Page 1 of1
Subj:
War in My Eyes
Date:
3/9/2004 4:20:06 PM GMT Standard Time
From:
Eleo.Gordon@penguin.co.uk
Rowdoxy@aol.com
Senti from the Internet (Details)
Deasr Mr Rowdon, can't write you a letter as I only have your e mail
address.
have now read your book and had a report on it. Iti is a very powerful
story and the way you tell it simply is most affecting. That whole
period of the war - going up through Italy, the rest and recuperation in
Cairo and Palestine and the return to the war front is very well written and
evoked. You well describe the everyday aspects of life, how it is affecting
you and the way you and the other soldiers had to grow up overnight.
In the end sadly we don't think we can take it on though. We already have a
Nert
number of WW2 books on our list and there is only so much room. I am sure
though that someone will like it and suggest you approach other
publishers. Get hold of a copy of The Artists and Writers Yearbook. Other
OtY
who
bigger publishers
may be interested are Macmillan; Transworld,
harperCollins. Smaller companies include Spellmount, Pen and Sword.
wish you the bet of luck and thank you for sending it in. Can you send me
your address SO I can return the manuscript to you. Yours, Eleo Gordon
This email
contain confidential material.
may
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intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies.
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AAR
LAY
Monday, August 30, 2004 AOL: Rowdoxy


The Blue.
In the 8 ilence round you,
The high dark blue round the earth,
You cant find a theme if you like, or none;
If none, then that's the message
Your eyes will carry, their 1ight the pale 1ight,
Your touch that of hands
Left in space, like darkness on darkness,
With nothing to reflect them,
But 1f the neseage you bear
Lg continuous and long, and glows
And stays in the aky like someone
Always there but never known, the breeze
That touches the leavea at night and then
Is done, the bird that alone in the tree
Dwells on his theme, the hawk that
Wheels in the silence above, then the
Light, like the blue of the sky
Always there behind the storms and
Turns of fate, will be in your ey es,
Though it may not be seen.
Fishing Boats at Fiumicino.
Below the oobbled pier, asleep


ONAE 18
TRUANT
MAURICE ROWDON,
Full length film story.
The story begins with the evacuation of school children
from London in the summer of 1939. The war has not yet broken
out. For JOHN, who is already eighteen, itis a welcome change
of air: he looks longingly at the Hampshire hills and woods when
the train arrives. This is just like a holiday, but a strange
and ecstatic one---a holiday from which he will never go back,
a trip indt a life about which he can predict absolutely nothing,
as vague as the marvellous warm haze that hangs over the fields
as they assemble in groups for their billets. He will be called
up soon, if there's a war. But he feels there won't be. Every-
body feels the same. Yet there is something wild in Hitler's
speeches, and something ineffectual in Chamberlain's, that tell
him that war will come. Yet the sense of a holiday remains.
It is in the air. But he remembers his parents. His last
glimpse of the London backstreet where he lives was a troubling
one.
The village has a pond and elm trees: the roads are virtually
empty of traffic---business has slowed up, which adds to the sense
of holiday and peace. He is given a billet with three or four
other boys: the woman who owns the house is a drunkard, which
suits him and the other boys wonderfully; they take her cigarettes,
which she doesn't notice, and help her down her sherry, which
amuses her. She slurs her words, sitting at the kitchen table,
talking about the husband who was brutal to her, and seeming to
enjoy the idea of brutality. He discovers the war means freedom,
but perhaps a freedom too broad---it brings feathers to his belly.
He goes for walks. The leisured weeks pass. War is declared
but nothing changes. His mo ther weites that the air raid siren
sounded just as war was being declared, but nothing happened.
He returns to London for a 'holiday', this time back into
his past.
Croydon aerodrome is bombed while he is there. He
is walking home from the library when the siren goes. The streets
are utterly deserted: not a goul their whole length. He has
never seen the streets like this before.
He passes a solitary
man leaning against his gate in the silence, and he says to him
in a half-hysterical merriment, - Another false alarm.' But the
man simply stares before him, with a set face, not even glancing
in JOHN's direction. Aled in that man's face JOHN reads the
whole of the next four years.
When he returns to the country a girl's school has moved
near by, of a higher class than his own. Some of the senior


boys of his poor' school are invited by one or two liberal-
minded teachers of the girl's school to tea, He is one of them,
He meets the geography teacher and his wife: he likes their easy
behaviour; their house is cluttered up with babies and dirty
washing up and books. For them inviting his class was a kind
of social experiment: he is their reward; they find him bright
and imaginative, One evenings, in the dusk, when they are all
sitting round in the teacher's house, with the windows open, at
the foot of a steep green hill, not a sound coming from outside,
KATHY comes in and says a brief and awkward ' Hullo', and sits
herself down without a word, She is one of the girls from the
teacher's school. JOHN watches her in the darkness- --black hair
that makes her face seem to shine, and gleaming teeth and eyes:
they are both quite still, while the others talk: they say nothing,
and she leaves. Softly the geography man's wife asks him,
'Did you like Cathy?' and he says briefly, thinking that he is
revealing nothing, 'Yes.'
JOHN and CATHY meet again. They go for a walk, He falls
in love. They sit on a path in the woods at dawn, after being
at the teacher's house all night, talking: she throws twigs at
him playfully; they kiss. They creep into the kitchen of his
billet just as the sun is coming up: they are cold and hungry,
he wraps his thick jacket round her. The copper pans gleam on
the wall in the first sun,
One morning he is lying in bed at the teacher' S house and
suddenly writes on a piece of paper, 'I am happy. II want to write
this now SO that I always know, whatever happens to me in the
future. I am happy, now.' He tells KATHY on one of their walks
that it feels like playing truant, from reality. The war has
all but disappeared. Yet something must happen. This makes
their love all the more ecstatic. They have long hours at night
in each other's arms, with the window open at their side. He
listens to the news on the radio that Russia has allied herself
with nazi Germany, and sees what must happen for the first time:
doom seems to hang over the mahogany wireless set, in the empy
sitting room of his billet. England will be invaded: he is
trained, desultorily, alittle, to put sugar in German petrol
tanks, cut trees across the road, destroy the little rustic
bridge S. Yet he can't believe the idyll will end. It is
endless: no time is involved. KATHY gets into trouble at
school for staying out at night, always rushing off in the after-
noons. Their love has a kind of local fame.
KATHY is a tomboy, gay, quick, with bright cheeks that
swell like two apples when she smiles. She is from an intellect-
ual familyin and a communist, like her mother. The time comes
for both she and JOHN to leave school. They go to London,
For a time she lives at his parents' home with him, It is
her first experience of working-class life: she is entranced,


fascinated by the people her mother has always idolised. She
loves the little rituals of teatime, in the snug, tiny back-room
overlooking the garden, Her communist conscience has begun to
trosblornince she left school: she must find work in a factory,
she must do something useful. She knows that the pact with Russia
will not last long: her mother has been quite clear about that.
She must do something against nazism, and towards the revolution
that will certainly come to England when the war is over. She
and JOHN sit in the upstairs bedroom. One evening, quite unaware
of what he is saying, he murmurs to her, 'You know, this can't
last.' She says, catching a certain tone in his voice, 'What
do you mean?' He says in reply, 1 Are we going to marry?' She
says, 'I hadn't thought.' 'Yes,' she adds, 'I suppose.' He
is silent. 'What's the matter?' she asks him, He says, 'We
need our freedom, You might not want to stay with me always.
We might want some variety.' She asks, 'Don't you want me any
more?' 'Yes, yes. Always.' And they are silent again,
They go to pubs. An eleventh-heur bohemianism has entered
English life, a touch of squalor and self-indulgence, They meet
all sorts, painters, ballet damcers, theatre people. They tend
to live at night. KATHY leave SE for a trial week at a factory
near Aldershot: when the week is over she returns to the London
home but finds no one there; and she has no key; SQ she pulls
up the cover ofcoal-hole and gets in through the coal cellar.
When his parents come home there is a great gossip about it:
the neighbours are told: I Thought we had burglars in!' He comes
home and hears it. Then his parents go out to a wh Cist drive.
KATHY says, 'John, I've got somet thing to say.' And he goes pale,
seeing her face., 'I slept with somebody,' she tells him, 'I
went back to theschool for a night, and Stan's brother was stay-
ing, on leave. It wasn't really sleeping with him, We were
naked. We kissed each other, that's all. All over. And said
darling. But not more.' He is wild, smacks her face. His
own face changes: it loses its simplicity, readiness for joy.
Her face becomes set too, as if she has forced some compassion out
of herself. She never forgets the smacks he gave her, nor does
he, They are no longer really youths. She reminds him about what
he had said, abotrt their needing variety.
They take a flit together, nearer the West End: flats are
gofng now, The riads start, beginning with the raid on the Docks
one Saturday afternoont, in broad sunlight: they watch the tiny
gleaming planes in formation high in the sky, like slippery little
fish, out of reach to the flack of the aircraft guns. They don't
go into a shelter, JOHN and KATHY: the young never do. They sit
up at night talking, in drinking parties, with the riads going on
outside: the walls shake, there are near-misses, the guns pound
away. When there is a the hurtling whistle of a near-miss they
smile at each other, sitting on the floor, drinking, smoking.


He isn't happy: life is bCleak, He doesn't know what to do:
really he is waiting for his call-up papers, and it doesn't seem
worth while getting a job: she starts work in a London factory,
and he lives on what she earns. He becomes emptily gay and
useless: the sight of him with his long hair and extravagant shirts
makes her communist conscience wild, es specially after eight hours
at the factory. He is playing the fool one evening, putting on
a spotted cravat and dark glasses, and she screams, Take them
off! take them off!' and smacks his face, flinging the glasses to
the floor. Afterwards, in the contrite silence, she says, 'I
enjoyed it, living with your mum and dad, But why aren't they
militant? Working people aren't militant ehough. They're
asleep! It was a disappointment really, though I'loved it.'
It is clear to him that she is also talking about him---the dis-
appointment she feels in him too, He says,'I'd rather be human
than miltant.' She says,'Try it, in this war.' 'I'll always
try,' he tells her.
She stays away from him one whele night. This time she really
does sleep with somebody, without enjoying it. She tells him
afterwards, with wasted eyes, 'I did it to get rid of yeu. To get
you out of my body. I don't know why.' She flirts ostentatiously.
She falls in love with a student---really just an infatuation, which
she realises. She and JOHNsee little of each other. They meet
for the last time on a railway-platform, she has the student's long
college scarf round her neck, like an emblem: but she says, 'Don't
take this as final darling. You were right. We've got to have
our freedom,'
His call-up papers arriventa It is summer again. He takes
the train to his camp, the same/that took him to the Hampshire
village for evacuation. As a recruit he is shouted at, dropped
into ten-foot pits, madeto scale rope-heights, cross rivers
hanging in full-kit; he is fired at with dummy bullets. But it
makes no impression on him, The report is that he seems half
doped, The officers look at him commiseratingly, from a dist-
ance, biting their lips. He catches clap---an adventure in a
disused railway tunnel. His officer snaps,'I don't like my
men going with women.' And he is got rid of as soon as possible,
on an overseas posting: an infantry unit where you are more
expeçted to lose your life than not. But he is
at last.
healthy
Frey "couldn't stop the good air and exercise and wholseome food
from sinking in, He disembarks in Algeria, in the blinding
summer sun, and his pale London skin succumbs to sunburn at once,
and he combines it with dysentery, thro ugh drinking at the tented
bar. He lies in the sweltering bivouac under the mospritef net
with KATHY's photograph at his side, looking at it again and again,
rushing off to the open air latrine in the noonday heat every
few minutes, sick and weak,


He embarks again, for Italy: again it seems taat war will
evade him, since Italy has just signed an armistice, and Sicily is
in Allied hands. He lands at Salerne, on D-day plus 8, in the
dusk, and hears a man with red tabs on his shoulders (a brigadier)
telling a few men in a low voice,'I want you to go up to that road
fifty yards ahead and plonk yourselves down and stay there, even
if Jerry attacks, even if he walks over your bodies.'
He thinks
this is a manoeurre. Even the mortar bombs that come whizzing
over he takes as dummy bombs. Only next day does he realise that
they are on a narrow strip of beach, with the Germans pushing them
into the sea. It is touch and go. But he seems to know nothing
about fear. He is gay, they nickname him the laughing boy.
He only flings himself to the ground at the whistle of a shell
because he sees the others doing it, Really his truancy has
still not ended. But it soon does.
His baptism of fire is really after the Salerno bgackandad
situation has cleared up and they are advancing. The two men
he is with on a terraced vineyard are caught by schrapnel: one
dies, with holes in his back, A quick explosion and it was over.
War is quite different from what he expected. It is mostly quiet,
with sudden deafening noises, or a quick whizz and a death, in
a moment. It# is haphazard, you lose yourself all the time,
there seems to be nonguiding principle. He cries whem the man
dies, standing with an old woman who shakes her head. That is
the moment of the death of his truancy: the laughing boy is dead
too. He looks longingly at the little photograph by his bed,
until it becomes just dots on a piece of paper, not a real face
any more.
A friedn writes to him that KATHY isbehaving 'strangely',
with other men: he doesn't know what JOHN knows, that their
affair is over.The friend says she wears a scark round her hair,
and trousers, like all the munitions girls, or rather like mun-
itions girls in the first war: she is ostentatiously unfeménine,
and communist. JOHN writes to her and gets no reply.
realises he is quite alone. And in some way he must prove him-
self for her, or for some woman there might be in the future:
he begins to identify the war with his own struggle. At his
first attack, at the river Volturno, half the men turm back,
run away from the line. He vomits with fearas he runs in the
dark. He lies at the bottom of a vast shell-hole quivering
with terror as the German 'wailing Winny' hurls mortar bombs
over in handfullsof six, screaming across the night sky. He
can feel the trembling of the man next to him otees A man is
wounded above, cries out. Stretcher-bearers pass the lip of
the shellhole and call down for help: 'We've got wounded up
here, give us a hand you blokes, they're dying up here', while
the wounded man goes on crying,'No, please no, no!' But neither


JOHN nor the other man mové. He is a coward, When he and
two of his mates run up against a German sentry later that night,
having got into enemy lines by mistake, he proves this even more
by running away and not even pausing for the others, though one is
short and fat and carrying all the equipment. When they are rest-
ing after that attack he lies shivering in his bivouac unable to
sleep for fear of a shell dropping or a sudden attack, though this
istive miles behind the lines. He tells the others this when they
areleating from their mess- tins, and one of them says with a smile,
'That's guilt!# They accept cowardice easily.
But these words change him. In the next attack his company
probe forward deep into the enemy line and take a: house expos sed
to enemy fire on three of its sides. The officer is killed and
an enemy tank appears, but JOHN to his astonishment finds himself
rallying all to he men, going from one to the other asking them
if they want to be cowards: the gunners are missing, perhaps
wounded or lost, and only their signaller is there: he arranges
through the radio to bring down fire on the house itself, where
thef are sitting, to stop any attack from outside. The fire ceI mes
down justcas the Germans begin their attack (which he predicted)
at dusk: miraculously they avoid the house itself but disperse
the Germans, six of whom surrender at the windows. He finds him-
self elevated to a non-commissioned officer, incharge of a platoon,
The story of what he did goes the rounds. They expect him to be
decorated, they finger the place on his jacket where his decoration
will be pinned. He doesn't smile. He is moreviolently unhappy
than he has ever been in his life,
This misery only lifts a week later, when he is standing at
the window of a farmhouse with a machine-gunner and a dozen Germans
appear at pointblank range hurrying across the field, ignorant of
the fact that they are being watched, The gunner is just about to
pull the trigger when JOHN lays his hand on his arm and shakes his
head silently. The Germans, stumbling and frightened, hurry away
to dafety. JOHN hears that snatch of conversation again in his
mind, 'Try it, in this war', and his reply,'I'11 always try-'
(to be human). He realises what a deathly objective it is, to
try to prove yourself in war.
The war ends and he returns to greater bleakness tham before.
He remembers her 'Don't take this as final'. London is sad,
dirty, stripped of spirit. He phones from a kiosk where someone
has vomited, and the directories are_torn to shreds, the phone
itself almast hanging from its hingefs. He catfches sight of
KATHY in a crowd of students at the canteen where she goes:
she points him out to the man she is with, who looks at JOHN
inquisitively.
Then
they both turn away from him, the young


man with an embarrassed expression. JOHN is now an awkard,
thick-necked, impulsive person, unable to manage a real conversation,
always knocking things over, He hurried away. He knows that
KATHY is doing canvassing work for the labour party and tries to
get on the same group of streets, and follows her, but she always
evades him, It reminds him of deadly reconnoitring in the war.
She is at the corner of the street, looking womanly, collected,
smooth-faced, and them she is gone again, He gives up, exhausted.
He returns home to the snug little room overlooking the garden:
only this hasn't changed, The clock ticks in he same way.
The little school at the end of the road has been blown to bits,
The street has lost its windows several times. His parents give
a gind of party for him but he sits awkward and ungainly, not know-
ing any of the people, from across the road, from two doors away.
A married couple fight, she smacking his face, he wrenching her arm,
There is an air of misery. The older people look en, at a quite
new world, A piece of schrapnel has penetrated the back window,
and made a tiny hole. He stands there one morning peering at it,
fingering it, dreaming, thinking of the past, quite friendless now.
At that moment the post brings him a thick envelepe: his mother
hands it to him, It tells him that he has been mentioned in
despatches for gallantty: it bears the king's facsimile signature.
He screws it up, and fingers the tiny hole.


press release
THE APE OF SORROWS: From Stranger to Destroyer
The Inside Story of Humans
Maurice Rowdon, philosopher, historian, writer
Published by iUniverse, 25 February 2010 £15.00 ($23.95)
"The only measure we have of any animal's intelligence is whether it leaves its
habitat enhanced or depleted, and by this measure the human is the least intelligent
of all creatures"
WHAT kind of species goes in for collective suicide?
Have our powers of self-invention to date been deeply misconceived?
Periods of decline usually contain the seeds of renewal.
What will it take for us to survive?
The Ape of Sorrows examines human behaviour through the simple but powerful rubric
of animal intelligence, presenting a new view of humans as a magnificent, if misguided
species which lost its way as it evolved beyond its niche to be niche-less, and separate,
from all other non-linguistic animal life.
The Ape of Sorrows opens with a gripping retelling ofthe monkey brawl at London Zoo
in the 1930s. It goes on to examine the history of our relationship with animals, and the
development of our scientific, cultural and religious thought and practice through the
millennia the story that has brought us to this point of extreme instability in the 21st
century.
Author, philosopher and historian, Maurice Rowdon brings a personal philosophical view
to bear on our present state, offering an explanation as to how and why we are apparently
SO tragically committed to the destruction ofthis planet, our evolutionary mutations
revealing a hard-pressed creature who seems to have had no other course.
The Ape of Sorrows is the culmination of 15 years of dedicated thought completed in the
months before the visionary author's death in February 2009.
BIOGRAPHY Maurice Rowdon (1922-2009) earned degrees in History and Philosophy
at Oxford University and published twelve books on animal and human intelligence,
travel, and war. A writer of fiction and non-fiction as well as a prolific playwright, he
also taught his own breathing system, evolved from yoga practices, in California and
Europe. In the latter years he lived with his wife, Dachiell, who survives him, in France
and London.
Website: www.theapeofsorrows.com


Cun examna Ttki hunar as hen, moton Afeds ho ht V
li Slep ln skep gude d whs yor anorot
mscmi we houe do jrdgy
auli
human pu fonance
Ohce we See
Contait 0 Hiapegy Zsapouscon


Customer Profile:
Maurice Rowdon, 44 Brookwood Road, London SW18 5BY. Landline phone
Authors and Other Royalty Participants
Not applicable.
Author Biography:
Maurice Rowdon took degrees in History and Philosophy at Oxford University
and has published twelve books on animal/human intelligence and war. He writes plays,
sometimes directing them, and for many years was a breath-guide in California, naming
his system in 1981 'oxygenesis' . He and his wife reside mostly in London.
Information about your book:
Title: MAD APE
Subtitle: The animal that said it wasn 't.
Author name as it should appear on book:
Maurice Rowdon.
QUOTE:
General quotes on various past work.
Italian Sketches: 'He can describe what he sees and hears with an unpretentious
immediacy that brings a scene instantly and enduringly to life. He is full of variety. .His
style is extremely simple, short words and short sentences, yet every now and then he
takes off on a purely literary flight of fancy that takes the reader with it in hilarious or
tender acceptance.' (Times Literary Supplement).
Extreme spiritual delicacy as well as physical sensibility. .Artistically
exhilarating. Often piercingly accurate. > (The Guardian).
'A loving sunlit account...like the chatter of asti spumante, effervescent and
intoxicating out of a bottle. (New Statesman)
The delighted reader forgives him all his prejudices.. He is endowed with a
sharp reporter's eye.' (Sunday Times). 'It is a real pleasure to come across a quite
original book.' 7 (Observer).
A Roman Street: 'a first-class daily-life writer and all the Romanists will want to
read him... .every word ofit rings true... .reminds us of Lawrence' (Observer).
The Fall ofVenice: Mr Rowdon is fortunate because after reading his enthralling
essays one can still return to Venice and see SO much that has survived the Fall.'
(Cyril Connolly, Sunday Times).
Stylish and haunting' (New Yorker).
Hellebore The Clown: 'One of the truest novels I have ever read...an exquisite
story' (Sunday Telegraph). 'A remarkably assured performance. Here is a fresh, vigorous
and altogether unusual talent.' (John O' London's Weekly).


