The Travellers' Guide To The Afterlives

By Pete Malicki

"The Travellers' Guide To The Afterlives" truly is the most important book in the history of literature.

Whether you're deeply pious or a hardcore atheist, just imagine this: what if the afterlife really does exist? And what if the afterlife you end up in depends on which religion you follow?

What if some of the afterlives are great and some are awful?

Wouldn't you want to know? Wouldn't you want to spend your life following the religion with the best eternity? Because life is short and eternity is really, really long.

Despite being a lifelong atheist, I didn't want to take the chance of being wrong and ending up floating in an infinite pool of embryonic fluid forever after. So I devised a way of travelling to the afterlife and returning to my body back on Earth. In "The Travellers' Guide To The Afterlives", I visit Heaven, Hell and Hades, as well as the afterlives of the Buddhists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Australian Aborigines. Join me as I recount my adventures and enjoy the tales of life, death, life again, more death, more life, a bit of sex, and an adorable couple of koalas.

Find out which religion will take you to the best afterlife so you can make an informed decision about your hereafter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pete Malicki
• Release date: Apr 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311245144

Pete Malicki

Pete Malicki is a versatile writer and a maverick of the arts and entertainment industries. He's won writing awards all around the globe and holds a world record for running the longest short play festival in history.As a writer, Pete began by writing five novels before broadening his horizons and diving into the theatre world. His first published novel, "Eyes And Knives", was named book chain Berkelouw’s "Book Of The Week" upon its release. His fifth novel, "The Travellers' Guide to the Afterlives", is an endearing mock-autobiography affectionately thought of as The Most Important Book In The History Of Literature, because no other book tells you how to secure the best eternal life!In theatre, Pete has had over 750 productions of 70 different plays in 20 countries. His plays have won 21 awards between them at nationwide/international events. “V.D.”, his full-length one-woman show, has toured Australia, England and New Zealand to great critical acclaim.His speciality is writing theatrical monologues which actors love to perform. These have rich, textured characters and engaging stories, and with 200+ performances of them each year they are among the most popular and successful monologues in the world. Six volumes of these monologues have been published at SpeechGeek and a collection of the best 30, called Monosauce, are now available at Smashwords.Outside of writing, Pete is a heavyweight producer in his hometown of Sydney Australia. He's run the world's largest short play festival - Short+Sweet Sydney - four times and been the coordinator of artist development program Crash Test Drama for close to a decade. He founded The Monologue project in 2013, which offers live shows, a script resource and workshops for drama students. He's directed dozens of award-winning actors and stood at the helm of major Sydney productions. On top of that, he runs workshops on business skills and monologue performance, works as an editor for New Holland Publishers and his own company Editors Australia, and holds regular writing courses.He is also developing Monologue Master, an online educational resource for actors wanting to get better at performing monologues, and co-founded Horizon VR, a virtual reality production company.www.petemalicki.com

Book preview

THE TRAVELLERS’ GUIDE TO THE AFTERLIVES

By Pete Malicki

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2005-2014 Pete Malicki

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All characters based on real persons have been done so in a fictitious way, with permission from the persons in question.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing from the publisher, nor may it be circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 9781311245144

Title: The Travellers' Guide To The Afterlives

Author: Pete Malicki

Publisher: Smashwords, Inc.

Pete Malicki

http://www.petemalicki.com

[e-mail]

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table Of Contents

Opening Speech

Chapter 1 - The New Age

Chapter 2 - Out Of My Body

Chapter 3 - Dreaming

Chapter 4 - Heaven

Chapter 5 - Hades, Olympos

Chapter 6 - Bardo

Chapter 7 - Waiting For God

Chapter 8 - Purged

Chapter 9 - Sin Week

Chapter 10 - Hell

Chapter 11 - The Bitter End

About Pete Malicki

Other Titles by Pete Malicki

Connect with Pete Malicki

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

– Susan Ertz

Opening Speech

I never was a religious man.

Until a couple of years ago, I hadn’t put too much thought into religion. I was your typical atheist. Whenever someone talked to me about God or Satan or the Bible, I would find as many ways as possible to prove them stupid.

There are plenty of contradictions in religion, such as the Christian God being infinitely forgiving but sending all the poofs to Hell just because they’re poofs. He was the one who made them poofs anyway, so what’s the point of damning them? Why create something if it’s doomed to oblivion right from the beginning? You might as well boil some water, pour it into a cup, add a teabag, let it brew for five minutes, then throw it at the wall. Seriously – what’s the point?

