple code systems and possibilities—timelessness, sometimes.” He thinks this is more typical of quantum information. And he thinks the qualia, or the way things seem to us (like the taste of chocolate or the way a sunset looks), that make up the senses are also in the quantum world. “So it could be that synesthetes are more in what you might call an altered state or a dream state or a quantum state.”
The Center for Consciousness Studies Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference takes place in May in Stockholm and will feature a day-long workshop on expanding the lexicon of synesthesia: http://consciousness.arizona.edu

That the leading consciousness and quantum researchers have turned their attention to this remarkable experience is heartening. And the prestigious Rhine Center at Duke University has received a grant to study synesthesia and Psi. It’s a brave new frontier surrounding this most colorful group of people, who may just be quantum avatars.

TASTING THE UNIVERSE: People Who See Colors in Words and Rainbows in Symphonies: A Spiritual and Scientific Exploration of Synesthesia by Maureen Seaberg, published by New Page Books, £13.99 (check out discount from Watkins Books) Paperback (288 pages).

It is truly refreshing to read a book that is actually about something.

In the early twentieth century his grandfather Hazrat Inayat Khan had brought the Sufi tradition to the West in a form accessible to non-Muslims. Fazal, as is clear from the fascinating, and often moving, accounts of the book’s twenty-one contributors, did not simply repeat his grandfather’s task; he carried it right into mundane Western culture piercing its egoic cultural armouring with shocks and shifts and practises that left his friends and followers deeply changed. Sometimes it was a simple action, word or phrase that worked inside a person for years, sometimes it was the communal environment of the Khankah (the Murshid’s household), very often it was through tasks given to someone to reveal what would help them grow – usually, as these writers illustrate, it was all these things – and the magic could operate over many years and at a distance.

The book opens refreshingly with three accounts from people who were children when they met Fazal. From them one immediately senses the fiery, adventurous and uncompromising spirit of the man, and also an attentive inner caution and care for others that keeps showing through throughout the book, despite the many tales of interactions marked by a rare spiritual gusto, quite unlike the mawkishness  of lush rainbows that so often characterizes the sentimentality and weirdness, now taken for spirituality in much of the “new age”. From one account after another the reader learns how Fazal engaged his followers with remarkable courage, setting them tasks (chillas) that challenged their inner resources, not knowing what the outcome might be but trusting that their souls would work the thing through and grow from it.

One cannot really review a book like this for its content except to say that it is filled with personal experiences that ring true. It is a credit to Murshid Fazal’s teaching that while the book is filled with deeply personal impressions it is only rarely that a contributor introduces some subtle and current ego agenda, and when it does happen, the authenticity of the rest of the content makes it stand out very clearly.

This was a tremendous read for this reviewer. I never knew Fazal, though some of his intimates are close friends, and this book reveals what it was that helped form the resilient soul-centredness that is a noticeable quality in them. By his fruits you know him.

The book is beautifully produced, has an informative glossary of Sufi terms and includes short (single paragraph) biographies of its contributors. Congratulations to the editing team that brought it together and to the Arch Ventures project that published it. Its great value is that it provides all the clues necessary for the reader to enter, even now, twenty years after Fazal’s death, the transformative aura of his “heart Family”.

Heart of a Sufi by Rahima Milburn, Ashen Venema & Zohra Sharp (£28.00, published by Arch Ventures Ltd, 25 Sep 2010, Hardback, 224 pages) is available from Watkins Books.

1. Hands of Light by Barbara Ann Brennan £25.00 (online at £22.50).

This book has become the classic ‘scientific’ guide to working with human energy field. It’s the ultimate healers’ toolbox providing clear instructions for all types of hands-on energy work.

2. Anatomy of The Spirit by Caroline Myss £9.99 (online at £8.99)

A great guide to the body’s energetic system going through a detailed journey for each stage (chakra) of consciousness.

3. Energy Medicine by Donna Eden £20.00 (online at £18.00)

Full of practical tips for alternative therapies Energy Medicine covers the total health or our energy systems including meridians, touch-points and chakras.

4. Quantum Touch by Richard Gordon £18.99 (online at £17.09).

The powerful Quantum-Touch techniques teach us how to focus and amplify life-force energy by combining various breathing and body awareness exercises.

5. Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith £19.99 (online at £17.09).

This chakra healing manual is considered to be the definitive work on the subject. Each chapter covers a single chakra with its meaning, location, element, function, body parts, colour, mantra sound and religious deity.

6. Bodymind by Ken Dychtwald £13.50 (online at £12.15).

Dychtwald gives an amazing account of his exploration of various bodywork therapies. Written in an accessible autobiographical style, it’s essential reading for anyone interested in the arena of mind-body healing.

7. EFT In Your Pocket by Isy Grigg £5.50 (in-store only).

This concisely written gem of a pocket book contains all the necessary instructions on how to apply Gary Graig’s EFT technique.

8. Crystal Bible Vol 1 by Judy Hall £12.99.

A million copy best seller! The crystal bible covers the practical and esoteric properties of each stone, including spiritual, mental, psychological, emotional and physical effects, plus its use in crystal healing. (A follow up Vol 2 is also available at £12.99).

9. Hidden Messages In Water by Masuru Emoto £7.99

This beautifully illustrated best selling book contains an eye-opening theory of how water can absorb, hold on to and even retransmit human feelings and emotions. (The follow-up, True Power of Water is available online)

10. Cure For All Diseases by Dr. Hulda Clark £14.50 (online at £16.65).

Dr. Clark explains the causes of both common and extraordinary diseases and gives specific instruction for their cure through natural remedies and an electrical device you can build at home.