MAURICE ROWDON
ITALIAN SKETCHES
THE FALL OF VENICE
'Itis a real pleasure to come across a quite
original book on Italy. Iderived much
The new book is a bold and vigorous one, and
pleasure from it.'
though true to its title is written with such
SIR HAROLD NICOLSON The Observer
enthusiasm that one cannot help concluding
'So often
accurate and far
that to fall is happier than to rise.'
piercingly
so under
NIGEL DENNIS Sunday Telegraph
the skin ofeveryday appearances thati it is really
anew appraisal almost ofa new country'
'Mr Rowdon is fortunate, because after reading
ISABEL QUIGLEY The Guardian
his enthralling essays one can still return to
Venice and see: sO much that has survived the
Within a couple of pages he has established a
strong literary personality'
CYRIL CONNOLLY Sunday Times
Punch
Stylish and haunting' New Yorker
A new writer ofimportance' - Punch
'Endowed with a sharp reporter's eye'
A ROMAN STREET
- Surday Times
'Iam quite delighted with it. It catches the very
He can describe what he sees and hears
voice and breath ofRome'
J. I. M. STEWART
with an unpretentious immediacy that
brings a scene instantly and enduringly to
'A first-class daily-life writer and all the
life' - Times
Romanists will want to read him. Every word
Literary Supplement
ofit rings true. reminds us ofLawrence'
'All books about Italy are frantic attempts
BERNARD WALL The Observer
to try and understand the nature ofits
fascination, and ifMr Rowdon's book
ELKEG BELAM
(Italian Sketches) is one ofthe best attempts
Highly entertaining and provocative,
that has been made for many years, this is
this is thei incredible, true-life account
because he tries so deeply to understand and
of two astonishing dogs who com-
must excite the sympathy of anyone else
municate with humans, solve arith-
who has tried to do so' - Sunday Telegraph
metic problems faster than you can,
'A loving, sunlit account something of
and discuss topics ranging from the
Lawrence's travel books, something of
weather to religion.
Durrell's island books : like the chatter of
Many other attempts of varying success have
an opera recitative, like asti spumante
been and will be madet to communicate with
gurgling effervescent and intoxicating out
animals-dogs, horses, chimpanzees, dolphins.
bottle '-New Statesman
Inl The Talking Dogs, MauriceF Rowdon has
ofa
documented- painstakingly, impressively and
convincingly-ones such experiment, takingg place
THE COMPANION GUIDE TO
rightr now thath has emphatically worked.
UMBRIA
Mr Rowdon has written an exceptionally well-
perimeter west
informed and entertaining guide. This is an
outstanding travel book.'
For all who care for literature that
Eastern. Daily. Press
concerns itself with the things that really
happen and really matter, Perimeter West
is a novel to notice. It is original; its
vision is simple and mature; and it speaks
Clowns, some say, are a dying race.
But if ever a sad day comes when The
for a generation unacclimatised to peace
Great Clowns are no more, and people
and quiet.
who have never seen them wonderwhat
they were like, we could confidently
"Profoundly serious" .
"As an
recommend them to read this remark-
indictment of modern warfare Of Sins
able book.
The description
and Winter is extremely powerful .
of this performance, with all its tension,
Here, it seems to me, is described the
Hellebore near-tragedy, humour and triumphant
dilemma not only of war and peace, but
nel owI yo4 ett virtuosity, is a tour-de-force which
that of this century", wrote the reviewer
marks out Mr. Rowdon as a writer of
of Maurice Rowdon's last book in En-
the highest promise.
counter.


OXYGENESIS
The language of the breath is the
subtlest known and the least known.
Its link with the autonomic nervous
system can be found. The Oxygen-
etic process provides psychoanalysis
without words, regenera tion without
medicine, information without think-
ing.
Maurice Rowdon has worked in this field in four countries.
All nervous systems are strong, even when they function
badly. They convey messages to the brain without fail.
If the two sides of the brain were removed and the brain-
stem only left, the organism would continue to function
autonomically---that is to say, it would continue to
ingest and digest, evacuate liquids and solids, withdraw
muscularly from unpleasant contact. The brain, if re-
placed, would then continue to receive the information.
It would become. 'aware'.
It is this awareness that leads us to believe that the
mind is actually in control of the organism, and guides it,
and is even the seat of the ego. But in the Oxygenetic
process this conviction (virtually the basis of western
thinking since the seventeent th century) undergoes a deep
change, but not through argument or exchange of ideas:
it comes about in the organism. The organism finds
itself living in a different way. It no longer feels
in the grip of the mind, least of all of a super-ego
intent on ideals, punishment, goals, blueprints of behav-
iour. Something more intelligent, more dependable, more
in touch with the objective world seems to have taken
over.
Emotions are no fewer or less strong but the
organism is now insulated: for emotions are the mental
symptoms of our encounter with the world, and the bridge
for that encounter is the nervous system. In the case
of schizophrenia the ego is split because the sympa thetic
and para-sympat thetic systems, in their interaction, have
lost the power to distinguish inner from outer, subjective
from objective, private from public.
Maurice Rowdon's interest in this field bep gan at Oxford
where in his studies of the various metaphysical theories
of perception he began to suspect that the mind was not
in fact the sea t of our power to 'objectify' our sensations,
as the great philosophers argued. His claim today is
that the seat of the ego is the nervous system, which can
be reached by dieting, fasts, medicine and surgery, but
can be altered, individuated and aligned only by the breath.
Above all, that system is our sole source of information


about the world.
Whatever is known to us must be
received through the nervous system; and the mind is
secondary receiver. This is the case even with ma terial
of a telepathic or intuitive nature which we often assume
to come in some way 'through' the mind.
For the mind to receive the right information no changes
in the mind itself will avail, since it is a receiving,
analysing and ordering agency. Only a change in the
nervous system will ensure that the information service
is a sound one. Once it is sound, information of a quite
unexpected na ture begins pouring in.
It is well-known that thinkers sometimes make a breakthrough
in their work which they find quite unaccountable. The
answer is suddenly there after perhaps years of wai ting.
The mind just doesn't know how it happened. This was
because the nervous system was quietly and invisibly at
work, and presented the answer when the organism was
ready to receive it or act on ito
The intake of large quantities of oxygen may be, but need
not be, beneficial. It can be harmful and deeply disturb-
ing to the organism. Oxygenesis is the process of learn-
ing the language safely, carefully and confidently, in
private consultation.


OFSCERE w2st
Hoi
HAREN
WP / - (UK) - Bare Avrt.
N2Ci
TiM
Mulies SCTA - - Tasie
MAN
No LoTe CEyY
CHECK
IPY
TAKE
KTITE
1.30 phtenn
Kode dos kennal
DAUGST
Detes 4506
brdw


The human's fictional concept of death and his consequent
terror of it are not only a key-factor in his biological development
but the very source of his civilisations. That concept created in
him a distress unknown to other creatures, and the human's search
for habitat became even more frenetic, the more the search failed.
This new, alternative, fixed habitat would provide all the
consolations of the 'old' habitat, would no longer stare him in the
face with the horror of the unfixed, the impermanent, the fleeting,
the accidental, the unpredictable, the uncontrollable.
'Every minute dies a man,' wrote Lord Alfred Tennyson
(Charles Babbage, a Cambridge mathematician born in 1792, probably
the first designer of the calculating machine, pointed out to
Tennyson that in fact men die much more rapidly than that, which
is why the final version of the poem reads 'moment' instead of
The human faced not only this endless procession of
the dying but the apparent inconsequénce with which the young,
the healthy, the good and the wise were picked off, suddenly
lifeless maybe a moment after the fullest vigor: this discomfited
the mind in its search for a habitat no longer subject to the
unintelligible design of unknown forces.
When these
deaths happen---when someone is 'snatched away'--our regular daily
habits (the ease with which we assume that tomorrow will follow
today) suffers a kind of ridicule. All we can do is mourn, then as
quickly as possible fall into the old bland assumption---to be
shattered again by an accident on the road, news of an air
disaster. Or we try to mend the tear in the illusory curtain of
'permanent reality' by saying that the accident was destiny', as
soldiers say that the shell or bullet that gets you has your number
written on it.
Doctors, scientists, healers, even therapists who write best-
selling handbooks on health and longevity are as suddenly snatched
off as others, and their comforting (or frightening), suggestions that
life could be brought under control, whether with computers or
nuclear energy or transplants or space-travel or pills, are given the
lie. We know from the Hayflick researches that the human cell is
capable of living 120 years, and that the human span could possibly
become immeasureably longer: but the accident, the unforeseen?
Little wonder that "science' became necessary, as a climax of
centuries of religious effort to substitute for a seemingly chaotic
and formless reality one that would suffer no changes.
Few
churches can avoid the temptation to promise good fortune now to
the devout, and bad fortune now to the sinner.
Even eastern
gurus promise health, wealth and happiness to those who do their
asanas, or meditate, or follow the rules of the ashram.
The
implication is---not the proper religious one that realisation' will
bring you freedom from your own fears---but that reality outside
will somehow accomodate itself to you, remove its 'stings'.


It is a private concern of mine. It is an altogether selfish concern of mine. I want to
live while I am alive, that is all. I want at least to try. We have not yet been able to
find out if it is possible for us really to live during all the seasons, all the changes of
climate, all the stages of growth, each with its own fierce and magnificent problems,
but we have the right to want to try. We don't really care if it kills us, just so we are
allowed to try and not be interrupted by some irritating idiocy such as war which
comes about through the same despair in duller men finding a different outlet. We
want to go about it quietly, privately, without cannon booming, without oratory,
without transportation, aviation, war tactics, abnormal pain, abnormal heroism,
abnormal greatness. We want to go about it in some small part of the world we know,
in which we have lived, and we want every part of this small landscape to be real to
us, to become a part of us, and we want every God-damn tree in the place, every patch
of empty earth, every plant with leaves, every stream, every moment of sky, every
hour of light in the world, every ounce of pressure of air, every mouthful of food and
water and wine, to mean something to us, to be a part of our seeking to be alive
immortally. We want to have the time it takes and we don't want any interruption.
William Saroyan, The Little Dog Laughed to See Such Sport, 1963.




A seuse pasolyer heaur a leeked-np Hrouekes
the hew
pi Crente nune fea I
euergy Krsiy
hre pueple i harfme klis l LET Go.
Pain meaur
thu a taliy i yip l-
rleezad, uow e Jule -
iL 5 a claaly ucrca Je
2 enwgg.
t place fn y
A sopant foze take, o Whil love, ya
andl the 1
hs qun becausoie A ac Jials
Itro Ix-
enrappripu tth Ca 7o go tingr
peniu
1 BREATH 5 all uno ueed,:
ern 2 Llr
follan.
(L Comhacd alc 1r.
cll veleade
SHORT BREATHS, ven gule,
utt THREE
paalyer nume ee sies, A cmlinal
DEEP BREATH - S
fealif
Come
Pren
Mmace P
c 12 a oue Stini
THE
PROBLEM
tee
1 pondl
Dscovs Y tture -
A SET


THOUGHTS tu domiale
he TURN IT
AROUND:
1 au afraid 2 faduy LE I layind
afpaid 2
I in ccesdiy
nfraid Dlovif
loued'
uill hislnt 1L a sait)
lig
(pepb
unde reliihhey
To HEAL.
Stcepisp
Tue SCENARIO I MoViE,
Au auguin, womg,
l6 ha kbu CUT. Sartene law:
- ite MOVIE.
Be Tue )s
rol k idean ulnc sasey.
Juouy,
dalecld:
i eesil
Tho
dcsenled selp
pusaus
Cur
ciy paippl
ay teeliyjs 2 umy,
preic
He C
Conpalai- 1 prwe mc self, ndicl
doshne.
l um sed Vem ueveep i Jualiy
nveg
Whil
nlrde 1 C luer neer
Espeni Jaw:
heppem
GET
hele.
TRY To
aht Jl i hpperiy
THE
MCSSA Gr.
Geeano
Liyp
If Thase -
Yeevy
a Iag hew,
esco hug
tintene tmidits
L Ay
We llock mpelves,


Thouglt- ssaminalin sxpeli Ite Wroy tougpa.
The denire fr 'strde' colue fom deep.mgicti
availetze c u te foune Lc a
Shraig - actuelf
dreal Come fox pople.
Au regolivits - urfel mnterel: Iur -
Loltup The cahuot he pue L good use, Stay ad
X amine the fer, tre tealig.
Ynr drean Wur
Shattered a i orel rac IT
mhored wa ke ule drcaun coue Roon ho6 heiy
awake,
Yon carli dream awake.
Eoteod law: Ue uensl enlo unc cestautged
stas Ive, hol neindif cry lempray harminon
it nifhe tring.
fseteni law: ango anguia : prodicd 3
ROLES,
melies h onccead L STARRING
le Ilelled I
Ons', Slacs iduris urilu
RSSPECT
A PERSON OWED MONEY AnD
But Aa plona ce
AND
WOMEN (MEN).
accrd 5th
becarse V dresnl
alheel, anguin
Klm A serpt i
Sicl ull hol
wimic achni,
Le Fill E- thon me will,
erano. '
nlo nles
dreal,
ne hoxt righr,
eats u eprs
enguin


Hurtag Ohen 1 hurtay yumey. bne yun five The,
heet qo eat quney. (istene Lai)
(hwd
felc augy uth Ohs sitol fcely the age?
Koud T
teal dous tnard MLo utt.t terlig
sounon? A low do
feal love tavenk, Ahs Alkal
lovel) Bsstiné 7 hav: tua a diiidul.
teelis
Esstenc how: DLL be nognlivi taaos ugalwi
terliy -
LE redubles the tmelle,
Yn caiv nemoue Hhe anguis 5 dm
gouig Lls i uardh -
hie dely à imoee
ha khe relo ueol AhL Causei
Peceg togs
tpt Link fails drefal ha inape
fn Hae mienlid peamhis
Terings S> wrmg
sel haluse
heus t yur
Thue 1 C portle h.
De away
aol
Hke
cnol The,
wony
auguin
efo
Ae prhen
Thukif
solner,
hovyrt Blreks,
hasc piipu 2 pelistturt (tru) i LET
2ob Ae
nol
fealie,
cxpren yus fobict


A feeluy 2 AisenEl fm
meseeg,
9 plene - the asnel ronlies,
Mromparen, lack
Come for finn
Ika sp-popante foatuie, he
frcealiy
sugorinnge.
Inv scw retuse Car ueu bedlatade clopers ed
Say practicil onpesr rahe fa L sperin
A all reaneb L Euma gfaio.
ln lhe aprots
peoplns yn euey dey F teyyf jidgeuat - selealad
K handle ay cmoa 6H pofoct Cohhaad.
The manthulic seop han I yo
Relimu Len sonufts /s do ath getty loon
kihe real selfy Sice
has Lo Ita A
LH pnneis.
k C
A cy -
aniue,
eud
2 poalig
wher mfunig Is ma away trm an hifph
feelit,
yr hovce hanspycedagitt
loyu 1s ns away
y ntiang won ym can froreed kthe
xl STep 4 realinig it har
ho pousr mara
ciou mind.
attentin
A hegolini Inhe Stale
Ueer yn ho ttmw 1 it
fa sanals


To undontard -
cnsi
mpuhen d hamk atab
feasiy w.
To STab fcanip L
hn E
k Le s haue false pour me T
Think Afus i
he Whole Juind.
Qtw car we Lee the njue how - 4 Ihe mg tus
Davr i ? A:Try t line i Lobe Shw Time,
One hure 5 the Aprite Lex: hi, intense dense
6 the Ohe pon Ylindeddt R the prons
schemeror progame s
W5- 3 at * krow hunp ah( qu self-
mnge, hotice Uhur <7o UT nosk searig Hended
Emokina ay euerpis. hrivieg nagoe always
pure. Imolens 7 feas ad wony -
hn Isle
( hachelled.
Dai wait to Hamis Is cageya ale
1 J dot Aire rilt-how how, yaome
ther.
Le nuol arliy Ie custes eehhot an curer it
- Ligher uid Lo do thal huin meuie
eali pustine arol Tag cleas
DohoE
hek Urole Lle
do he e knowy
Jur
to do.