I wasn’t a believer, but when push came to shove, I didn’t really care that much about religion, so long as it wasn’t smeared into my face like a clown’s pie. Whatever you want to believe behind closed doors is fine by me.

My views didn’t suddenly change when someone stopped me on the street to tell me the Good News, nor did I re-evaluate my beliefs after meeting some drunk guy in a pub who splurted out a surprisingly profound cliché I’d never heard before. There was no epiphany; no life-changing moment.

In fact, my views on religion haven’t changed much at all. Or more specifically, my views on the religious haven’t changed. I suppose I can’t call myself an atheist any more, seeing as how I visited Purgatory, Hades, Heaven and Hell, met tribal ancestors, was reincarnated, and dined with a bunch of long-forgotten gods.

It started, like many things start, with a catalyst. I met a girl at a party while I was living in Germany. She was obsessed with death – terrified of it. Not so much dying, but what happens afterwards. What if we just stop existing? What’s the point of that? What’s the point of living just to die and disappear? That’d be like the teacup, or the poofs.

I’d personally not worried much about the thought of my existence ending at the time of death. If that is our destiny, then so be it. We have no influence over it so there’s no point wasting our time with something we can’t change.

What we should be concerned about is if there is some kind of life after death. According to the popular beliefs of most religions, our lifestyles influence where we go after we shuffle off the mortal coil. If one follows a religion, one can end up in its afterlife.

So what if one of the afterlives was a dud? Imagine being stuck somewhere really crap for the rest of eternity. Imagine dedicating your entire life to being a good Christian, then discovering that Heaven is duller than three accountants debating stationery.

I decided then and there (whenever and wherever that was) to visit as many afterlives as I could and write reviews on them, so that humanity could make an informed decision as to where they will end up for the rest of time. My German friend’s well-justified fear of the unknown drove me to write the most important book in the history of literature; a handbook on life-after-death: The Travellers’ Guide to the Afterlives.

The problem was, I didn’t believe in the afterlife.

But like all good problems, there was a solution. I found my solution not in religion, where one might suspect would be a good starting place, rather, in spirituality.

The path was made clear by hippies.

CHAPTER 1

The New Age

‘Now, feel the grapefruit-sized ball of healing light inside your belly. Feel it healing you. Feel it as it sits right there in your belly, this grapefruit-sized ball of healing light. Now, imagine there is a string attached to this grapefruit-sized ball of healing light that goes all the way up into the heavens above, all the way into the collective consciousness of mankind…’

I sat up straight in my plastic kindergarten chair, eyes closed, breathing deep and even. The soft, feminine voice of my lecturer soothed away the troubles of the past week.

‘Now, imagine there’s another string attached to the grapefruit-sized ball of healing light, and it’s going all the way down to the centre of the earth. This string is keeping you rooted and balanced, anchoring you and keeping you from straying, as well as allowing you to relax even more deeply.’

I allowed myself to relax even more deeply.

‘Now, feel this healing light relax you; feel those strings keeping your posture in place. Let’s try to hold this position for another two minutes before we start the class.’

Twenty odd students were sitting in a semicircle while our lecturer, whose name a defense reflex in my brain has caused me to forget, sat in the middle of the room with her eyes closed and her hands resting on her knees, palms facing upwards. We were doing this little meditation exercise to prepare ourselves for week six of Counselling 1A at my natural therapies ‘collage’, as the college was known by a misprint on one of their exercise books. Shunning science for things like star signs and chakra blockages, the staff, tutors and students alike were – how do you say it? – colourful. Some of the classes were specifically designed for the new age topics, but the non-new age classes also received a bit of spillover.

That’s why our lecturer was teaching us meditation at the start of a counselling class. I don’t know what qualifies a counsellor to teach meditation, or a spiritualist to teach counselling, but that was how it worked at this place. You could go to a massage class and hear how regular acupuncture benefits the flow of energy between your outer extremities and your third eye, or you could attend a nutrition course and discover the link between cabbage, your anus and Uranus.

The woman currently helping us connect to all of humanity via the sky wasn’t too bad as far as spiritualists were concerned. Some of them always found a way to bring, say, the difference between real age and spiritual age into any conversation. ‘Man, those goddamned trains are never on time.’ ‘Oh, well don’t let it get to you, else you could be aging twice as fast for the rest of the day.’

Her soothing voice filled the room. ‘Okay everyone, I want you to get ready to open your eyes. Now, don’t do it too quickly. We don’t want to get too shocked as we come back down to reality. Take a few deep breaths and prepare to open your right eye.’