Hope I angui u.
Teps uny fn iuverlal prasdig, hok wtua
seep.
Wher mustif C poheu 8 Cnxi
des tand A the L
tha fijet W.
in helicue Vr uun make a ipros ur
appena, Dnp u.
( S7ap the pupr
cueryies flansgi,
Eazathtfrt
He 1
fart A L >upps
the rcal dynomin
legnsh ton
Ihice - uecl hure Joureo Ita
appeace.
Dae nun away hon G cnii. Stay uhyya cre
honl adr i util T. Jee Hhi 75 cre Mae carc,
aol yar 37l 2 m cid prvide, He diffenes.
Ya may Hher Lel the yuere ya own dolulioi.
Feoling defrivel 2 ta nget laus unde, frird
helh, prots A neps a wa -) Aet hiup pnow,
h faliy thl J ure lapricad 2 mothy becane
Gne yuosy -
t triving mlune L C
P2 livip Lew, audlosing te defniala.
te-join tte wsrld. Ynere no Inger lonely.
ttry
enlerns njar- Low


mag
leeds K
afprien.
ccens ml temireminge
Bri
E drecen beun leatsl mefilee peomsliy
uead
1 Il sueceab.
he real seug ueue her
hal
cenusk fail. metalu punnlis
proy Tep. Aud uo Palse Armer Len Te
KN5
lL STaggs Am mo falpe atalc
khe hexl
The uonal S7hy garccen,
1t 50 vall lwk Iny euour eK r frghlenr
i ull Ialee tojar ad rua aw ay-
Donot fear lo fcal feas. Examine St.
The nexv hme yw mvlel tugins js fall apert
Oand calml and let se fall un fas cdlan fert
a a- unshe,
Ifer ho raulaice
Figer c
Tot >Tand Mhur cL c calu
Ltkif -
olserver.
Naue uo feari penity -
sopadice
t fea, ASt aral.
Hhi here 4 notuer
Arl
fr uliile.
U nlg slypan
way
cnii
ale
cosis mlsale mflect, Ln STle 2
adle.
usesl C Le AU
In Ca a Leoaid AaL Ihn
andder slump HhL loser lre ry jirt
mlol Lo v
intudon
Dutol an une steie 2erisis
Cl lEs c
7 gnal waniy ad Tnlm proede:


JTel 2 cosi ves feal lo cni ad
Eike
harfre
putus
ay ntu, uHh clanls cud uols
iis)
niduce aL ali
panic,
crss Ayuy l tree a
caans
liiny
the cariou, cid wos kroo colts, 2 n carfe
papealinis ktli, enol.
Gnduigg lose te deuse 2 hary k corpsts.
Ad he Lese) coupaciens. So sealrelexalin
seis i
ing tLe falso poncy Coufpales.
Cueul
eliduce diaun itieep Kn tetathy sxlenu
/t Con -
CoMpis
Lpor feas 1 unoxhe clc clocs.
mopectei
te audlder relnl-wll teuy tun u k videice.
Beeme aw ase 2 eues feeliy 2hrenwr U
disemfrr C
hemman
the arises
Nstie hou
Her nie ad take Hhe ongauin onet.
becoue
- 3 C ) te
Loe
gheit euasys
Aris Can le relcased ah
sAr
sfmuset.
45- err piyhlne ClE ali thag <
the mne
reslil there A foiy k be elot 2oleolk mys
Cau Le it hon ua,
-el forus disipleaw uftug.
de. tt, 2 Oris ail
AL J E CP
asi
porlls
denth /
rulif, d hupho
hurt: Int Caule and eSfect ae aside ym
urts relufg felip 2 feu neseulner - ax ief, C
RTUNITIE S hy sf EvércYosaits kh
used


lelitups gehikh arjuslseg,
Sraymt Hhe eoplien. 1 Hre hudole 2 .
Sosteni
Feaches coufrmsie.
adian ppcksl-c
Bok teuce
tachs uou cnfrmise.
Pyceoles)
hnelig:
tges differere
aduisiet
relites.
mmad
BREATHE THROUGH
Wher dispeales
Side
IT aal W ciil tr the praitere
Htal.
a ther unte il
Show thmel
BNERGY asiip
Wony i
Pow ERFUL
aol bo causa ucale
khe let thmyl,
itreep
- - luoulad
get Rmp C spretel,
pas,
Hame thouehe alul mhoay
CLL doyy
Itah ) tu ider thc the huma cell 4
cennetre culg
apune ) livif fr
N ec ttre cee thr prouks, ad uen cl
dealtem
Ihisn 5ll ure lete mgea,


Tao, andall Bustem duclune
rupes khopenn
u sie uho neue chara, ueust har uf cndl doers,
fcel, heitt elstn _( Juccen un digaca at failue
kuswn no age, hecdy nolteuy becarse ho han wsynie,
aid 3 5 his pon the Rolistay tu lette sfece.
U in L hieple heslh, rechurpie chicl chaser donth
akqn Lls.
lb dniver death ml ) Jeer toly.
A Iree drcsne dey ls treep lau this lau Itaul
lan sTnp, lau wenk, I heedtlii, leed Ital.
(G sriply M.
Andenestneg au eeip the
salue.
(L ug diffes L theway it wauifeali.
Bule the Hagie uauifea S noC Iti geip:
BREATH fey beliw unufertidon.
invude the facad-
Examning Mhoype a the
indignslen,
arol audde
al Lm
cd fear, anics >do arse wr 2
Tum, 2 feeliy HL luay
fe hiost
mexpeclcd ataln - - prpm relittrp
2 Ite
Emal
accaparius
tte
becaure tere haue gmant
land nt past -
, mplonghel
rolnd
frm Dd stualn
well uf


stualiasad hn khe dealt vith nel ne, Exauriie
hhan alresdy srigo Thas anthoif
Zyreills do
Lutas.
Ce coupered la
Mik
Agca
awuy
Bul Y they ae
preyinr the Puufan.
gens
Cor l deer cal euergy -effie
venioued thay
thv foj
1 solue
xtala, Though effin
le called
unex ein
ly ca
Ihe huied Y
udevalue Itos euegy
mgahie Yuk Nus
the lanir ther
cnlav, ad haka, cL seeu
to,G L euoyr.
mmud L poitsei
i ula llaue Kin'
') Afele Lin
Logp
Eenit
ek i The astapcit
the thiy ) ledk
Whr Itai
ad y doe
Ie hb,
hiid ca thh cles,
Cith the
dealr
tinl Tune
le doe tth
anol the stJa
hen sxauiif
Stos C STm 2 tealis.
Shice tt
die C cleoraa R jot
ttoyls
(thurtpul - -
Kockie
BREATH
las Sartil,
also be 3 aming : tinfre
slalani ha
adavad
hid A del H Ihe wanip
cleas
i senentie).
dibse afpriera.
dewtel Lo uucl tane
m Laue Luba beig
ciilisalin
Becaure A hew
ta toht.
poped.


Brehhe Hemye Hie auguin kmw. Wakig -
He lsmiy sH
fealip 7 hom take lup
velaxed Irelle, hm tote k hendad Marty
ume C te rehitig syhu. W taue aue
prhum 2 heucur - hidd-ufp n stmace hauso
Hae
o Freulliy, Hrore cse ag >opla
hatue ) the col,
Id Hu aiind
debuened
tte cel : G IHle
cill
toyeu
diprenes,
Teel
the Jholo
cmpoed)
u the
mgarn
cell uel Hhl Hhe heiud 4 ul ugileniy
Iais
cellule defrenin
We huh jet nt 2 the ujhlielth caliy
Hal Uz lased beliep
wy 2 tiles
Shice swefp l
the Cashessan cncelt
I / ttrik
a dideste
cenitionis
the ump.
IE W6 rxecep
tinfme
the al sa A wachie
mdle Jaid
See
uler aninal
utordle the nend
areleetrbisds
macliiar. hen feagne vestin asind
dogh CH the
0 lipe snuk
V becous
2 2a3 caluiis,
lil, agiss
malaralg -
iua tiohe
- Hua oolinag
thre
Lapend
Unl WT bo
soyat
un Iherk
the twetietk cels,is
Hrl.
(hii. paa fheu nt
) enb-luny


anguiid cuol lom : Item showif Uhe euryy 3 a
iy khrlapad (
the calc, L Itre fm 2
clars).
Pal
- 1 tre aupuin
Diulet i
Phst
Caute
ac6.
AcE nly
44h
afpe methif & uk.
Ralkems cigp cuet l semid misag hhii
Luk drmit Ite anguira 5 k le USED.
Soncalled regaturi togho ewr e
POWERUL
FORCE ihistuf
cr chargu. I Huii Hhs
the Loll
OJT lk pai,
1 fact thp ue
allned /s 7.ko
euogo a pai.
Adyp
Ae ngenin thg aclasll
Caal
chey 2 the eud.
I an dwr thi - Hre
pai L
Cause) jutra uzpai L unee
join
ed Juisl
Uruicl - Gn majr partes toda,
envelinil
medicaie 4 grita nenpelae
he bert TreaTuacsie car
dial SH,
adlsr
aste agfhokin,
cupuclore
rynt
Hae
healiy fi
a cejia)
hogitzo
nen Lo
N deda lare
bl Teilmal
- A anyfery
Lall reliouy
2 thore
eure healiy,
Hai He
L unalle
patie
caditeni,
ute thi 5 ai - euergy


Ayr greut hude, Y the / areflectd! beip
'lam
wlouduoard flmpunalif - claleder,
uill tirel
tildif ufy hice cnlel uew
sttil Ite
otol
Raue reured
hust
demondif tite clauce.
lhe urget euery
Al me lane profcs ulve
hermdsd ShLL 2 ees.
We ug heus / pert zie, t phypeal peurt.
Tylspul He wany int Yhe velinkrre - feed u
toet whe the
STarG flowip
in while Irealtip,
Cungy
REBIRTHING Stage Sstiger
hmg relaxed effutten ercetip jm feet l
head.
Sovt mi Ihe cnselared a
Bnigupile tha cluest
hjfe guick Wete l unlluek, fllned 4 3
S trelti.
lncseere cluesk restu
gmip it à ufp ulz Mhe hande gat Malijur
heedl.


tul -
Remove cncapteal negalivls
rausea
all anguish, wnT feas, forehrdig
lyup
Rate,pain 5 a pase eueyy
Tuese
hreak thmeh cend hok succeediing
clamonning
changerih
tharis
lfe


ln all slaalins, Roweue dask, tiere alound
Oppoteites the Carn te ured,
B6 lbeg hace
khe Morr ut.
gpp tui Cahhot le doue
uttoe C clcasuce - fort- fiine,
do we
Leed
We cseale
He pureus.
S land 6 get He pugnuue fer
Palem ande fm hol kuowip Aher.
False a nuemn ired pomcf e rejucln
9 self
Agginatis -
dspud Ie you co doy
the
real
H qo els (ie
Alt
propanmt -te LL poner
57l cliarce notig. ato
afawe
Wri T Ce AT doyuilh falde
Seep
UhE
He)ins naly
ughot
thk, nyer,
snss uie mnfenic.
Lag thi Ite
3 Co
we Lnluuve
)s propaue
C fy L wese ?
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d lhe sesultanl Rumliain ai i C,
poslion,
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caumelip tuv Jel u free,
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fanlay.
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Ginig money A the Enu relint, 4 a xlllo
way 2 crestig the cunga
CLa Ca chure
eihg.
Tere A a haif amufhni in uost proprns
Semmao Ihe uoneg nfnsele jropriy
lko relining tha humor
Witout ugut Hheorapier
Shue funer teuam,
vace umld coll-pas thmyl
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haad nothip axtanal,
the lor beanbie la
The finv relidng
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'Plase STap
ltuples mre
Vrdy sihalas,
rhe Jayip grurlge mvid Idyip
fhu fiou me, livip
1 dent.
syre
Ces me
halie.


MAURICE ROWDON is a British writer and has published
twelve books. His novels include HELLEBORE THE CLOWN,
OF SINS AND WINTER, PERIMETER WEST (about West Berlin)
and AFTERWARDS. His biographies include LEONARDO DA
VINCI and LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT. His history works
include THE SILVER AGE OF VENICE (which he made into a
55 minute BBC film) and THE SPANISH TERROR, a study of
sixteenth-century religious persecution. His travel
books include ITALIAN SKETCHES, A ROMAN STREET and THE
COLLINS COMPANION GUIDE TO UMBRIA. His latest book,
ELKE AND BELAM, was on animal intelligence.
His publishers include, in the US, Putnam, Regnery,
Praeger, St Martin's Press.
In Britain they include
Chatto and Windus, Heinemann, Gollancz, Weidenfeld,
Collins, Constable and Macmillan. His agents have
included Georges Borchardt, Elaine Markson and Harold
Ober Associates.
He is at present represented in
the US by John Pickering and in Britain by David Bolt
Associates.
Rowdon has an MA from Keble College Oxford in Philosophy,
Politics and Economics, and after leaving Oxford he became
Lecturer in English Literature at Baghdad University.
He later began living in Italy, where he still has a home.
For the past two years or more he has been resident in
the San Francisco area.
His work in the theater includes ESKIMO TRANCE at the
Victoria Theater in Stoke on Trent, England, directed by
Peter Cheeseman, with Anton Vogel and Robert Powell.
He later directed this play with the same cast at the
Mercury Theater, London. His play MAHLER, with Vladek
Sheybal in the lead, was produced at the Arts Theater,
London, directed by Peter Watson, and Rowdon later directed
it at the Studio Theater in Munich, Germany, where he was
director of English-speaking productions.
He is at present working on a new comedy GURU GURU, and
preparing a new book in the same genre as HOW TO STOP
DYING IN CALIFORNIA, to be called THE TWISTED WORLD OF
SURROGATE SEX.


fhuy
flo
aA dark winter's afternoon'emi Gt was some
time before she answered the doorbell because she had
toeome down four or five flights of narrow stairs. In
# is the part of London where you don't expect answer-
phones at the door and autematig press-button release.
She was dressed
a long gown,rvery dark with
steady black eyes, a
mother-type you would call
L0o0LYE:
her, something of a gypsy, you could see the wild side
behind the stillness. She-wes-steytng muthetop floor
and I made a joke that must have been madenseveral times lym I
toher when-we got t thopo-frter all those stairs
I need to be reborn!"
Because that was what I'd come to her for, to be
reborn.
First we had a chat in the tiny sitting room.
She half lay on a mattress on the floor with cushions
round her. I wasn*t-exaetly nervous but I had a sense
of foreboding. I've noticed this a lot since---in
others who want to get reborn. They know they're going
to say goodbye to the old life. Something tells them
that. So they get fearful and apprehensive or they
may fall sick. That ogten happens. Or they may
suddenly cancel the appointment. Sameskingxisxaperatingx
KRTEXtax*#1ixtkemxwwattuxemmingxxpx It seems people get
a forewarnin of what's going to happen and even if they
feel their lives are a mess they may still not want to
get out of the mess in case there's a worse one ahead.
Morel than that, a mess creates its own pleasures and
comfortsroud veleeses. K
She told me women weré more open than men in her
experience. They cry more easily, she aid. Og I cry
wi thout difficulty I said. Great was her reply. We
went down the corridor to the bedroom and she told me to
lie down towards the edge of the bed. Then she covered
me wih a light quilt, and put a thin pillow under me
head. She asked me if I wanted to pee and I said no.
She said well I'd like to lie as still as possible,
if you've got something to say you can say it and of
course wask any questions wyou want to but otherwise
keep as quiet and still as you can. All you re going,
she added, is breathe in a certain way. She then turned
the standing lamp in such a way that the room became
shadowy. The curtains were drawn. It was very quiet
considering it was such a busy part of London. She put
my arms at my side and brought a chair over to the bed.
She sat down and said close your eyes and keep them
closed.


B9VEr
3EG asvi
YI 200 art
catu He
luzer lalo
itl Nanos
stiring
destt
this
fime o : a d
zhfa
O lems
Nay
MiL
A uo
clevisle
dork
5/l doii LS
hett


ttre cuurp
It was right to tell her I cried wit thout difficulty.
But I didn't exapect the silent tears that poured from
my eyes, and continued to well up agai and
And
it wasn't ordinary crying. It had nothing msar to
with
any distress of mine. I was crying ta the awful kindmess
and tenderness being poured down on my me in such an
unstinted flow I've never experience before or since.
And that tender ess fwas coming from a definite entity.
Simultaneously I felt en enormous gratitude to this
woman who was sitting in a chair close to my head---
tha*XEXEXexwasxtMEXYEXXEhIX saying and apperently doing
nothing---t that she was the vehicle of this thing
thing that came out of the blue and over which I had
no control.axdxwhigkxinxfagtXsEEENRAXRXXRRXX*EXx*uxXX
My hands had started tingling. I told her this
in a whisper ad she said simply OK, that's nom normal.
And the tingling spread gently to my stomachand legs,
and then suffused the whole of my body. And as this
happened **XIX****XEXXmexxiaxitkyxaxaYEXmixaxpresENEE
kaxeringxinxfrwntxuREXBIXWEXXXX
Iif I start I became aware of a presence in front of me
or above me I'm going to run into difficulties not only
with the reader but myself. It would be much more true
that I became possessed by something over which I had
no control. Better than hat, I was under possession,
I was sort of gripped by the greatest force I; d ever
encountered---gripped everywhere, physically as well
as mentally. I was entirely the property of this
shadowy force. I call it shadowy be cause it seemed
to be a living and dynamic part of the shadows of the
room, though my eyes were closed. And I was being
addressed. A definite message was being given to me
but not a t all a verbal one. And the presence was
much more than shadowy. It was visible---and much
more visible, much more present than we remember
dreams to be. It was a face. And---again I risk
alientating not only the reader's but my own power
of belief (much that we experience we fail to believe
even while experiencing it) ---that face belonged to
a person I recognised. Yet I'd never met that person.
Some people said he'd never existed anyway. I'd read
quite a lot about him. I think that I gathered from
my reading a vivid sense of his personaliy. Itxwasx
I'd never really been part of the cults and institutions
organised in his name. I found the doctrines attributed
to hkm absrud. As for cults, my taste for hem had
bee satisfied well enough by orietal teachings---Yoga
and various types of meditation, fasting. For over
sixteen years my attention had been given to other
teachers than this one---and ones proved to have
existed, and ones alive today. For this was the
face of Christ. How I knew this I couldn't understand
at the time, nor do I understand it now. But th
presence was SO overpowering that the tears began pouring
from my eyes---there was such a shower of love and
tenderness from him that I could only break down
utterly. But I never for a moment lost my awareness
of him. Of course my mind was saying all the time
this


this isn't true, you're lying in a room with your
eyes closed and a silent woman at your side. But
the presece persisted. It had a definite form, and
a definite reltionship with me. I was aware O his
long hair, and I was also surprised to see==or rather
feel---that the hair wa S auburn rather than black.
He was dark, less thin than I had supposed in childhood
bible classes. His skin was smooth, his features
extremely soft.
And he hovered over me, part of the
shadows, a shadow himself but quite distinct, indeed
more distinct than a physical presence could be because
he had possession of my whole person, body and soul.
And he began doing something to me. He drew closer
ad closer to me---I felt an overwhelming sense of
being favoured, priileged, I felt awed, moe than at
any other time of my life---and seemed to take my arms.
And I raised myself slightly to in order to get the
message he seemed to be conveying to me. I say seemed
because we get used to talking this way about shadows.
The word just meas that our mind is insisting that only
th physical is real (despite this having been consclusively
disproved even by those who believe in it most, the
physical scietists). But what with the tears and
that sense of a tenderness I had never witnessed or
eve n thought possible before it was difficult for
my mind to retain its control or even vigilance.
Yes, my arms were being moved. They were being
moved from he side of my body upwards. Slowly he
was lifting thm into the position of the cross.
Here again I have that sinking feeling that this will
be taken as just another piece of se lf-induced
religious illuminaion. ***xixganxpieaxisxthaxxixxx
MEXEXT***IEXtimExfurxreligian@*X***XMgAXpXEnkyxfaxx
xalidxmy**iX**XXXXX**Eiaxxx But at the asame time
I have to set down truthfully what my experience was.
Though my arms remained physically at myside I could
have raised them.
That is, there was a strong nervous
tendency in them to raise themselevs, which my mind---
alive to the fact that I might make myself ridiculous
to the st anger at my side---resisted. (Sin e then
I've seen many others raised their arms during a
session). He was pressing on me but without the
smallest touch. It was all being done by the power
of his eyes, that extraordinary gaze from which I
flinched and yet towards which I was more and more
drawn, and the utter softness of his expression which
at the same time was firm, strong as I hadnever
witnsessed before in a face. It was like me being
show n that tenderness is the greatest strength there
is, the only real key to understanding matter. And
as my arms wen back I realised that he was with infinite
gentleness, using the shadowy power that emanated from
him in an irresistible way, he was making me take up
the Christ position on the cross, and the tears were
pourinf down my face also for this, the thought of such
tenderness being nailed up and killed by people. And
there was no blame in him. In fact there was the very
opposite emotion in what h was trying to get me to do.


And this brought the tears in evn greater flood---
the thought he was inducing in methat what had happened
on the cross hadn't in the least been bad. He was
trying to lift my head too, becase that had dropp
ed 9 under his shadowy directions, to one side, so
that my chin restd on my shoulder-blade in the character-
istic crucifixion position. And he was lifting it.
He wanted to look into my eyes. He was urging me to
feel joy. He was urging me to laugh. He was melt-
ing the pain of the crucifixion into aother thing.
And I was following him as closely as I could, strain-
ing forward, my breathing quiet stopped now. And this
increased my emotion yet more---the message that in
pain there is joy, in suffering there is joy, but when
I put it into words it sounds trite. But he conveyd
th feeling to me, urging me to see life his way, to
change my life in fact, to base it on that feeling,
or rather awareness, that the pain and the suffering
are an etire illusion and only the joy real and permanent.
It is something I'm still learning (the hard way) well
over a year later. But it feels as if that mssage
entered my cells in some way---not my mind. My mind
can't make much of it. My mind insists that what
looks negative is negative, and tha what hursts is
really hurtful. But I know he possessed me that
day---whatever name you like to give him. And what
he possessed me with was this basically inexpressible
awareness that the suffering and pain are only a mistake
about the nature of experience. Hexxadexthatxmistake
HImSEXEXXEEXXEXKXENXXXXMEXEXIEAXBME@ntx**XeRdXEAX@wdx
shyxkaxtx**axthaxxfarsakenXmE** Somewhre along the pain
you will find the opposite, like something you have
to pull aside curtains for.
And of course---I nearly
forgot this---I was feeling more and more joy as he
conveyed this to me, more and more peace and utter
satisfaction. And I floated in this, physically and
in every other vay. Yet I was on a sort of cross.
I was spposedly in pain, I'd supposedlyy been spurned
and persecuted by people, butthis ext aordinary liquid
joy was sperading O ver me all the time, and thre
were cast spaces round me, and everything lay still
and content in this joy, ad this was the basic relaity
of everything. And the sense of joy too increasd
the emotion---the tears poured now because of the
sheer relief. I knew while all this was going on
that I was being told the most important hing of
my life, and that if I disregarded it in the fuure,
if I didn't in some way base my life on it, thin
everything would go wrong. And even then, if
'everything went wrong' it wouldn t be too late to
realise that unerneath this too was this amazing
stillness and joy, and perfect order. It was like
hovering in a vast sky tobether with this presence,
an here too was a sense of greater privilege and
wonderment than I'dd ever had.
At the same time, almost throughout the experience,
I was aware of a deep gratitude towards the woman who
sat by the bed and who had be en


xadsat by the bed and who had been the means the to
this experience. In som way I felt it coming from
her or through her, andxhErxsXSIIENENEE**SShe guided me
only minimally, with a soft word here and there, to
help the pattern of the breathing, and sometimes she
laid a light hand on my forehead, when the tears were
very strong, or on my shoulder, as if to steady and
suport me. It was as if she saw and felt everything
I saw and felt. Not that I ever told her about what
I'd gone through. This is in fact the first ti e
I"ve ever recounted it. Somehow I felt that telling
it to be, even to the one closes to me, would reduce
the importance and intensity, and evn make me begin
to doubt it, whereas if I waited and recounted it in
an ordered and considered way, as I'm trying to do
now, it would so to speak receive its proper due and,
above all perhaps, remain safely beyond the reach of
PREEERaIXinfKXEREE human interefernce: I man by this
that if Idd told it freely to people some of them migh
have reacted sceptically, and this might well have
joined up with the scepicism in my own mind, and thus
bit by bit undermined the experience for me and, more
important, diluted the message behind it, and finally
destroyed it. I didn't want that to happen. So I
kept it as my scecret until now. Because now I can
build on it, amplify it, justify it" it has relevance
to practicaily every exprience I've had since then.
On ething I forgot to mention. This face of
Christ subtly changed from time to time, especially
towards the end of the experince. It wasn't really
a physical chage, more one of identity. He seemed
to become Indian, and in that the softness Hag xa8
RiffErEnEXfEEixarentx*x*****EXXIxixgantixpx*xx
asx
of his face became subtly plumper, though agiag again
I say there was no actualy physical transformation.
I realised at the time---but I remembere wih some
difficulty now---that while changing into someone
else he was remaining himself, or put in another way
he and the other presence were the same one, the same
person. Later I saw a picture of an Indian guru
which fitted this 'second' presence perfctly. And
I shall tell that remarkable story when I came to
it later in this narrative. All I want to convey
now is that Christ and this guru were the same
presence, they were addressing me in the same way,
and basically it was only my mind perceiving that
they were two, because no observale change took
place in the shadowy form above me, and the cross
remained th theme of the experience.
Well my tears dried. The experience was over and
I realised that I'd been given the most powerful guarantee
possible for this 'tgerapy' as some people called it.
For me it was a miracle. And a miracle arrivd at with
amazing simplici ty---a matter of breathing in a certain
way. Why had no one told me about this in over fifteen
years of practicing eastern techniques? The lady in
the chair


the chair asked me if I wanted to pee and I said yes.
I was still tingling in my extremities and feeling
rather dizzy i n head but she said it was OK for e
to get up as long as I didn't dash about. I wen to
the loo and sat there in something of a maze (I was
too unsteady to pee standing up). Life had changed
for me. Not that I felt a different person. I
simply knew that this experience was the most important
one I'd ever had, and that it would in some way direct
the rest of my life, determine my relatinships and even
change my work. All this in fact happened, but much
more graphically ad dramatically than I could have
predicted.
All the time there kept ringing in my head th
words "Well done Janabai' (this was the name of th
slent lady). I CO uldn't rid my head of the notion
that she had in some way been responsible for what I'd
been through, and, m re han that, had been chosen for
the role. She was actually in London only a few weeks,
and came from Honolulu, so that it was quite a fluke that
I should have got her services and not those of a less
all-seeing person.
Janabai has that air about her---
of total abitlity to cope, and awareness of the most
subtle inner states. Whether this is tre of her private
life I don't know and don't care. It is certainly
true of her as a rebirther, sitting mostly in silence
close to her subject's head. We went to the sitting
roo and chatted brief y. There wasn't much to say
except that I'd had the bigggest experience of my life,
and all she said was that this was a rar occurence, it
happned to no more than one in seven people, if that.
We made an appointment for the second session (sh told
me one needed btween six and ten) and I left. I wanted
to breathe some more in my room, but she'd warned ,e to
not to try on my own---no more than twenty or so breaths
at a time. I disboeyed her---and paid for it. But
that first week was good. I fel light and healthy,
and my face showed it, if the remarks of other people
were anything to go by. Of course, as with all such
techniques, it's a question of whther that state continues
and for how long. XXXXXEENNMIUMExxaxnWsk*xiXININEEXXAXX
I remember that at one point during that first
session, when I was straining forward to gett th
message that was being given to me by that presence,
afraid it might disappear at any moment, Janabai
whispered to me 'Don't hold on', meaning not to strain
or hold my breath.
This was at the very end of the
experience,when in fact most of the message had been
conveyed. Yxxsayingxt In menioning this now I'm
trying to convey the reality ff what was appearing to
me. I describe it as being composed of ashadows,
yet these shadows were less shadowy in their effect on
me than anything more physical would have been. That
degree of love I have never received before, so that
those shadows were vry much more BNXTKEXREREXKAhandxthax
imagiwaki@nxamtxexxtEXXEKEXBXMEXm*MErxkaxadreawxx than imagination
or daydream or real dream could have evoked. I can
only


only compare it to one other experience, in which the
same kind of presence came to me, composed of hadows
yet vsiible and of much greater potency in its effects
than AXXHMAK an actualy human being would have been.
I was a child of about ten and sleeping by myself in
a small room close to where my parents slept. My
door was open, and so was the door to my parents'
bedroom. In the middle of the night I was aware that
my grandmother, a small woman usually dressed in black,
had entered the ro om and was standing by the bed.
She remained there for a few moments and then bent down
untilher face was very close to mie mine. And she
peered darkly into my eyes. I woke up---and of course
only then began to realise that it waEntxxmyxgrandeatk
couldn't have been my grandmother. Yet it was. And
the moment I woke up, quite unalarmed by her presence,
she slipped out of the open door again. It was only
now, gradually, that I began to fe el afraid. For my
grandmother was dead. But she had actually been there.
Waking up, in the dim light, I could still see her---
it wasn't that she was gone the moment I opened my
eyes. Her prseence there at the side of my bed had
woken me, but th waking din't diminish her vividness,
so that my impression of her when asleep (or perhaps
half asleep) was exactly the same as when I was awake,
unlike either a dream figure or a real human would
have been. Later in life I read (in the works of
Frued) that this was a frequent 'visitation' in
childhood the whole world over.
Was the Christ I was awre of familiar to me in a
similar way--namely someone I ahad been constantly
aware of in childhood because of bible classes and the
fact that as a choirboy I was in church three or four
times a week? Or did he apear to me from the past,
intact, without refrence to any of my memories or
assocaitions. I was struck, thinking about it during
the week hat folowed, by the fact that during the
session wi th Janabai he gad appeard to me wih auburn
hair, which I hadn't expected and which I din't for
a moment associate with Christ. I was also struck,
now, by the fact that his face merged into tha of an
In dian I didn't know but who was certainly a saint or
mystic of some kind. I began to think back on a book
I'd thought of wriing some years before. It was
called the Indian Crucifixion. That Its theme had
been the connection between Christ ad India, not
simply spiritually but historically, through Greek
and Persian influence. I had also conjectured that
the monastic order he is said to havel joined owed
its origins (since the Jewish religion had no monastic
ism) to Indian roots which found their way to the
Mesopatamian world through missionaries and traders
and the Persian army, where Indiands were sometimes
enlisted. More than that, I had wanted to show hat
Christ had actually brought Indian or oriental droctrine
into Israel, ad that it had bee for this that he had
been crucified. It seemed to explai that peculiar
Indian


KIndia connection in the Christ appearance I had had.
And I came to the conclusion that is yo are going to
get a powerful appearance from the world of shadows
ofthsi kind it will always in the terms that you have
already made clear to yourself, inyour day to day
experience. Thus Buddha would be more likely to appear
to an Indian or Chinese. And not at all likely to
appear to someone like me. But in my experience was
both Christ and the Indian guru, as the spiritual
guides of my past. To that extent, I thought, I'd
created that presence. But I certainly hadn't created
the shdows. I began to see that the shadows will
form any shape or suggestion you are familiar, but
that the message they wish to convey isxpreiseiy is
the sole matter of importance. The shadows will convey
it to you in whichever manner will possess you and
make you understand most completely. The fact that
Christ (during the experience I never for a moment had
any doubt that it was Christ, though how I could have
bee so utterly certain is beyond me) came to me as
vividly as my dead grandmother had gone mny years br
before, with as vidvid ENdX an impact, and wi h
extreme emotional effect, SHEWENXWExmexthat made me feel
that a force had got to work on me that would alter
my life, in the sense that the message it had conveyed
to me in silence and shadow was to become in a strange
way the goal of my life. At the time, during that
week after the first sessio wi th Janabai, this was
clear to me only a bare formula. I just felt it was
going to be so. It took quite a few months for it
to become a sbsubs substantial reality.
There was one other time when I was aware of
shadowy presences, but much more recently. It gad
happened after I'd been reading about hypnotic regressions
into past livs conducted by Helen Wambach with hundreds
of human subjects. While reading her book I became
aware (rightly or wrongly) that I knew abou my OW n
birth, though I'd never consciously known about it
before. I could actually remember hovering over
my mother in the company of other shadowy people
(called I believe by the regression experts and by
clairvoyants as one's spiri itual "peers") who were in
the same state of expecteant joy as I was, and who were
egging me on to enter life as a great adventure. In
most of the accounts of birth from memory, by the way,
the shadowy self enters the ueterus only seconds
before birth, and isn't resident in the foetus while
in the womb.
But I was aware of these "peers" in the uterine
memory while fully awake. They were so to speak at
the back of my mind, W ile the Christ apearance and
theappearance of my grandmother were totally "possessive",
that is not a cell of my body was unaware of them,
they were closer to me than anything physical, and much


more potetnt than anything physical.
This mention of the uterine memory isntixattngmiker
IxreieyantxtuX*KE is strictly to the rest of the story
here because the 'therapy' I had started was called
rebirthing. That is, it induced in the subject the
first real birth, on the gr unds that the first birth
had been so conditiond, and usally such a shock,
as to prevent the true desires (and even the true body)
of the person born from developing. I had been promised
that I would feel all the snesations of waking up to the
world if not the for the first time at least in a way that
demonstrated to me tha I hadn't been proper;y alive
before.
Rebirthing, I learned, had started in San
Franciscco a few years before as a resul of an acciden
that had happened to Leonard Orr in a sauna. Or rather,
it was an indced accident, an ecperimental one. As I
(and a good many othr people now see it) it was a very
organised accident---organised as much by those shadowy
forces that play at the edge of our lives as my Christ
appearance was,.aNdxHsINgx*XEXEXXXXXXXXX He saw a notice
on the wall warning everybody that noe more than fifteen
minutes should be septn in the steamroom. So he spent
an hour---and he had to crawl out. To srvive he found
himself breathing heavily. And as a result of the
breathing he went through some extraordinary sensations.
Afte rwards he remembered the breathing pattern and began
to pracyice it on himself wih impressive results. Much
latr he took the technique to India and was told by a
famous guru that he had hit on a very ancient breathing
technige which yogis had always ben forbidden to teach
to the lay public. It had been kept a monastic secret,
and many Indians believed hat Christ had used this tech-
nique as par of his training for his mission, while he
was with the Essenes. All this was exciting material,
and of course when I actually received the Chris appear-
ance it all seemd to fit together in a strange way,
though that was nothing to the events that began to fit
together much later as a resul of this first experience.
(and led me to San Francisco where it had all started).
There were two forms of rebirthing. One was the
breathing technique I was practicing and the other was
the 'wet' rebirth in which the subject floated in water
wi th a snooker on, sometimes for an hour or more, breathing
in the rhythmical fashion of the 'dry' rebirth. I never
tried this, though there were quite a few "rebirth tubs'
about in Britain. In fact like many people I never got
the birth recall during any of my rebirth sessions. There
are those people who und ergo vivid and often painful
recollections of their birth, and thre is the majority
who go through certain physical symptoms (coldness,
hunger, fear, suffocation) which they may or may not
associate with birth.
Simultaneously wit th my Christ appearance I went
through the classical physical symptoms---first the
tingling, which usually starts as Isaid before in the
hands---the a feeling of extreme cold, followed by
fear and alarm and a sense of not being able to get
enough air


enough air, followed after about two hours by S ense
of heat and well-being and an enormous appetite (my
first three sessions were dominated by hunger). Now
the rebirth chiefs round Leonard Orr say that these
are the feelings you had at birth, and they are passing
out of your system to make way for thenew creature. In
my case the fear passed fairly soon but I had suffocation
problems for a quite a number of sessions, and my feeling
of not getting enough air tended to return from time to
time over at least the following year. The Orr school
says that nearl y all people born more than ten years
ago will have had the normal birth where the umbilical
chord is cut too soon, tha is before the child has
begun to breathe, so that the first experience of deatk
life is fearxmexdwathpanic fear of death and a horrified
sense of suffocation which makes the first breath of
air when it does happen traumatic. The breath nver
recovers from this first shock. One of the reults is
that most people "subventilate", which is why, when they
are rebirthed, hey go through hyperventilateion problems
which require the presence who of someone who knows wha
is happeneing and how to control. Conventional medicine
would indeed describe all the symtoms show during a rebirth
as normal hyperventilation symtoms which have to be
removed as qickly as possible (usually by an inhibition
of the breath). Th rebirth school says that only continued
rlaxed breathing will remove the sym t ms, and tha the
tingling or violent vibration atendant on hyperventilation
are in fact th entrance of energy. This energy has a
marked therapeutic quality, and will go to distress points
in the body, whether these are caused by a common cold
an operation or some deepseatd ill which the subject and
his doctors know nothing about.
In my case I had immediate numb and then throbbing
sensations in the area where I'd had a hernia operation
about seven months before. I was worried by this, in
case I was opening the wound, or some such fantastic idea.
It took two or three months of continual rebirthing
sessions before the nmbeness and throbbing disappeared,
an then it never came back and the last traces of th
wound healed entirely. During subsequent rbirths I
had aches and throbs in othr vulnerable areas of mine---
the liver,the intestines and so on, and Orr's promise
that all one has to do is breathe ithroug' these
symtpoms, and that the pain or numbness or throbbing is
simply a rapid therapeutic action, has been borne our in
my experience over and over again.
I realised also that I'd never really breathed in
my life, and had yeared all my life for more air without
knowing how to get it. My teacher Janabai told me in
the first session tha I would soon get my 'breath release',
though she din't exactly specify wha this was. And there


is a lot of contradictory and vague talk about this in
rebirth circles, perhaps because not all people seem to
have this release, and when they do its symptoms differ.
In my case it hapened in the second session. I suddenly
found myself drawing about twice the quantity of air,
quite as if my rib cage had come unstuck from the grixzx
grissle round it which had formed through under-use over
the years despite daily yoga. The spasmodic digestion
problems I was used to disappeared very early in the
sessions and never returnd, whow ever I abused the
digestive organs. I fond that drink affected much less
than before and hat after leaving a club or pub one or
two breaths of the kind Janabai had pateiently taught
me were enough to clear my head and give me the sensation
that I hadn't been drinking at all.
So it seemed to me that rbirthing was the fullest
package I'd ever tried. It healed, it illumianted and,
perhaps above all, as I was to discovr, it changed your
life radically withou you doing anything about it. I
didn't have an easier time after I re irthed, in fact
I think I had it much harder than before, but I was
aware very much aware of leading my own life, with my
own resources, and of fighting through to that place in
life where only I could b (and thre is such a place for
evryone). The hard part of those months that followed
my initiation ino rebirthing were due to the fact that
I overhauled my slife from top to bottom. I went through
more changes more quickly than I'd ever evn specualaed
on before. In the process I lost all my money (despite
or perhaps because of the mini 'prosperity seminar' I
went through, spending my last pounds) and all my professional
projects collapsed one by one in a way I couldn't believe
was possible, going by previous experience. Having all
my life had suffered severe security worries, derived from
having been brought p in great poverty, and having like
many people brought up in such fear-dominated conditiins
squandred my money whenever I got it (and I had had quite
a lot in my life), I now had just about one thing to keep
going on, my own person and the clothes I'd bought myself
in the 'old' life. I often thought to myself, if this
is a rebirthall I can say is it feels like death. And
I read over and over agin a remark made by Leoard Orr
in one of his seminars---after your rebirth you go through
quite a lot of ups and downs, for qui te a time. At the
same time I was awre of clearing out of mysystem not only
a lot of unwanted toxic substances which my yoga and evn
my fasts seemed to have overlooked, but---and this was
the factor changing my life---a lot of dead things in
my mental makeup which I'd been carrying around with
me as normal luggage. I learned fthrough rebirthing
what I knew intellectually before---that I was responsible
for my own life, and that any trouble I went through,
EXE though i t seemd to start from the outside world
and to invade my world unexpectedely and unjustifiably,
was actually programmed byme, sometimes at birth, some-
times later, and most of the time withot meknowing a
thing abou it.
Yiddin a 2y ftu i0 e -
tke
Rurs
ueat ob T
ays
Caule
len