I decided I would start the lesson with a brave, positive outlook.

I opened both my eyes at once.

Right eyes all around the room began to regain focus as the twenty odd people slowly returned from wherever it was they’d gone.

I’d never managed to get much benefit from these group meditation exercises. I have no time for superstition and I don’t quite understand how I’m supposed to connect to the collective consciousness of mankind without harming myself. I never know if someone’s staring at me while I have my eyes closed, or using the opportunity to rummage through handbags. Please don’t think I’m one of those cynics who doesn’t trust people. I just don’t trust these people.

To be fair, there wasn’t a single person in the room who was likely to steal anything. Spiritualists like these were too damned paranoid they’d amass bad karma and the universe would come to get their asses.

‘Now, let’s all turn to the person next to us and split into pairs. I think there’s an odd number today, so we might have to have a three-way.’

I perked up.

Then I remembered I was surrounded by middle-aged women and homosexual men.

‘Hi,’ said the woman next to me. I smiled and prepared for the weirdest.

‘Now, before we start the exercise, why don’t you get comfortable with each other? I’m sure if you ask each other a few questions you might discover something interesting.’

The room was briefly filled with awkwardness, then the ‘shall-you-go-firsts’ came out. My partner (whose name my memory has also blanked out) asked me this question, so I agreed and tried desperately to think of something I wanted to know.

‘Uh, how are you?’

Not very imaginative but it was enough to please her. ‘Oh, wonderful thanks,’ she bubbled. ‘I just feel so good after those meditation sessions. It’s such a great idea to start the class like that.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘It’s so good for your spiritual life span.’

My left eye twitched.

‘Oh, there are so many things that reduce your spiritual lifespan. Stress, smoking, food poisoning, carcinogenic substances. People don’t realise just how bad these things are.’

They sounded like they’d reduce your actual lifespan.

‘I’m not sure what happens to your spiritual age when you spend a lot of time out of your body though.’

Out of my body? Was she taking me into her confidence? ‘Do you, uh, have a lot of outer body experiences?’ I asked tentatively.

‘Not so often. I’ve started trying astral projection two evenings a week but it’s a little too advanced for me. I really do it more for relaxation. What about you?’

‘Uh, um, well…’

The lecturer told us it was time to begin and I sighed an inward sigh of relief. No one had ever asked me if I’d had an outer body experience before and I didn’t quite know how to respond. It felt somehow private.

‘Now, I’d like you all to pick one person as counsellor and one person to talk about a problem you’re having. Nothing that’s upsetting, but perhaps a little irritating. The counsellor will practise reflecting. Listen to what your partner tells you, then show them you understand their concern by reflecting their comments back to them. Make sure you paraphrase what they say rather than repeating their words verbatim, which can sound a little patronising.’

‘Shall I be the counsellor?’ my partner asked.

I wasn’t really in the mood for amateur counselling sessions and I especially did not want my personal problems fixed by people who went to outer space in order to relax. ‘I think I’d feel happier if I was the counsellor first, if that’s okay.’

The woman’s face lit up as though I’d given her a bunch of flowers. ‘Oh of course, sweetie. You go right ahead and do that. In which case, I’ll start as the patient.’

I stifled an inward sigh as she turned her head skywards. ‘Well, a couple of days ago I was watching TV with Bruno. That’s my dog. We were watching Foreign Correspondent on the ABC and my husband came in after talking on the phone. He wanted to tell me all about the conversation he’d had with his sister about her daughter Chloe. She’s two. I was happy to hear about Chloe, but I think Bruno was interested in the piece on Guatemala and global warming…’

I tuned out, only paying enough attention to repeat what she was saying word for word at any suitable pause. An idea had just come to me.

What if there was merit to astral travel? As crazy as the whole thing sounded, just imagine for a second that it was possible. It might be the key I’d been looking for.

Ever since I’d come up with the idea of visiting the afterlives I’d had one fairly fundamental problem: how was I supposed to get to them without dying? Obviously, if I died – like really died – I’d be stuck wherever I ended up for all eternity and wouldn’t be able to publish a travel guide back on Earth; I needed a way out, not just a way in. Besides, it wouldn’t be much of a guide if I’d been to only one afterlife.

But if astral projection, astral travel, or outer body experiences were really possible, then imagine what you could do!

My first thought, and I swear this under oath, had nothing to do with entering the women’s showers. If I could detach a part of my body and float around undetected, I certainly wouldn’t go anywhere near a place filled with naked girls lathering themselves up with soap and scrubbing every part of their glistening wet bodies until there wasn’t a speck of dirt left. That thought didn’t even cross my mind.