Naturally I approached the second and third sessios
with fll expectations of the first ecstasies being repeated
and the message that came with them becoming clearer.
BNothing of the sort happned. I used up about three
boxes of paper tissue. The mucous poured outof me.
In those days I always seemed to be hawking and spitting,
and my nose was continually getting clogged, as if with
an incipient cold, despite a good diet and regular yoga.
I've been free of all that now for at least a year. I
did have a series of colds during and immediately afer
the rebirth sessions, but ExtakexthEESEXXaxtoxhaxexkEEK
praxmkedxkyxtkexkreahingyxamaxaxgantinnationxafx*xx
*wexapyxstartsaxkyxiznalaixkyxdanalaixx all that's finished an
gone now. It went th same way as the numbness round my
hernia wound. And spaxny similar feelings of distress
in my aanal and porostate areas. They held for a certain
number of sessions, then disappeared entirely. My third
session was uneventful, in he sense that there was neither
a sense of ecstasy nor much physical therapy going on.
I lost consciousness tha time. That is, I just didn;t
know what had happened to me. I' ve observed this in
people quite a lot since then. The body goes etirely
still and to all intents and purposes the breathing
ceases. Then the suvject comes back with a jolt.
Well I did that. And Janabai explained that it hapened
when the organism couldn't deal with some pain or block
or problem in the mind,
I've never been quite satisfied
wit th that explanation, perhaps because it isn't provable.
Mt tendency to go unconscious grew stronger in the follow-
ing months as I began rebirthing myself. In fact, as I
shall describe later, I got myself into considerable
difficulties through that tendency. I believe now that
the unconsciousness is ***XT*RE*IANXmIX*XEXkexkmdyxtkexkmdyxtax an
effort O the part of the organism to make up for a hell of
a lot of tension and EEXX so hidden sorrow (so hidden that
it so to speak lurks in the cells like a toxic substance).
*****EEXEXexpianatiBRxRf Janabai also told me hat it could
be due to a great amount of pentathol and such sedatives
substances in the blood due to past operations, if only
those in the dentist's chair. This makes sense for me
but the fact remains that my tendency to go right out
(though not at all an unpleasant senation). increased in
my case even though I had neither operations nor dental
attention in that period. Certai ly these bouts of
unconsciousness were followed by a deep sens of rest and
ease. I also slept a bit in the third and subsequent
sessions. If I arrived at a session very tiredI slept
most of the time (to Jaabai's annoyance). In other words
that energy coming into me as a result of the rhtyhmic
breathing always went to the points of greatest weakness---
and if the body needed sleep that was what the energy
provided. I've seen a man with a lifelong insomniac
problem, afraid since childhood both of falling asleep
and going unconscious, do both in his first rebirth
session. NatxxallyxkexfXXXF9XXXX3XXXEXXEXBENgEEaxxtriumpkx
These physicatresul-te-were impressive butidoubt
1f I wouzd haver continued the rebirthing with out the
Christ epearance-in-the first. Iwent to a smali-seminer


Buxxifxr
XHANXIMEXXREEXXXR TEXEREN
GXE axxisxifxixhadn**xt M C EXEXREXIENEEXBE)
SESSIRXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
If it had just been a matter of getting rid of
physical distressesi don't think I would have done
more thanfinish one cycle of six or eight sessions
with Janabai.axt But I had a sense of this strage new
manner of breathing---which was in some undefinable way
much more than breathing---being a great adventure.
Let me give an example of that right away. I wrote
most of the above yesterday. It was a Sunday, sunny
and quite warm, and I was full of ideas. The fact that
I was starting this book after thinking about it for
quite a few months was a matterof excitement for me,
and I couldn't stop returing to my room to write another
page or so throughout the day. Today was different.
I expected someone to come for a rebirth at half past
eight in the morning (for by now I have rebirthel many
people in various parts of the world) but she called p
up around eight to say she had stomach cramps from
menstruationand didn't feel up to it. Somehow that
screwed my day's programme. I meant to phone up a
number of people---theatres, a newspaper, all profess-
ional stuff. ixtkexgh*xixmightxaiswxphERExmyXagENXX
I completed the phonecalls and be gan working on this
book but tHEXWEXOSXEitKEX the zest of the day before
was absent. One becomes used to this as a writer.
You simply have to go through periods of gestation
short or long and they aren't always enjoyable, in fact
they are frequent;y harrowing. You don'y quite feel
like settling to any other job, in case (as can happen)
you suddenly get the urge to go on writing. The day
isxgrex morning was grey, very still, witha low cloudy
sky. The ewather's been playing up in recent days,
with floods, tornadoes and valanches . This morning's
papr said that the Squaw Valley (I'm in California)
would have to be avacuated because of avalanche dangr.
In the afternoon it began to rain. Now depression is
almost unknown to me. I need only the simplest supports
in life---a roof, a minimum or food, the possibility of
music. I can stand as much solitude as I have to take,
and enjoy mos t of it. But today there was definitely
a EhiTIXINSItEXX stillness inside, a darkening of the
light as I Ching calls it (and at times like these I
Ching becomes my most important lifeline). I decided
to phone the re irthing headquarters to sedif Leonard
Orr was about as I wanted to ask him a few questions,
They gave me a number but he wasn't there. Then---
whether it came across from Orr or not is anyone's guess-
I suddenly got a sense of rebirthing as a great adventure.
I suddenly felt the miracle agin, the world importance
of this utterly simple technique. I remembered how
that feeling had gripped me in the first days. And
how ufte once Janabai had said I You know we have a
miracle in our hands but its difficult to realise it
all the time, it just pops up and strikes you every now
and then'. Certainyly I would never have done more
tha a cycle or two of rebirth sessions had it been a
matt


ERENE
Cai
Propl E1 fhe
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tirese
Leoura Tenes ls 5
Lu 1
C RP
Tholelto fm
lc Teil
ape tally
Ye W6 Loc Lold
LL A H box
hisle,
A. i a e
loue Cile
twens cule Crecan Le
Cue wieele Leir eiceAtie (y ue dee
l nt
we hou nhyg. Le len, Krid lmh Hi c
Leu
howe un ne 2eay . C Ato),
Actpeke thre cmld taed
hof lekcu ful
) clotaddoon. Al dapti tho fece Ac I


matter of getting rid of my physical distresses.
The mucal problem wen, and all kinds of intimate
symptoms which most of us acarry around with us and
accept as part of what it is to be human (mild hemarroids,
eurethal discomfort, prostate aches, aching joints,
backache, headache). **XX*****X***ingsxInitxme All
these things ca n be breathed away, if the breathing is
right and the teacher too. But there was much more
than this to it. And, XEMENNEXINEX thinking this, I
suddenly thought as I've often done over the last year,
But rebirthing can rid of everything---the darkness in
the mind, irreolution in work, lack of zest, lack of
love, lack of connection. So why wasn't I rebirthing
myself? Why wasn't I breathing? I hurried to the
bedroom and drew the covers, took off my underpants
(there must be nothing tight) and my wristwatch, and
the rhythmic breathing began. I 'breathed out' my
nervousness for a few minuts (realiseing for the first
time that I was nervous and in a weaker state than
usual), thena sense of inner depression came and I
realised that I had that too, just before it disappeared.
I felt close to the woman I love. And the form of
what I'm writing now came into my mind. I saw that
the nervous state, the weakness was a barrier to spontaneous
thought, and spontaneity is the first ting you get from
revbirth breathing. Everyhing falls i to place.
There are no closed doors any more. **XX**XXYXXXYMXXA=RXXXXYmXXAEEXXXXX
HAXEXBEEdXREEYEXKENXEHEEXX K supose I breathed for
twenty minutes. It wasn't enough to start any vibration,
and nothing therapeutic happened, but it was enough to
get rid of the dark edges round the mind, and to set me
working again.
Now Sandra Ray, one of the rebirth chiefs h re in
California, says that when you get into athe rebirth
rhythm the. 'inner breath' joins with the 'outer breath',
you gradually fall into a rhythm thatxgeEwxxXHXKEXkexdigtateax
fremxmntsidexx*xexaxEXAXEXXXXEIXEENREEMREEYEdINEXdingxrkytkuXxxX not
your own because it is the rhythm of matter all round
you, and yet more intimately your own than any other.
The sensation is that of reentering the universe, after
having been anspegta otbeserver. Time disappears--:
and with it the though of growing age, and with that th
thought of death. So you are released from the suffoc
tation of three score years ad ten, youget to a source
in you which is imperishable, though it may quickly disappear
in the bustle of the world, when the rebirh is over.
But how is it that even whenpracticed frequently
it doesn't immunise the mind to any form of darkening?
Why am I still, a ye over a year after my first rebirth
experience, and after many dozens of sessions, at least
three or four a week: in that time, leading what must look
from the outside a disordered life? Why is my woman not
with me---and maybe not my woman? Where is that ecatstic
love we had last summer in Italy when we were in each
other's arms night and day, wakefully, for te n or more
days without pause? Why, if a miracle has entered my
life, isn't my pocket full of bucks? How is it possible
for me (connected as I so lften am t that harmonious
'outer


'outer breath') to have rows wit th someone I love more
perhaps than I've ever love anybody? How, after having
been bathed in Christ's tenderness as I was on that first
rebirth session, can I wihhold tenderness from my own
beloeved? Really the wnswer to this is why I'm
writ ting this book only a year or so after my first
rebirthing experiences, instead of waiting my life
is once more in order and I can see everything in per-
spective.
The fact tkat is that disorder is no contradiction
of the order inheresnt in the rebirth experience. In
fact the innder order induced by rebirth breathing may
provoke its very opssoiste, and in such a way that the
outer disorder is in ratio to the order. It struck me
in my first rebirthing days that my teacher, despite
her utter calm and compsure during a rebirth session,
was in constant distress over money, lovers and living
quarters. But a moment of her company and other people
fewlt reassured, hopeful. She ran prosperity seminars
and her listeners did really get propserous ofttimes.
She made everything work, and without the smallest
outley of effort, or so it seemed. She was a hopeless
organiser but on the lower levels, the unconscious levels
th ngs worked for her rebirthees in such a way that she
seemed to have had a hand in them. This was after all
how the woman Im not allowed to be with at this momnt
came into my life. Janabai said 'I'd like to run a
seminar a t your Italian house' (I part-own a small
farm near Siean with my ex-wife). She didn't turn up,
XRXXXMEXSENINATXWXEXxwaxxenixxparkxurganxx but two young women
did, and one of them became the woman I'm only allowed
to talk to on the phone. Now I'm in California at this
moment because she'd planned to spend six months here
on a therapy training course. And we agreed I should
follow her out. I did---wad within a Munthxixwaswek
week I was out of her bed, within another two I was out
of the house in an ashram.EkaxingxauEXIHEYTEXS There was
nothing about it, for me, which was unconnected with
rebirthing. My whole life had sort of taken a spin out
of my control but the real I WASXEWKE seemed more in
control than ever bef re. The ashram led to this house
in the Walnut Creek hills where I'm writing this book
and rbirthing people. The idea of me being here all
alone with a young woman seems to drive f my woman'
crazy, even though there's no sex going on. Not that
my woman admits it. Only whenever I talk about the
hills outside the window when I'm phoning her she
snaps 1 I don't want to hear it'. So here I am more
or less without a buck, rejected but not released by my
woman whom I have no right to call my woman (especially
as we haven't slept togetgher since Ixtaxekeaxsax
KrangisgexairpartXEX*MYEEXDBRENS I left Stockholm airport
exactly seven months. And we haven't slept wi th anyone
else. Having been nine months celibate before I met
her fixaiaxthatxds (that was deliberate on my part---
I decided I was going to give u all sex until the
W oman came along, and she did) that makes quite a monkish
total, the very opposite, you might think, of the kind
Of res


of resurrection I'm trying to sell in these pages. But
that's why I'm writing these pages. It's a real resurrect-
ion, not the kind promised by ashrams and most yogis,
namely a state of detachment and bliss which might be
possible for a monk but not for those who have claims
on their hearts from dawn to dusk. The heart works in
a: very different way. Storms are its language. And
the most ancient and precious breathing technique known
to mankind (for this, I believe, is what Leonard sdiscovered)
demonstrates it again and again. If Christ did use it,
it might explain why his mission was in terms of the heart,
always and everywhre the heart. And I began to discover,
with this technique in y hands, that many if not most of
the self-devlop,ent workshops discourage the heart, and
promise an order which is not only quite impossible but
wrong. Of all the famous gurus in the world talking
boday only Rajneesh perhaps is alive to this.
Awaiting my third session, ten days from my first
one,
While I was waiting for my third session, ab ut ten
days after my first one, the rebirth people in London (who
could be counted on the fingers of one hand) organised
a tiny seminar. That is, they din't mean it to be tiny.
In fact they hired quite a large hall near the Britishj
Museum with at least a hundred seats.
There were eight
people at most, quite half of them rebirthers. Most of
the talk was the psychological get-the-shit-out-of-your-
system level, and that didn't interest me, and I said so,
constantly. The feeling of that meeting was
rather disgruntled and resentful in atmosphere, siopeyi and
had the strong impression that most of these people
were ;ocked in a depression.which They called themselves,
of all things, the "rebirth E society', and that was the
tone, joi n our little group, you'll have fun. In fact
those were the opening words of the meeting, from the
organiser: 'Rebirthing is such fun.' Of course I was
in a very sensitive state, having only had two rebirths,
and feeling that I'd hit the greatest inner adventure of
my life, and I was certainly in no mood to have that
whittled down to some bloodless bible-class formula.
And there was SO much teaching. You were being told how
t ings were, not only outside you but inside you.
And
I felt thoroughly miserable, even in S state of mild
shock. For I'd bee reading Lenard Orr and Sandra Orr
and feeling strongly in tune with eve: ything they were
saying. And here were virtual children (so my mind
said) playing with dynamic forces they had clearly not
yet grasped, and which they would almost certainly
abandon for anothr enlightenment package quite soon.
Today I would have taken that meeting in a very
diffceren spirit (assuming that I would go to it,
which most probably I wouldn't). I know now that the
whole rebirthing process takes place on the level
desired by the rebirthee, and to the tintensity he can
oler


tolerate, ad that thisxpyHzzzxxmaXXXEXYXXEXEISRXXXXEXMexixxaxmmmext
axixtkex a dynamic change may take place at any time,
making it impossible to say that rebirthing hasn't
taken effect, or that a person hasn't just hasn't got
the benefits. For me, now, it is impossible for the
rebirth breath not to have its effects, een (and sometimes
especially) when the rebirthee denies that there S been
any change. In other words the first thing you lose in
the rebirthing process is the willingness to judge the
inner state of others. That is a mysterious and always
unique land which frewuently, if only for a time, shows
the outside world an opposte opposite face.
A lot of slogans came out that eveing. And it
seemed to me that these people (apart from my own teacher)
had learned the slogans and were repeating them out of
servitude. The slogans carried no weight with me because
I knew they had grown out of Leonard Orr's experience
and Sandra Ray's and not these people's. The very
thing that Leonard Ord seemed to have avoided, qite
deliberatly, namely the gurugame, was being undermined,
which meant that rebirthing (again it was my mind speaking)
could not be done successfully by these people. Taday
Ixwenidxsayxtha*xrehirtkingx Today I see a very different
picture. Rebirthing is so much in the hands of what I
now call 'the third force'---which entres all re irth
session like another presence. taking charg of bother
rebirther and rebirthee---that neither of the two havs
,uch control over the situation as persons. My feeling
now is that your rebirther is chosen for you---on your
level, and according to your requirements---however far
you or he may have to travel to get to each other. This
morning I spoke to one of America's greatest writers,
whom I am rbirthing, and he said 'What astonishes me most
of all is hat my rebirther should be you, another writer
who has lived in many of the same places, who is so close
to me inexperience and taste and all that, an who knows
many of the same people, and here we meet each other after
all these years just when I'm ready, just when I'm finally
ready to commit suicide, just when I'm ready to overhaul
my whole life!' And that's how it works. SMHHHEXETYX
maxhasxhisxISXRMHXFEXIX
When I look back on my first session under Jaabai I
realise that any other rebirther might have interrupted
my experience at a crucial point and wreckd everything,
even supposing I had entered that same experi ience at all.
When I phoned a revirthing contact for my first appointment
I was told that she wasn't available but there was this
other lady from Hololulu/.....
After that meeting three or four of us, including
Janabai, went a crepe place for supper. Apain started
roundmy heart, nodoubt indigestion, butIknew-it 1 had
beenbrought on by the meeting and thataeertaininner
flow had been-interrupted: Lik e m ny people who are
being rebirthed for the first time, and finding it the
greatest adventure of their lives, I din ;t want to talk
about it, much 1sss have other people telling me what
they couldn't know, namely waht I was experiencing.
Hyeteapned - sinee that-time that everyoneie universe,


I had actually talked during the meeting---grudgingly
said that my first two rebirths had been nothing less
than a miracle, and now I felt I shouldn't have expressed
myself so soon, it was tempting the gods at that early stage
of the experience. Witax*kisxxegre*xeamXEamEXaXXmizexinsidEx
Rexattsayingxthatx*kexpainxinxmxXXExkeart*axeawasxEEXXHEXtWX
*kexhreathing. Meawhile one of th rebirthers was going
TUNROXEKEkexkakies from table to table interrupting lovers
at their meals to persuade them they needed tp put down
fifty bucks a session for a new life. I told myself
that I would never go to another seminar or workshop
connected with the rebirth movement, and I kept to that.
And later on I found out why I kept to that---why it was
right to keep to that.
When I got back I felt a pain round my heart, no
doubt indigestion. Once al was in bed a voice inside
started telling me that the pain was due to excessive
breathing, and that rebirth was a kwax health hazard.
I knew that nearly every orthodox doctor in the world
would agree with this voice, even withot the slightest
shred of evidence behind him. So I suddenly pulled the
pillow out from tunder my head and started breathing as
my eeacher had taught me. In just about half a minute
the pain was gone axdxixfsixixhadn**xeatenxfmrxXwNYSYXX so
I continued breathing for another hour despite Janabai's
warning not to do more than twenty or so breaths from
time to time. At the end of that hour I felt as light
as if I hadn't eaten all day.
Over that crepe supper I happened to mention laughingly
that waking up that morning I'd become conscious of my
mind asking itself involuntarily not whether I should
commit suicide but what kind of suicide I ought to choose.
PHEXMRNEN*Xixspakexixgaxxaxis*xwix*eaegingxkacyxandxxxXXXX
axfEWXRETXSIWxsisgansx****xwXwXWMEXEXN**X**XXEX*X*xaxtxakrapikyxxx
RIRSEdXIKTMEXENLIEREXtxagainxandxaddedxthakxitdxkakexxaxxxx
hathxinstgad I was at once told that in such a case I
should have written out 'affirmations' (this is sometimes
used as part of the rebirthing process, and is a matter
of writing out what you wish to happen as if it already
had). As like most people I respond badly to 'ought'
and 'should' and ('those who can't teach') I closed the
subject abruptly ad said that I'd taken a bath instead
and that had driven the idea away.
Not that I really did consider suicide. But Iwas
still surprised that the idea, eve idle and flashing
though it was, should enter my mind. My life was going,
on the surface (where unfortunately I was judging it),
badly, WIXXXMHXXHXEY I had gone to the wrong agent,
which was wrecking my work. I was inlove wi th a woman,
or so I told myself, who was not only living awith another
man but too far away for me to visit more than once or
twice a year, and, worse than that, I seemed to prefer
turning her into a dream than actually trying to get her.
An this had been going on for five years. I think I
must have filled two or three thousand sheets of paer
with I Ching answers about her feelings towards, and
my propspects with her, over those years. We had
had a short affair in Paris, continued it disastrously


in Munich---and then I disappaeared to Venice for at
least six months, still dreaming about her, while--
naturally---she not only forgot about me but started
to live with somebody else. And at the beginning of
those five years she had announced to me as clear as
a bell in the streets of a small town called Olten
near Basel 'When you're away from me you don't exist!'
Nawxakxx**axxdrgaming Clearly that degree of deliberate
dreaming wrecked the rest of my love life. When I met
S omone attra tive I made a quick retreat---or ENteredx
axreiatinaxwhighxEAXSHHEXKEERNEXnexhurtfuXX****EX***XXEX***XX else
made love and then made the quick retreat, which was
inconsiderate. On the whole, though. my love life
was sparse, partly because I preferred abstinence to
getting involved. Because my heart wasn't free, or
so I told my self.
And meanwhile this poor young
woman, mostly unaware of the dream I was building up.
of her, got an occational letter or visit from me which
she put down to feelings of friedship. Well, I think
I EYEFESXIX exaggerate her naivete there. But at least
she didn't know the extent of the dream Above all,
she didn't know how little my dream of her had to do
with her. TKEYEXEXHBIMingXwBYSEXEXXMANXXTxxreatingxaxwanax
HddrEssingxaNBIKEXKEIXHHMAXXXEXHgXasxX*****EXXWETEXYENY
dreamxmfxtkEmXXXXXXXXXMEN*xthisxisxwhaxxixdidyxandxkuekiky
FMEXXEXXEHEXWASXIsxinxaxhappyxardxfiwnrishingXsEXXXaXatikiBRXX
She was to find this out later---and so was I.
Also I had an agent at that time who was quite
unsuitable for me, so my work life was something of a
rweckage too. My savings were dwindling at a freighten-
ing rate, and this awoke lifelong fears of destitution
in me. I began having nightmares---mostly about insecur-
ity of some sort. And these HEXE continued HEYEXBIXX*X*X
MMSTXXHEWYXXXNEEXmXXiifex*ax* W i;e the lifelong fears
existed. Until I tackled those (by ac ually. making
desititute) my life was a constant worry, internalised
and kep from my friends through because the insecurity
fear says 'Don' t lose your repuatation as well because
this is the last asset.' I was in urope at that time,
and the elitism, which is as str ng today as it ever was,
means that failure bears a heavy social stigma, making
renewed effort twice as hard as ncecessary. Not that I
was in fact failing. I was writing a great deal. I
had at least seven prohjects going, and a current contract.
But nothing would work. It wouldn't work like my love
for that lady would work. And I couldn't find out why.
I couldn't finy ot why, for instance, I'd abandoned one
of the best literary agents in New York, who had a
lucragive contract going for me, for one in London who
was temperamnetally unsuitable for me and disliked
b essentially disliked my work. But that was what I
did, and it was what I did in every quarter of my
life: I promptly undid whatever good came into it.
Clearly, then, I was dissatisfied with every aspect of
it. And I think that when this hapens to someone,
if he is lucky, he hears about rebirthing.


The following Sunday I woke at about seven and Feeling
cold I put the gas fire on (I was staying in a rented room)
than went back to bed where I dozed off again. I often
that second sleeps in the morning produce horrific night-
mares. I was in a strange barren landscape and involved
with a very old cadaverous man whom I recognised to be the
father of one of the labourers working on a farm Ixpart*x
ExXXinxi*axx belonging to my ex-wife and myself. Bringx
INXRIkEdXNEESX I apparently had the job of looking after
him and when he walked I had to support him physically.
There were nurses prezent. I think I realised even in
the dream that this was about my own death and that I was
being identified by the nurses with this cadaverous old
man with his yellow wrinkled skin and shrunken head, and
I seemed to share some of his physical weaknesses too,
for my eyesight was failing so fast that moment by moment
the objects round me were darkning, so thatI felt desperately
helpless. I woke up with this sense of death in me As
aways, iyt wasn't long before the little pleasures of daily
life (the smallest ple asures have a disproportionately
encouraging effect on me) made the dream seem far away.
But, I knew that it had something to do with rebirthing-- -
atxjnstxakgMEXEXTexry**ingxixwasxpagsingxtkrwughxatxx
thaxx*imexwXWASXEURRERIEEXEdXWIt**x**xxx
Later that morning I picked up one of Orr's lectures
on propserity and read the words 'The morenlightened you
are the more active your death urge becomes.' I was
suddenly aware that this remark concerned me urgently---
especially as self-enlightenment had been my chief
kusikEX priority for the past fifteen years at least.
'The more enlightened you become, the less negatives you
have in your consciousness because you've worked them ot
out.' I'd certainly worked the common fear of death out
of my self in those fifteen years. IXXEXXEHEEXXWEKEXHP
*xx**exmiadiexmix*kexmightxwix*xXXX*XEXYHESTIENXIN Not for
avery long time had I experienced that panic realisation
of the fact of death which I believe HEEXXpERPIEX is the
lotof mos t people young and old. I never woke in the
dead hours as I remember once doing with the awful
proposition in my mind 'I'm going to die! Why? What
does it mean? Why am I here if I'm going to die? Why
did I come?' And then I would see myself dead---which
really means conscious but entirely helpless, for ever.
Since, of course, you would never see yourself dead unless
you were in some manner alive. Yes, that terrible
negative (which I believe domintes most of th people on
the earth) was gone.
'The more light you shed on your
mind the more darkness you have in your mind'---what
a revelation that was to me when I read it, and hot it
explained the otherwise unreasonably distressing experiences
I'd had in recent years---no more distressing than what
everyone goes through, but surely growing enlightenment
should have brought me enough serenity ad detachment (two
of the promised fruits of nearly all self-enlightnement
packages) to see whywhere the distress came rfrom and how
to way lay it? Then I remembered how te great Ramakrishma
had died in agony of cancer. How RamanaxMahirshixtas
kxx
Vivekenanda his greatest devoteee had suffered
daily tortures of the mind, nightmares by night---and
died in his early thirties. Ramana Mahirshi too died


of cancer. One hears all the time of well-known gurus
in a state of sickness which one would think they could,
with their powers, control. And here was Leonard Orr,
*HEXXEWANTERXnkmaxghitaxmfxaxmmIXEXXwX*xxwithxmighkxmtkersx*axim*
wafter* after experimenting on himself in a sauna, alighting
aon a problem which no one had really faced except with
trite explanations like 'These diseases are a result of
the yogi taking on other people's karma! (but surely he's
beyond that prim itive stage which any psychic healer can
'If you have thrown out all your negative ideas
except that death is inevi table, guess what? You'll use
all your spiritual power to kill yourself'. I suddenly
woke up---my God, surely I'd been doing that as hard as
I could, and was still doing it!
Why else would I choose an attractive and intelligent
young woma n to fall in love with and then, instead of
devoting myself to her welfare and listening to what she
said, proceeded to live far from her, disapear for months
on end, and steadily bild a dream of her which was fine
*ikxwasx*HEXERS*XsexgiftgaxpEYEEdXPEYEHRX for a book but which had
nothing to do with her. *XOXIRYEXisXakwutx What was
that but a clever and enchanting suicide---and an attempt
to involve someone else in suicide? What was it but a
veiled assertion that I didn't want the real love I had
for her (if it really existed) bcause I didn't want the
real woman? that maybe I didn't feel W rthy to have
the real woman? that I didn't feel worthy to be fully
alive? Because, in those moments after reasing Leonard
Orr on that Sunday morning, I began to realise that even
I---considered by nearly all my frieds unimpeachably self-
confident---secretly (unknown even to myself) didn't
believe in having a real life and tha t in recent years
I had been using all my spiritual power to kill myself,
in Orr's own words.
I had all these years wrecked my sexual life, turned
myself into a sexual daydreamer after a long and sexually
most active marriage, but above all I ha d PrYENKRAX*KEX
arrixaixeix put a protective wall round myself which no
new woman could penetrate and which, above all, the
woman I belonged to (for I believe that there are a few
people but only a few, and perhaps only one, to who, we
belong) from drawing near. It was a serious situation.
I remembred thinking so often whe working on a book
or play 'What's the use, of doing this if I'm going to
What's the use of loving and being loved if I'm
going to die? Because if I'm going to die I'm dead as
good as dead already. I havel death hanging round my
person and how can death radiate or receive love? And
it can't.
In fact I was killing off every project in my life,
amatory or porfessional or financial, as fast it happened.
And been heavily engaged i n doing that for as long as I
could remember. I wanted to make love but killed every
chance of doing so, I wanted to make money but killed
every possibility of doing as fast as it arose, so that
I ended with a lot of love activity but little love and
a lot of money activity but little money. A friend


of mine said to me about that time, 'You must have pased
huge fortunes by, let them go out of the window, fremxwkatx
IXSEEXRIx**exwayxWaXXYENXWaNXwarxX and that was about right. If
I think now of any one project out of dozens I've been
involved in, the general story is one of unexploited
possibilities, unexplored fortune. I picked up money,
sometimes quiute a lot of it, but it never hung about
my person. And so I passed a great part of my life in
money anxiety, especially when I hada lot.
ixfri*xingREure
akmxitxxxI
There's a Yidd sh saying that ten enemies ca n do less
harm to a man than he can do to himself. And it now began
t,0 seem to me that I had spent at least two decades
slamming closed all the doors that opened in front ofme.
,J ex=wife saw it much more clearly han I did. She said
to friends 'He has huge possibilities and somehow lets them
all go.'
METEXWASsXiBENnardxorr 'So people in enlightenment
groups notice that they get themselves into suicide irges.
Their suicide urge starts getting active and they are
constantly thinking about commiting suicide. The only
way you can get out of that bind is to question that death
is inevitable, which is to get yourself into a nunorthodox
position.'
And here I started to think of that first rebirth
experience. Wasn't this what Christ had been trying to
demonstrate to me? Wasb't that why he pushed back my
arms with such gentle force, and showed me that despi ite
my resistance and unwillingness it didn't hurt, even with
my hands being nailed to the cross?
And was his visit to me the second coming, the true
second coming? How coujld we expect the second coming
to be the reapearance of a man? He had done that once,
he'd been through that. HeTd presumably done it toshow
that in fact it's impossible to kill a man, that no
crucifixion can work, that he din't die and we don't
die, and that what he was the when he was cricfieid
he is now, so that his second coming is coninual and
accumulative, and happening all the time inside us,
and this is the so-called new consciousness, the joy
of looking right through the crucifixion, right through
the agony and distress, into where it melts into joy,
so that death is uncovered as a total uillusion...
Bx*XIx*EEXXEXXXMSXYxrexamxixgwingxemxiIKEX
And you can call him Christ or Buddha ot whatever
you like. Was this Had this to O been cleverly
conveyed to me in that rebirth experience by the shadowy
apearance of the Indian as the same man as Christ?


My hthird rebirth was on Good Friday (1981) and this
time I received a second 'appearance' though much the lesser
of the two in intensity and duration. It was a kind of
appendage to the first one, ad my mind was much more in
control. I was telling a friend of mine, a working woman
in London, about the dying soldiers I had witnessed.
The message I was giving her was that, in Wilfred Owen's
words, 'the poetry is in the pity'. Thoughts of battle
are frequently in my mind at Easter time. And then he
reappeared, much dimmer than before but no less there---
as if once he'd made contact with me further contacts need
only be messages---and he was telling me to take example
from this very woman to whom I was talking in the rebirtg,
because she was an example of one who was rich in KEREYSBItYX
aNdxfREX heart but actually poor, and full of joy when others
like myself wwre always worrying about money and survival.
The threat to her life was greater than that to mine but
she still had more to give than me---to her dautghter,
to anyone who called in. Here was someone who made you
feel a king, and who hardly had a penny to bless herself
with.
Christ impressed me deeply with the idea that this
was one of the most important people in my life, yet she
saw herself and was seen perhaps by most others as a kind
side product while her daughter was the real prodct.
the theme was the same as in the first rebirth: joy is
a state, not the fruit of outer circumstance. Christ
took the poorest person I knew and said "There isthe
greatest joy.'
These appearances showed me what I thought I already
knew but didn't---that Christ wasn't connected with the
churches in his name. I'd known this intellectually but
now it was quite a revelation for me that Christ had no
more to do with Rome or ay other churcg than Lenin, in
the sense that they weren't issuing statements from him
or being in any way his mouthpiece. K I was suddenly
liberated from the idea that these churches, parf icularly
Rome, in some way encapsulated or contained him in them-
selves, or that he had authnoriesed them in some way, or
that he was authentically and exclkusively interpreter
by them. It didn't mean that I would use churches
less than I did,for meditation---and for thinking abou
Christ when I wanted to. But the connection was broken
in me, as a certainty. It was no longer a thought---
that severance. It was knowledge. And of course whn
we come to think it is fatuous to think tha a group of
men or organisation can have exckusive right of this
nature. I knew that these churches had to advertise
themselves haas having an exc usive trading licence from
Christ in order to keep their power. Having lived in
Italy most of my adult life I know the degree to which
this fraud has been perpetuated. It accou ts for the
horror most Italians have of the church and anything
priestly, and for the prevalenceof marxism am ong the
intellectual classes despite marxis beingexactly contrary
to the Italian temperament. Byxth 4XXXX*XXXXXXXXXX kdx
YKEERRXRXXW X
Axx


The meanign of that Good Friday apnearanc WS also
that rrosperity is an inner thirg and may actually go with
extre e noverty. If that isn't true there have never
been mystics. voris and edepte. il
ThaxfaxkxixaixXXXIXXRXXX*aXXEXtEx*RXixeXEXXEXXIRERET
EEBNEXIRRSEXappRarangesX
It was clear to me from these appearances that some
one else was in charge of my rebirth, and this I have come
to call' te third force' which dominates both rebirther
and rebirthee sextka*xixxisxanxiIXINsIRHXX during a session
and takes charge of both, giving one the power to give and
the oher the power to receive. Or rather, to one the
illusion of giving and to the other the illusion of
receiving. For this third force is already, in some
mysterious way, inside us watiting to be resuscitated
or taped into. This was proved to me not once in my
first and third rebirthing sessions but in the whole
series, namely in those too which contained no appearances.
These joiened with the first and third to form a kind
of unfolding tale which I did nothing to provoke (for
the first thing you learn about revbirthing is that unlike
the verbal and intellectual therapies, whether they are
normal psychotherapy or Est or
: - .) you have no
control whasoever over what happens. On the crudest
level, you have simply no control over what parts of the
body the incoming energy chos chooses to work on. In
fact the rebirthee nay get qite a surprise when anxurganx
WENIfEETETEdXdISEEEESXWLENXX suposedly healthy organ manifests
distress for the first time during breathing.
Not until I had absorbed the impact of that third
force was I able to talk about it to other people. This
took a month or so. Even then I never talked about th
apearances, fearing, as I said before, that I would be
ridiculed---not to my face but inwardly, which is as bad.
if you're still uncertain abot twhat's going on. I
would have been thought to have had a 'Vision' (or worse,
"hallucination'), which would have meant devalkuation
for me. I knew that only by telling the whole story,
its background and side-effects and aftermaths, as I'm
doing now, would convey the fact tha far from being eithr
an hallucination or a vision these were direct apearances--:
that is, the 'messanger"taking on a particular form---and
and that these direct appearances had a particular end
which caused the wriing of this book and which this book
is designed to fulfil.
Wh What was this mysterious third force which had en ered
my life---conveyed to me by my rebirther but not belonging
to her, received by me but not belonging to me? Within
days of the first session my life began to alter---I began
meeting 'new' people, I had a strong sense that my life
had changed, though it would take som time for the material
things to change too. After yor first rebirth (and you
never again have that joyous and liberating experience--
just because you are being let out of prison for the
first time in your life. You realise you have never
breathed and that probably most people on the earth
don'y breath eithr. So you've never really lived
becaus


because the breath is one's only bridge to the outside
world, our one connection that cannot cease for a few
moments whether we are XXXREP active, asleep or unconscious.
And this is the most intimate thing we have, it is the
closest to us, the sustainer which enters us and steals
into the organism doing irs work of fuelling the body,
without which no other type of fuel would have any use.
And when it stops the cells cannot survive in that form,
they must decompose into other forms and combinations,
to make other brathing life.
AgeuXdn**xkeipXPXEREXOREXIngxtkatxtsxeixikikisakimaxthaxx
MadxeawexEXARWNExXnxXTHEXENINEXRIXANEIRRERXXRONEmexwasxaxdgaxdeathxx
So in the rebirth you connect up for the first time,
with the result that two processes essentially the same
take place: you feel you're more truly yourself, or
rather have become yourself for the first time, and you
are no longer diivided from the r world. You begin
to realise that the universe round you is there to
support rather than to thwart you. Of course you can't
make a dogma out of this. Someone can come along ad
say hthe world's against you because it has wars and
inflation and disease and terrorism and unemployment
and endless cruelty. But what you claim isn't an
intellectual thing. It derives from the fact that you
know, in your cells, for the first time, that you are
being supported moment by moment, and so to speak cradled
in the universe, becaus e of that breath. You become
awre that your breath can be beautfiul , it can take on
form. Early in the seessions it may appear to you to
be in the shape and texture of, say, an almond just
freshly peeled from its frail brown skin, or a: bud.
After your 'breath release when the ribcase does a
sudden jump and you'retaking in more air than ever before
in your life, that uppercurve where the inbreath joins
to the outbreath and the lower curve where the outbreath
melts into the inbreath becaome ever more smooth and
;ight, and you begin to recongise that cutting the
inbreath from the outreath and vice versa is a sign
of inner unrest or some blockage (it might be a lot of
wind) in the system.
THEYEXEYEXHARXXPEupIE And it's something you can't
control. Just as you can'y control your state during a
rebirth, especially in the first sessions, so you can ;
influence or control that ;third force' in the way it
starts reorga rising your life and getting you into all
kinds of ups and downs you've never been in before.
It may not be pleasant but you kxow soon see that the
downs lead straight into the ups and that the ups
couldn't have happened without them. You feel pinched
by that third force to move in a certain direction,
and sometimes it is neceassary to pinch hard. Only by
depiriving me of every professional outlet and every penny
I had in the world, eve n eery prospect, did that thirf
force get me moving into my new life. I wouldn't have
become a rebirther without it. I wouldn't have travelled
to California and formed some of the most importan
friendships iof my life, and thos e friendships strictly
connected with the whole revirthing process. I would
have


have gone on living what I now consider a death life,
though the death life was considerably more comfortable
than the one I had *xxxxxxx
later. The life after
re irth, in fact, scared ANAXXETTITIEN me out of my wits.
IXEXX*EXXIXxinxkatiiepxitxexx*XI*XEXXX I'm still having insecurity
night tmares, and I still wake up with that nauseous "How
am I going to survive?' feeling somewhere in my diaphragm.
My cells got used to this, and the programme is lingering
on for a bit until(so I now think) that I've finally
learned for sure that lesson of the first appearance--
when I let my arms be pushed tenderly back onto that
cross and don' t resist any more, and find out that after
all it isn't a cross. I believe that Christ found this
out in the silence after he had cried "Oh God, why have
you forsaken me?' For Christ resisted too. That's
why the story of his mission travelled drom the simplest
origins through space and time ad is as fresh today as
it ever was" because he didn ;t set himself up as a damned
teacher or, more important, the Son of God in the church's
sense. He was son of God precisely as every himan being
is, and this is what the chrches don't on the whole let
you know. He allowed himself to be ridiculed and
humiliated, and he wasn' t, as we all know, thought
importan enough by the Romans to be mentioned in any
of the records.
AndxtkisxisxaxgwmdxthingxtaxRXTEMENKEY
WHEKX I mysle f have ben humiliated since I was rebirthed
to a point that would have been utterly un erable to me
before. I've had actually had people ridiculing me
for having sunk so low as to be entirely dependent on
their mercies for their survival. And I went through
that without the smallest resistance. In fact it made
me feel good. And they weren't bad people who were
doing it to KEXE me. One is a close friend of mine
in fact I'm writing this in her house in California,
and the other I love more than I've ever loved anyone
in my life.
This experience took me right down to
myself. I grew up very poor, I got usd to poverty,
but all that ceased in my Oxford days, and I began to
live a more and more artificial selfx XXSEXXWNXEXPExpeskakiwNEX
(most people would have called me a natural and easygoing
person) based on what I thought other people required of
me, and on the way I thought thy saw me, and the way I
thought I ought to be. And that; wha t the third force
throws right out of the window. The subtle accumulations
of so-called personality which are simply effort to be
what you are not. Nobody asks you to bethat way, but
you tell yourself that you're doing it for the world
just the same. An I believe that mos of the people
in the world now are putting huge effort to be what
they are. not, and this is screwing up the nervous stsytm,
not junk food or too much sex or raditio n or over
population or industrialisatin.
All that would fade
away as an obstacle the moment we built our lives on
oursevles, that is to say on our breath. That is to
say, oif that thir d force ran our lives and not our
weak brains.