Instead, I thought of how astral travel could help you gamble. You’d never lose a hand of poker again. Or you could be the best detective in the world, who could go anywhere he wanted and listen in on any conversation without ever being spotted by a criminal. Along those same lines, you could find out if any of your friends are talking shit about you behind your back. Or possibly you could go and watch girls in the shower, but I’d never give that a second thought.

The idea that really caught me, however, was the idea that I could access the lands of the dead. I wasn’t expecting some kind of Portal-to-Heaven for souls to walk through, but was there any way I could get my detached soul there? What would happen if it got hit by ten tonnes of speeding bus? Would it zip off to the next life and leave my body alive back on Earth? Would it be able to come back? And where exactly is an afterlife? I am fairly certain that Heaven isn’t literally in the sky, so where then is it?

My thoughts returned to the class. My partner had just finished talking at me and everyone was getting to their feet and moving around the room. I shrugged and went with it.

The remainder of the class was a blur of paraphrasing and strange humming exercises. I waited for the proverbial bell to ring, as the college didn’t have real bells because they were considered detrimental to the Feng Shui in the building. As weird and stupid as I found this place, I couldn’t help but think that my idea to trial astral travel put me in the category of the rest of these people.

There was no way I could pull off this travel guide if I remained a pessimistic, atheistic, misanthropic, sceptical, cynical, heathen bastard. I needed to abandon my treasured disdain for all things supernatural.

Later that afternoon, I caught the late-running train back to my apartment, which I share with my best friend Brendon. Brendon was sitting at his computer when I arrived home, an entirely unsurprising place to find the man. I wouldn’t say he’s a nerd or anything, but he spends one hundred percent of his work time and eighty percent of his spare time staring at his monitor.

To cast-type Brendo as nothing but a computer geek would be to completely undervalue his broad range of skills and interests. He’s also very good with televisions, Blu-Ray and DVD players, cameras, microwaves, sound recording equipment and an array of other electronic goods. Strangely though, with all of his technological prowess, he can’t seem to work out how to use the vacuum cleaner.

Put simply, the man is a master of the digital arts (quite literally by qualification, too) and is always there to turn to when one of the machines you rely on breaks. I figure I must be his counterpoint in the universe because the machines I rely on always break, without warning and most certainly without reason. We make good flatmates.

‘Hey Brendo,’ I said, entering his room and dumping my stuff on the floor behind him.

Something else I should point out about my flatmate is that he scares easily. Every time I get an unexpected good idea and blurt it out midway through one of his sentences, his eyes widen and I can practically feel his heart shutting down and rebooting. The poor guy gets shocked so easily and so frequently that I’m sure he’s going to die of a heart attack. Either that, or his heart will be so strong from all the extra workouts he’ll live to the age of one hundred and twenty. I’m not sure which way it goes.

‘Hi Pete,’ Brendon replied after he’d recovered. ‘What’s doin’?’

‘Nothin’ much. How’s your day been?’

‘Yeah, alright.’

We exchanged pleasantries, then I cut straight to the meat of the issue. ‘Brendo, what do you know about astral travel?’

‘Uh, not much.’

‘Because one of my class-acquaintances at collage mentioned something about it today and I thought that maybe, just maybe, it could be my key to that thing I wanted to do with the afterlives.’

I received a blank stare.

‘I’ll take that as a you-have-no-idea-what-I’m-on-about look. Did I ever tell you about my idea to write a travel guide to the afterlives? I’m sure I did.’

‘Uh, I vaguely…’

‘So my plan is to somehow find a way into all the different afterlives and write reviews on them, so that people can make informed choices about which religion to follow in order to end up in the best eternity. I mean, imagine following Christianity all your life and finding out that Heaven is duller…’

‘Yeah, okay. I remember.’

‘Great. My idea is that if I can perform astral travel, then maybe I can detach my soul from my body and somehow get it into one of the afterlives, then somebody here on Earth can shake my body or something and bring me back.’

Brendon frowned. ‘Somebody here on Earth, you say. Now who could that be?’

He’d caught on quickly. ‘Do you mind?’

Turning away from his computer for a moment, Brendon sighed at me. ‘Pete, if you’re really serious about this and if you really can find a way of detaching your soul from your body – especially considering how you told me yesterday that you don’t believe in the soul – then I will happily wake you up.’