present time, that is why. What the psychotherapists
so often do, is to send a patient homel with a constructed
per onlity which is more 'on the rails' than the old
one but which requires just as much effort to keep up.as'
But relaxing the effort would mean trouble, because that
third force would not be there to dor the thinking and
the planning in the cells, whetehe- thinking and planning
are mean to go on, namely with the whole of the organism.
Psychotherapy in other words promotes, must promote,
more control rather than loss of control. Loss of
control can only mean in therapeutic terms a lapse
into irrational behaviour. Most psychotherapy is,
in this way, a branch of conventional medicine in its
treatment of the symtom rather than the cause, and
cure rather than healing. The demand to have control,
that is to construct ewih effort Exetuxgersarality
feryx the situation round one, so that it emanates
satisfactori;y from one's personality or sum'total of
desires and ambitions, is precisely what screw S people
up and drives them to the psychotherapist. But his
success with them must be limited while he confines
his treatment to verbalisation and mental probing.
There are many who don't, notably the Reichians. But
for the Reichians, most of whom are well aware of
rebirthing and practice something similar, the way
of getting rid of that 'armoury' which human beings
put round themselves is stilla matter of analysis and
altered control, with the breath helping. But rebirthing
is entirely different not because the breathing it
involves may be different from that of the Reichians,
but because the breath is the be-all and end-all of
it, and it is allowed to take its course, therapeutic
or life-changing or spirtualising, in its own way,
and without the miniminal attempt thot control the
process mentally. In fact it can't be controlled
mentally. All ca be observed in terms of the breath,
and all can be corrected in terms of the breath. I
for instance can tell just what a person is doing
wi th his body, that is his life, themoment he lies down
and breathes normally for me. I told a young woman
recently just before I taught her the 'rebirth breath'
for the first time, 'You have no connectio wi th your
body', just from watching her breatj. She murmured
'I can't agree with thati, but after the session was
over she agreed. And what persuaded her was the fact
that she had been out of control of herself, and two
years of psychotherapy, so sh told m, hadn't done
anything to alter that.
Not only did this woman,
a brilliat writer, not know whose' body she had before
she rebirthed, she was the most chronic case of sub-
ventilation I have ever come across: in fact I don't
see how. she sruvived her thirt-five years looking
so healthy.
What I am saying tha is that she believed
herself to be in perfect connection with er body, and
in control of it, precisley because she wasn ;t getting
enough air in to live, so that her body had really and
truly becaome a thought for her.


present time, as it seems to have
ASXIXXSEEMEXXUXMEXEXEXKEER
present time, asXXXXEEEMSX*axkaAXEXXEERXSINEINEEXTKEXXXXXXEXX
dEiiNexmExtKexEXTKEXREEZNXEmaxxerpizeyx that is the reason. And what
*ax the psychotherapists SOI often do *inxtkexdayEXWMEN
HungxandXKTENEXXEXEXxexexaxentxX*X*XEXERX*X*KEXEXXX fandxatwaygx
is to
send a: patient home with a carefully constructed personality
which requires constant effort of thought: to maintain it.
Which is why psycho-analysed, people psycho-analkysed by
the old pre=celleular


But once the cellular connection has been with made
with the oiutsde world, you can fell what it's like to
be any cell, not just your own. You are part of the
cellular system for the first time. And some of the
results of this ae that you find yourself looking at
animals in a different, even as equal beings. Or you
look at children, strangrs, criples, drunks in a differnt
way. Hakikexmanyxwaxkskepxtherapiesyxaxaxdxmuekxtkaxxgugs
mxxixxindianxaskaranxxinx*kEXHAWEXB*X**EXXHEXMIXINEXIREXEEXfyxXWX
*HISXXEERNREETingxupxwithxXKEXXKEXENSIdExwerxdx You may find
it difficult to make love to someone who hasn't been
rebirthed.
You may find talkng to rebirthed people so
natural and open an without far that talking to un-
rebirthed people begins to struck you as difficult.
Or you may discover such an extraordinary sense of
liberation that you can only share this properly with
fellow rebirthers.
These are momentary, non-ladting
effects. But they are the cells clebrating thir
first freedom nonetheless.
Such effects often follow enlightenment workshops
or meditiatio groups. It is the same activity---the
cells registering their relief at no longer being closed
from the world by inner fears and (the kasis result of
the fears) efforts and the tension involved by the
efforts.
The effect of the workshops or metiation
groups dies down, and finally away. So does the effect
of the rebirthing.
The cells get used to their new
state. Or they lose their new state and relapse into
the old. But in the case of rebirthing, once a person
takes charge of his breath, and maintains his breath,
he can always be assured that his life is under the
contr 1 of the third force, and that he will received
constant 'messages' which wull convey to him consciously
what he has to do.
This is where effort is required. All life requires
effort. But it is where the effort in life should be.
Othrwise, in the lack of effort, in this gauarters, and
however much effort there is put in other uarters, the
individual must go through the conventional stages
of life whicvh have bee mapped out by and for the good
Christian, namely, birth, childhoo, yuth, middle age,
old age (or sickness) and death.
That cycle is entirely avoided by the process of
rebirth as it is aparently not by other riental methods
that have come to the West, if the sickness of the great-
est gurus in these methods is anything to go by. Rebirth
is an ancient technique which until now has been kept a
secret. We know of the existence OS such techniques
from yoga hatha yoga, and we know of the contempt of
most of the greatest Indian gurus towards the practice
of techniques which will simply secure long and healthy
life. What is theuse of a iong and healthy life if
it's the worng life? But the fact is that you probably
can't have a long or healthy life (that is one without
old age) un if it's a wrong one. So what has gone wrong
wih the Indian pro ramme?


One of the basic tenets of the Indian enlightenment
programme as purveyed by the principal gurus and asharams
and one that not only has been argely disregarded by the
West but which fits very ill that western optimism which
has produced massive industrial and colonial and aggressive
activity for the ast four or five centuries, is that birth
is a calamity. fquwte)x 'Once you have grasped the truth
that the world is full of suffering, that to be born is a
calamity, you will find the urge and the enrgy to go beyond
it.' These are the words of Sri KX Nisargadatta Maharaj,
and variants of the same remarks have been made a thousand
times over by Indian yogis and saints. The soul is en-
deavouring to reach God. It enters incarnation after
incarnation to achieve this end, ad it enters God, becomes
God totally when the cycle of incarnations has been completed
and there is no further karma to be rsolved. Which outs
us quite near the idea that we are born in order, ultimately,
never to be born again; that we come to life in order,
ultimately, to reject life; that we cannot tdo better,
ultimately, than renounce all desire for life, beginning
with the more ego-bound desires such as that for sex and
money (Ramakrishna's 'women and gold'. 'Distasion' is
the most used word on this subject. That state is desire-
lessness. Only in that state do we experience real peace,
and only in that state can we complete the cycle of births
and mmerge oursevles once more in God.
Ont the other hand our EBNXSXEFErexdixIXINEXX selves are
divine. Divinity is our true inner nature, only we usually
hiude this from ourselvesunder 'sheaths' of igorance and
worldly attachment. The famous mantra Om Namah Shivaya
means 'I honour the diviinty in myself' and it is the core
of meditation. Essentially, meditating means concentrating
on the divinity i n oneself, becoming so aware of it that
the whole organism hopefully shines with it, utterly still,
utterly satisfied.
So essentially we are already God. The great Ramana
Mahirshi asked his devotees again and again 'Who are you?'
You are not that which is incarnated. You are not that
which dies. You are not that which is born. You are
that which cannot go away because you never came. Ramana
Ekexesxkradtsiisxsxxexxxxaxx*nisxaxEXaXTEaxreadyXXgryx*hik*X
told people that meditating was for the beginner, the merest
initiate. There was no need to do anything, think aything,
be anything----you already were all you could evr be.
You already were the divine self, you already were God.
It was only a matter of taking away those 'sheaths' of
ignorance and identifying your true self. Then you lived,
ate, laughed and cried in perpetual meditation. You lived
in a divine glow.
The contradictions in all th S are already very thick.
If we are essentially divine, and already God, in our real
as opposed to illusory selves, why was it necessary to
pass through cycles of incarnaions in order to 'rejoin'
God? If we had never separated from him, why was it
necessary to find Him ahain?
Again: everything is spirit. IXx**EX****S*X*KETEXIS
*XXWY****XR*XRXX*RDXXX*XaTEXRixthisxi XAXXXX
Ther is no such thing as matter unmoved, totally and utterly


inert.
The particles which are the inner substance of
life move, exist---some physicists say with a life of their
own. The atom may be compared with a stupendous glowing
arena teaming with activity and life.
In the West I
thinkiztXWEXAYEX*HXX there has been no exponent of this
more convincing than Mary Baker Eddy mixtkexekrix founder
of the Christiant Scientists. Quote.
Since eerything is spirit, since everything is God,
since every physical object, every cell, every desire
and thought and motion of the created will manifests God
hot T
and God alone, why renouncayit all? Wagwas Why was being
dois
born into this splendid harmonious galaxy a misfortune, to
be quickly undoene? Why If meditation or obedinece of
the guru, or the act of realising our divinity brings us
to a state of bliss, what : is there to renounce? And if
we XETEXHEXETYHRIX cannot die because we were never born,
if the true 'T'belongs to none of the bodies it chooses
from-time to time to incarnate itself in, if the true 'I'
remains utterly outside its/material manifestations, why
ourr)
is it necessary to avoid incarnations and menifestations
if poss ble? te hmesesf wesit coranate,
Of course the Indian scriptures are't naif or in-
complete, howevr much contemporary gurus In dian gurus
may be. The scriptures clearly show that once you have
renouned the world inwardly, once you have identified your
real self and recognised that reality is non-solid and
illusioty (a statemen adequately. suppored by modern physics,
as many people have pointed out) you can return to this
world of 'veils' and appreciate it, live in it blissfully,
even yprolong your life in it. as much as possible in order
to enjoy the divine creation.
Ramakrishna used to say
that it was like entering a house full of dark rooms,
you entered each one, and mounted the staircase to th
next floor, until you reached the roof, where you found
blinding light. Once you knew that light you could retgurn
to those dark rooms, and you would no longer find tgem
dark.
There would only be light for you.
gWYNEX**E****XXXXXXXXX
yxtaxgixexupxEXdESIXX**XX**XXRNXXXXXXIXX
ERXXINMEX**XXkaxkaxextkmyXXkmEXXKBEXEYXXXXXXXXXXXXXRawakriskxaxkastxxx
**emxx**xiidxxixekanandayxgwxsexdaxRawaNAXXXXXWXEXXEXXXONXIWYEXX
XWXXXaXEXXEXNESITESYesyxifxenkyxfaxenxxxfurx
Now if birth is a calamity for you, if incarnating is
ENXINIErImrxarkixi** done only in order that it may no
longer be done, surely the logical outcome (for your cells)
isthat death is a boon for you, bodilessness a reward?
Does this explain sickness in so many of the greatest K
yogis? Does this explain why they eshew hatha yoga,
longevity asanas, as being on a level with the so'called
'left'handed' Tantric practice of God through sex.
Hatha yoga, consisting of bodily asanas, was always
thought to be the lowest of the yogic disciplines. But
is that because what we take to be ha tha yoga is the
discipline with its mostt important secret missed out,
namely the secret of the breath? Are the gurs as far
from this secret as anyone else in the last centuries?
Certai ly Ramakrishna made no such practice.
Nor did
Vivekananda. To judge by the pathetic sniffing that


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the followers of Mukdenanda today go through as a
preliminary of meditation, times have hardly changed.
Mukdenanda himself has a 'heart condition', according to
his followers. *xakxisx*pxkexisattxirwathingxprepexwx
hypaxfautxwhrizhx Is that because he isn't breathing
properly and nver has done?
For once the cells are told by their masters that
they are an inferior and temporary mechanism to reach
a state in which they will not exist, they will rapidly
degenerate, precisely as a man who believes in old age
will become old at the prescribed time. Ixxetker Occe
yo say to God 'I have no use for this life excapt as a
kind of waiting room' he will shortent the stay for
you, and isthis the advice that is being given to the
West---that while you can copulate and make a family
and feel attached to certain people (notably your lover,
wife/husband or children), it would be better if you
didn't. There S no avoiduing this conclusion in the
Indian programme as it is purveyed today. There are
few Indian gurus around who will say boldly like
Vivekananda that a man may have a hundred wives and be
a man of God: indeed Mohammed did. So devotees are
left in a half-way house, with the result that hours of
meditation and asanas may leave the devout in a highly
charged sexual stae. I shall never forget how, a few
weeks ago, during my stay in an ashram, I did my one-
hour morning meditation from 4.45 to 5.45, followed by
breakfast and an hour's chanting, to spend the rest of
the day nrusing an enormous erection. Vivekananda,
during his American lecture tour in the last years of
the previous century, was freugently asked by his
ingenuous audiences why they felt so 'lustful' after
meditation, and he didn't really have a satisfactory
answer.
A friend told me yesterday that she spent Easter
at an ashram in Santa Cruz and on the day of her departure
they were meditating, that is sitting in the lotus position
without support, for five hours together. She got up in
an angry state and driving home to Berkeley didn't say
a word to the ot er passengers. But* She also noticed
sexuality in the satmosphere---on this occasion men and
women were gtogether, not separatd as is usual in ashrams
for the meditational devotion. A NOw the anger and sexuality
may be different elements of the same thing, namely an
attempt---a rather agressive atempt--on the part of the
cells to asesert themselves. Vivekananda's answer was
that something must be wrong with the emditation, and
this does seem clear.
But is this because *HEXIndiaNX
prugrammexakasxaxmmditasigNXEXXXERX*XEEXxasxappesedxkuxiifeyx
MI*X*NEX*KEXdEXBIEESXRIXEXEXXXKEXEHYEXRETIEingXit*xxxit*xxXXXX
Hasx*ixkaNRKEHRNEXXKxtkexdixinityxi*xmYEEXf*XKEXKEEEMEX*IXAXRHEXTKEXXXXXXXXX
deakhxinxmyXMYEEX*****NEXIexdeatkxmIXsExxXXXIWXiwxeyxmIxwixmyxataEMMENtX
*UX*KEEEXEIWSEXXXXMEXXRfxmyxpYXPYEEIWNSXINXHwxmearmakwatin*xx
HexwNrixgx**xgxtxxtix*n*yxinxxENYSEifYXkEEEmIngX honouring
the divinity in yourself actually increases th energy
to live in your incarnation---and if you haven't in fact
renounced sex, if you in fact love th sex act *X**XX**XX
kekwxed more than any other act of your life, youwill find
the cells forcing you to face the fact, ifxx as mine did


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medilt
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Rel -


The meditation is unsuccessfyl, ad probably less good
than not meditating at all. But is this because the
Indian programme has failed to proride more than an
unnatural mental self-alienation which will simply not
work for most people? Isxikxinxfan*x Has the Îndian
programme in fact produced a sort of suicide blue-
sheet not so different from that of the People's Church
in San Francisco which resulted some years back in mass
suicide? What is the objection to getting rid of the
present body, if that body is ready to enter God?
This is where rebirthing comes in. I am going
to claim that meditation isximpessihiexandxindeEt
Marmiwxx*ex*EXpERpIExwhaxkaxent*MTEXYERBHNEERXEEXXXEEYE
dEsITEsxfurIHIXYENMOXMERISXIXSTEsteadxmfxmixinadegHAXEXEXRRESXEXWRESXEXEY
is not a mental activity or lack of activity at all.
It is an act of the cells. And when this act is success-
ful and properly managed it cannot lead to sexuality or
anger. *nXX*enx**xXXXIXXANXAEaxxam*xmixtMIX*HEXEEXISXisxi*xixmpxy
EAMNBEXREXAexaxmatkErxRixsittingxwitaIX*X*KEXXEgEXEIEEEEXX
FUrXEHEXKRNEXBEXBIXfIXEXardxkemptyingxthexmXMIXA**XxxxXxXX
KEIIEYEXTHa*XX****XX****XXXEEXXNXIESXXTHEXTEEXXXXEXX
indianxprugrammeMEXEHEEXpIEXIdedx It is isimply impossible
to feel these things when you reach the state of non-
breathing or stillness in a rebirth session. The mind
is here truly inactive, in the sense that it is not in
control. The cells are undeniably in a divine state---
they feel that way, it isn't a matter of a mental attitude.
And you simply can't get the cells to behave like that,
to become transformd, just by sitting with your egs
crossed for an hour or five and doing it all by mental
effort. You will maybe feel calm, or experience some
well-being, and from time to time you may have the
impression of a light SNETWuNdindingxywuxX am emanatig from
you. But you won't stop the mind working. You will still
be in perfect control. You will still be in the 'real'
world, or in per ect consciousness.
Swxwkatxixamxeuggestingxisxthatx Now no doubt certain
Indians do teach a definite physical method for arriving
at meditation, whether it is breathing or certain repeated
asanas or extreme fasting. Only in this way will the
suicide factor be resisted.
It seems to me now that I am writing this because of
that first rebirth experience, the appearance. I was told
there not to accept the pain and suffering story, the vale
of tears stroy, I was told, I think, that birth was indeed
no calamity. I was told, I think, the opposire of what
the Indian programme today is putting round the world,
for the reason that it has lost touch with its own secrets.
The first thing to drain out of you in rebirth
breathing is sex desire. With it goes all trace of
irritation ad anger.
These things may come up in
order to disperse almost at once. *NOXXHEXIRdIANX
atxixextxx**xXXXXXXXXXRXX Now frequently an Indian guru will
advise people to let the most terrible thoughts flow
through their minds without rsistance, in the first
stages of a mediattion. I suggest that this advice
is u


is unknowingly derived from an earlier, now forgotten
meditatisnaixstakexwhizhxwESXImEKimxE@axkyxx rebirth
state. I believe that even th W rd meditation istelf
is a watery dilution of the real experience, throwing
the emphasis on the brain, which in any genuine meditatio
is the least active of the orgas.
The rebirthree passes into stillness in his own time,
and yet this time is determined by the breathing, its
duration, rhythm and volume. HWWXEAEKXkXmEditakisnRXEEXXX
SEESIERXMAShasxi*sxxX**xXXXX Now this duration, rhythm and volume
is never constant. Three minutes may be enough to induce
stillness or non-breathing (I am deliberately avoiding
the over-used word' bliss' because this is only one of
the many experiences possible in this state), and on another
occasion (with the same rebirthee) two hours may not
be enough. On other occasions still not even two hours
will get there: the organism is just not in a rebirth
state.
The sniffing that many people practiceas a premliminary
or aid to mental medi tation is, it seems to me, a last
almost imperceptible trace of that early breathing through
which the original masters of he Indian programme many
thousands of years ago attained longevity, serenity and
the power to survive withou eating or drinking. Of C As
a matter of fact sniffing may simply irritate the organism.
Short sharp intakes of ait without adequately long out-
breath release have the effec 9 like all breath intake,
of raising momentarily the blood pressure, heart bat,
metabolistic rate, temperature and nervous enrgy. So it
may have the opposite effect to the one devoutly wished
for.
To. me it makes sense that Christ practised a form of
re irthingbecase his mission was really the Indian programme,
as I've called it, brought to the west. And that programme
comes by mean of what I've called the messenger, in the
rebirth. It is why there is no Indian religion as there
are other religions. The Upnaishads say that 'all paths
lead to God'. The Upanishads aren't aout a particular
path. E**X****X***XXXXEXXPHXXRY So what I am saying here
is that they were actually given during rebirth sessions
many thousands of years ago, in the form of the Vedas
or early scriptures which were passed on from mouth to
mouth. The whole doctrine of the divine self (which
Christ repeated---'Is it not written that ye are Gods?'--
and the sense of reality as an illusion, that is that
objectivity lies in the perceiver ad not in the perceived,
all the basic tenets of the Idnian mystciism, are giva
in rebirth as a actual lviing experience. Surfaces are
pierced, the self seems to illuminate the entire univers
and become its centre, ad guidance is given on how to
behave (the messenger), not in the form of moral command-
ments but the only natural and harmonious behaviour open
to the breathr.
Now all this is clearly opposite to suicide.


And it is suicide that the Indian programme, like hald
of the workshops and the mind-grabbing sects, invites and
(praises) without the smallest intention of doing so or,
apparently, the samllest awareness of what it is doing.
The greatest teacher among the Indians, perhaps the greatest
the world has at this moment, Bagwan Rajneesh is about the
only spokesman of the Indian programme who is clear and
categorical about it. He says relisiongs make a difference
between God and the world, they piut God against the world,
but you can have both, there is no need to think of them
as separate. This is because he 's aware of the suicide
built into the I dian programme, with which the mass suicide
of the Indian people, their passivity in crisis and their
inability (amounting to refusal) to deal with the simplest
probelms of racial survival, is partly the result: the
Indian programme, eschewing thr world not only as unreal
but undesirable, especially its essential creative spark---
the living heart of every cell which we may call sex or
conception or XRXE*** love---has entered deep i to the
papukarxindianxmindx mind of the Indian people whether
they acknowledge the Upanishads or not. Ramakrishna and
Vivekananda and a good many other yogis worked against
this process, extolling the West for its optimism and self-
help, but they were monks just the same, and I doubt
whether either had experience of an act of sex.
The workshops in their turn, taking directly franxthe
or indirectly from the Indian programme, perpetuate the
same psychological reaction, without (naturally) intending
to either. invarishiyxtxsyxfm1lmxxpapataxxfrentianxprinmipiesy
thatx Not that they're against sex. In fact most of them
follow, unconsciously or otherwise, a popular freudian
pricniples, that withholding sex is unhealthy, that self-
expression is essential, that the bad things inside, the
hangups (in current Californian, the shit) has to 'come
out'. It continues to come out edlessly. And it is rather
as if someone with a chronic tendency to colds told hims lf
each time 'It's my mucous coming out', It is indeed, and
the release of the mucous does relieve the sysyetm, but
nothing is being done to get at the cause. And if you
You may be bilding up the mucus emotionally. Xwuxmayx
XEXXESIS*INE And the very principle that you do your
yoga and your Brima and your massages and your rolfing and
your Est training and your actualisation and your dream
anaylsis and your past-life regression and your psycho-
therapy in order to 'get rid of your shit' is already an
encapsulated suicide.
And it isn't W wonder that people
tending to deep depression can go through these disciplibes
spending their life savings over a period of six months
or more, and end p with the deepest depression of all
time. The mucous has certainly come out. But no one
has stopped it being manufactured inside. No one has
pointed out that the 'shit' is nothing but inbiuilt
suicide, moment by moment suicide, and that expressing


it, whether you do it at a Kubler Ross workshop, bteaing
a pillow with a piece of rubber tubing to 'get the anger
out' or under the caressing massages of a fellow Brimah
student, unless the will to csuicide is tackled head-on
nothing whatsoever has been done.
The above ahpened to my woman ('my'l---but we've
seen each oher again, we slept in the same bed together
for two niths, though we didn't touch each other) She
sent through the whole lot---and ended with the deepest
depression of all time. Now for me that depresion was
directly associated with the nager- and hate-display
urged on her by the Kulber Ross. It was connected wi th
the fact that, as part of the training, she enacted
the suicide of her own mother when she was eight years
old.
Clearly the West has a vast suicide programme too--
otherwise we wouldn't have found the secre of destroying
the vry heart of matter, the inner sexof every cell, the
atom. That has been weighed and researched and thought
towards for centuries, at least since ancient Greek
times, when the at m became the subjectof philosophical
(urxsmientififiewmimxxikatxwaxxxx discgussion. And finally
we got there. All our Western vigous and optimism and
slef-help created the means to destroy all animate life
on the planet in less than a second. In our case we got
there by listening to ministers of the church telling us
that essentially we were bad creatures and that een the
most ecstatic act known to huma expeierience, that of
sex, was wrong and, more, filthy. And finally it sunk
in. In the rebirth process you hit that suicide sooner
or later whoever you are. I'm about the most unsuidcidal
person you coul have, as far as intentions and conscious
tendencies go. But I hit it just the same.
And when
you hit it you are astonished that it has been resident
in your cells all these years, really since birth, withot
you knowing it.
We in the West run from this suicide and depression
to disciplines which promise bliss and a reprieve from
all the dark accusation that have been hurled against
us by the churches and perpetuated by psychologists who
still cling to the idea of there being a 'good' part of
you and a 'bad' part of yoj, a 'super'ego' and a 'lower
ego'. We fall straight into the arms of the Indian
programme only to find that the suicide-principle is
a basic inbuilt part of the discipline, only this time
it WOOS us fwrxrEax and delights us. It can make us
say, after a time, with Keats, 'I have been half in
love wi th easeful Death'...


You can experience bliisss or a state of desire-
lessness without belieiving in God.
Nearly all the
enlightenment techniques and workshops are concerned
with calming the nervous system and inducing it to
feel a state of sevurity. They may advertise bliss
as the Indians do, or they may not. But they musy
all promise a certain stae of inner joy twxexgaxtax
ERXightERNES because this is what enlightenment implies.
It means living in a world of light instead of one of
darkness. Any psychotherapist, too, must have a similar
objective in the erea of the mind: clear and optimistic
thinking is clearly better from his point of view than
dark and doomed thinking. But with this growing of
light, with ecstasy and optimism, there may not be belief
in God. EsprgiakkyaxxinxXXXINXENX K EXwr******EXwwX*ax@maxisx
*wwikexrig***X*XXXxkxmfxfaskimmyxamaxthelisfxinxixx@matxisxxx
KasxaxrathErxadannedxx I'm deliberate;y using an old'
fashioned expression which sounds to most of us not only
empty of meaning but damned silly. How can you believe
in the rigijnal dynamic force of creation i n the universe,
how you can believe in the everywhre, how can you believe=
in spirit? You either know it or you don't. And what
I'm suggesting is that you can have the bliss and the
ecstasy and, now and then, the feeling of uter security
even in danger, whigaxpERpIEXWMEwh@xdwxxx**axxguEsxwiXXX**XXXX
kwlixxingxxxxgind without knowing it. And if you don't
know it, if you only get glimpses, youare thrown back
into the 'real' world ixxaxbewildezetxstaterXxXXXXixEXEhiNg
saysyxx (that is, the world you lived in before)withxalix
itexdarkKEss)X with most perplexing contradictory results.
You may thin find yourself thinking about su cide more
openly than ever before, even though you know yo will
never do it, or evn plan it. It is just there in the
mind playing about. You may find that the darkness
becomes more difficult to bear. You may find little
unexpected misfortunes in your life. You may find
doors closing on you which were always open before.
You may find even your career folding up. But these
things the ashrams and the workshops neither advertise
nor acknowledge the possibility of this connection.
And the result is a great deal of unhappiness of the
kind I saw at the Mukdananda ashram, where constant inner
crisis is blandly called a 'kria", and left where it is,
to pass away (which it doesn't do). At that ashram I
saw people in frantic tearful states, terror and so on,
but there was no one in the direc orate who could do more
than smile sympathetically an refer the evoteee. back to
his early morning chants.
People rise from their meditations
fregently feeling anger or hatred, and shame because
they're feeling it, and frequently they believe they're
alone in this and don't want to expose themselves t the
Englightened Ones by mentioning it. Bu all this trouble
is caused by the inability to believe in God in its real
sense, that is knowing with perfect security that you
are being looked after. The path to that is endless,
and every human being is on it whether he likes it or
knows it or not. Every gesture to bring order into
his life by reaning more or having the right lover or


making children or retreating to a holiday house or
cultivating warm friendships or joining clubs (or
workshops or gyms) is a gesture towards that seurity.
But unless yo u know what you're really looking for you
experience less seurity as time goes on, the more order
you create around you. You can srtive for the seurity
of a being famous or rich but once there you will feel
less se cure than in your darkest days of failure and
self recrimination. X@xxxxxax*x*xx***XXxxxxxkyxpEpxskars
gextaxgurusx*wa*x*sx*XXMEXTEEERHY And that security,
that believing in God in the real sense where you no
longer talk about God or about believing anything but
just live wih the knowledge, is what rebirthing (for me
at any rate) is essentially about. It means an end to
our need for churches. Churches are monuments to our
disbelief. And paradoxically they create more misbelief,
partly by living on it and profiting by it. This SO-
called Christian civilsation of the West has been founded
on and organised by the richest and most far-flung church
in the history of man, but who goes to church nowadays?
The Italians, in the country where that church was first
organised on an imperial basis? Going to church in
ITaly has, in the last thirty years, become almost an act
of shame. And it's a reflection on your intelligence
too. I have never met one man or woman in a lifetime
spent in Ialy who had a good word to say about preiests.
But the God that expresses itself in leaves and
winds and HEE dark inner moods and mysterious sounds at
night, the God that intimates its existence to us in
sometimes vivid and overwhelming ways---that is som thing
you live with, a security you rest in, not concept in the
head.
If yo u fight the darkness to reach the light in
hours of meditation, if you fight the sexualiy to reach
non-attachment, the darkness and the exauality will
well up and suffoacte you. As I Ching says, when one
keeps still one gains conrtol over on's bndy, but
where rigidity occurs in I the hips', that is the zone
wher the dark and light forces face each other, 'the
heart moves aimlessly, the nerve paths will thereby be
interrupted, and a suffocation of the heart is to be
feared.' Such a thing is impossible with re irthing.
becase rigicdity is impossible. Rigidty comes from
effort of mind, and if there is effort of mind the
re irthing process that process will simply cease.
What I call believing in God is simply the ack-
nowledge of the Third Force. Until that force is
geuinely acknowledged *RRAXIXKaXEN*EXYHARKwaghedxkkakxskage
XXXXXXXXXXXXX*x*axgxkagkxixXXXX*XEXEXEXX**X*X**an*x*g* Kight
nightmares and unexpected suicidal atitudes will continue.
The msyterious process of rebirthing seems to put
the cells into a state in which things can begin to
hapen as if total securiy was there. The Third Force
takes over as best it can---but while the mind doesn't


doesn't believe or assent, it can only work gradually
and or fragmentarily. Now the rebirthing won't produce
the mental assent. It will merely set the Third Force
in motion. ThisxmayxxpsrXpREXXEXEXIRREEXEENSEXHIXSENETItY
Now the Indian programme, despiteits emphasis on
doing away with he mind (for that programme is mor e aware
than any other of the blocking power of the mind) , does
not do this. Or raher, it can do it in only one way---
th rough the actual touch or presence of the guru. My
belief is tha there rebirthing there is no technique
avaiable like rebirthing which sets the Third Force in
motion, and minimsises the damaging effect of the mind.
All the available techniques, including those of the
Indian programme, are intellectual and verbal, and there-
fore howevr much thy may discourage menatl activity they
are dependent on it and therefore canno get rid of it.
Mental control remains. And with rebirthing mental
contr 1 is th first thing to disapear.
This at once separates it from psychotherapy,
which may ba celled a journey through the mind. The
rebirther isn't, and shouldn't strive to be, a. 'clean
vessel' as some psychotherapists call it, through which
the subject's pain and distress may flow without causing
discomfort or even reacion in the rebirther. The attempt
to becom a clean vessel (which only a monk who devotes
his whole life to just this can be) kradsx may lead to
great affectation in a psychotherapist and make him
adopt an attitude in which the heart ceases to act
naturally. Thus an enlightenment endeavour may end
by recreating the vry cause of darkness, namely a shrivell=
ing of the heart and its protection by all kinds of
prestense ad defense devices (which the Reichians call
the 'armour'). I frequently cry when my subjects cry,
during a sesion, (unknown to them, since their eyes are
closed). This is when my heart works sympahetically.
But the subject mus also b e preared for the rebirther's
heart fo work unsympathetically. It happened to me
when my teacher got angry because I had over-breathed
myself into hyperventilation after my first session with
her, xespite her warnings that I must not try breathing
alone. Her anger aroused pain and resenment in me: I
thought I deserved her concern. But the important fact
was that the heart was in active dialogue.
In California I fond that people abandoned the
re irthing process - if only for a time, much more
frequently than in Europe.
And in theend I put it down
mental control being such an important factor in American
life. In the lack of traditions binding ev.e eryone together
blindly and automatically, Amrican life has had depend
on the mind as the one unifying factor among many religions
and attitudes, and over vast spaces. Therefore it has
played an essential role in builing the country with the
result today that the American tends to f el threatened
and unsafe if he isn't in control of the situation round
him. If he finds unexpected things hapening to him as
a eresult of two or three rebirths he will in ariably
feel he is being led into the unknown---and the unknown,
he has SO oftend been taught, means the presece of irrational


irrational forces (that is, to come full circle), mental
control is absent. Xuxx**expus**religkWNEXEEEXE*y We
still live according to eighteenth century enlightenment
pricniples: enlightenment meant at that time Human
Reason. And the loss of this reason meant, for the
thinkers of that time, chaos and madness. So qite
often someone being rebirthed, and falling into a state
where his mind is not oin control ad may not even be
conscious, begins to fear thatmadness may result. For
he has been taught that rational control is the one thing
that prevents him from going mad: and the more madness
there is in him, the more deep layers of unconfrtonted
resentments and ahterds and terrors, the more he will
feel the need for this control. Thus it may be said
that those mostbin need of rebirth are those who fly
from it. *xx**uxwhE onc e the process has started.
I found this in two writers I sraterd to re irth
in San Francisco. One had been afraid all his life to
fall asleep or unconscious (he did both in the first
rebirth, although he denied the unconsciousness later),
and the other was the mos sub'ventialted human being
I have ever come across. Both were living (and dying)
from mental control, and the loss of control which they
felt and marvelled at, though they nboth knew it was
probably changing their lives as nothing else had done,
was the very thing that frightened them and made them
edge away. I say 'edge away' because these flights
are always surreptitious, for the obvious reason that
if they staed stated their fear clearly the re irther
might successfully discourage i and have them on their
backs again.


AUTHOR AID ASSOCIATES
LITERARY REPRESENTATIVES
340 EAST 52nd STREET
NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10022
Cable: MAXBIRD, NEW YORK
1 November 1991
To: Maurice
Morrow reports: "I owe you many apolo sies for keeping
this so long.. . Rowdon's book is very srong, written
quite obviously by a brilliant man. However, I must
pass because of its downbeat premise and message. Al-
though I tend to agree, I do think it would be a terri-
bly hard sell for us here at Morrow. I keep thinking
if he focuses primarily on how we can begin to make the
environment better by seeing the error in our cultural
assumptions, he would have a more marketable book.
But that may be too simplistic."
Sorry. The ms. has gone to the Simon Michael Bessie
imprint at Pantheon. Please send the fresh copy
I asked for; the Morrow reading shopwore one copy.
I'm reading the novel and will be in touch; meanwhile
I feel you should submit to HarperCollins in Britain
direct, if possible. Good luck with house hunting.
Arthur
A0:cc


THE APE OF
SORROWS
BOOK LAUNCH
23 February 2010
Daunt Books
158-164 Fulham Rd London
rowdoxy@aol.com
annabel.huxley@googlemail.com
From Stranger to Destroyer:
The Inside Stary of Humans
MAURICE ROwDON
www.theapeofsorrows.com
WHAT kind of species goes in for collective suicide?
Have our powers of self-invention to date been deeply misconceived?
Periods of decline usually contain the seeds of renewal.
What will it take for us to survive?
"The only measure we have of any animal's intelligence is whether it leaves its habitat enhanced or depleted, and by
this measure the human is the least intelligent of all creatures.
The Ape of Sorrows examines human behaviour through the simple but powerful rubric of animal intelligence,
presenting a new view of humans as a magnificent, if misguided species which lost its way as it evolved beyond its -
niche to be niche-less, and separate, from all other non-linguistic animal life.
The Ape of Sorrows opens with a gripping retelling of the monkey brawl at London Zoo in the 1930s. It goes on to
examine the history of our relationship with animals, and the development of our scientific, cultural and religious
thought and practice through the millennia - the story that has brought us to this point of extreme instability in the 21st
century.
Author, philosopher and historian, Maurice Rowdon brings a personal philosophical view to bear on our present state,
offering an explanation as to how and why we are apparently so tragically committed to the destruction of this planet,
our evolutionary mutations revealing a hard-pressed creature who seems to have had no other course.
The Ape of Sorrows is the culmination of 15 years of dedicated thought completed in the months before the visionary
author's death in February 2009.
BIOGRAPHY: Maurice Rowdon (1922-2009) earned degrees in History and Philosophy at Oxford University and
published twelve books on animal and human intelligence, travel, and war. A writer of fiction and non-fiction as well as
a prolific playwright, he also taught his own breathing system, evolved from yoga practices, in California and Europe.
In the latter years he lived with his wife, Dachiell, who survives him, in France and London.
NOTE: MAURICE ROWDON wrote twelve books on human and animali intelligence, and with great prescience ont the shape of human culture, past,
present andi future.
>> Of1 Talking Dogs, 1978:
"one oft the most remarkable animal books ever written" ; Evening News
>> In Italian Sketches, 1963:
he casually wrote that cars would eventually bel banned from city centres and politics in the future would be determined by environmental issues
> Of Perimeter West, 1956 (before the construction of The Wall in 1961)
"the most important novel to come to us out off England since 1945"; Welt und Wort
FRONT COVER: Lucian Freud, "Small Portrait 2001"
MEDIA CONTACT: ANNABEL HUXLEY tel: 020 7586 0932 / email: annabel.huxley@googlemail.com


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