‘Appreciated man. But don’t get me wrong; I don’t believe this is possible for a second. I mean, come on, if astral travel was really real there’d be people out there making millions of dollars winning card games, or, or, or you could find out your friends’ dirtiest secrets by sneaking your soul up on them when they think they’re alone. It’s too unlikely that people wouldn’t have capitalised on it if it was really possible.’

Brendon nodded. ‘I agree. Surely we’d have seen some proof of it by now. So you’re going to try it even though you think it’s a load of balls?’

‘How else is a cynical atheist supposed to get to other dimensions that he doesn’t believe in unless he tries stupid things which he thinks will never work?’

Brendon nodded, and returned to his web browsing. ‘Good point.’

With that settled, I put my things away and fixed myself some dinner. The thing I’d always wondered about with afterlives – and these seemed to apply equally to astral travel – was the logistics. For example, how exactly did Heaven work? Heaven is supposed to be eternal bliss: a place where all your dreams and fantasies come true. But what if your dreams clashed with the dreams of other people?

Let’s just say my idea of Paradise involves me being in the company of a certain supermodel, but her idea of Paradise involves me having one of those court injunction thingies. Here we have a problem. Our dreams clash, therefore one of us is being deprived of a fantasy, therefore Heaven won’t work for us both. The only way around this is if there is a separate Heaven for everyone which is tailor-made to suit each individual’s idea of perfection. But this poses another problem: cloning. My Heaven would have the supermodel in it, as would many millions of other Heavens (you know it’s true), but her Heaven mightn’t involve any of us. She would be cloned into all these Heavens yet would still exist independently in her own. Which one of her millions of copies would she really be ‘herself’ in?

The question is essentially paradoxical. Neither system works, therefore the only logical answer is that the popular view about Heaven being ‘the place where all your fantasies come true’ can’t be right. Heaven must work in a way that fulfils a concrete definition without creating a scenario where it contradicts itself.

It’s problematic.

Astral travel has similar logistical problems. Let’s say we detach our souls from our bodies and start wandering around; out of the bedroom, down the hallway, through the kitchen and over to the front door. The door is shut, so how does the soul leave the house?

It clearly can’t open the door. If souls were able to interact with material objects, we’d see creepy stuff going on all the time. Souls driving their cars around or preparing themselves dinners or checking their emails, etc. The only two possibilities are this: souls are confined by things like doors and walls; or – and this seems more likely – they can simply pass right through them. Sound okay to you?

But if the latter is the case, if a soul can move through objects, then gravity is going to force every soul into the centre of the planet. Gravity would constantly push you downwards and you would be forced through the ground.

Unless gravity does not affect souls in the same way that it affects bodies, astral travel cannot work. But the laws of physics don’t function selectively, therefore the spiritual world must use a completely different set of laws to govern it. Is it possible to have two sets of physics?

I switched on my computer and typed the phrase ‘astral travel’ into the search engine which refused to sponsor my book and henceforth WON’T BE NAMED!

(Joke. I used Google)

The internet is always a great place to go if you ever feel stupid or lonely or in any way inadequate as a human being, because it will take you less than thirty seconds to find a sadder, dumber loser than yourself.

For example, one genius stated that you can astrally travel back in time and relive past experiences in the body of your younger self. He says, however, ‘The limiting factor is recall.’ Apparently, if you can’t recall an event properly, ‘you will notice that your astral experience might be inconsistent with the real event.’

That’s funny, astral time-travel sounds a lot like… your fucking memory!

Several bloggers pointed out that when you leave your physical body, you may notice things that don’t really exist in the real world, such as strange rooms and corridors in your house, or plant life flying down the street. Wow, really? That sounds suspiciously like an acid trip, or, to use a technical term, making shit up!

After trawling through a lot of similar rubbish I came to the conclusion that everyone had a different idea on how the whole business worked, no matter how rational or crazy they sounded. Everyone’s experiences, whether real or fabricated, seemed unique. Likewise, the techniques people used to access the astral plane (as they call it) varied greatly.

I decided there was only one way to do this properly.

I was going to wing it.

I wrote down a list of the ideas that sounded the most interesting and planned to incorporate them into a meditation session. I meditated often when I used to practise martial arts and I found this very relaxing and conducive to good health. If I didn’t succeed at astral travel, at least I’d let go of some tension. Nothing bad could happen to me if I did a spot of meditation, could it? Of course not. Meditation is perfectly safe.

Oh how very wrong that was.

*

I wore a hat for a month.

All things considered, it wasn’t all that bad. I mean, hell, it was only hair. It grew back. I could have been a lot unluckier with that candle and the hot wax got stuck in a relatively harmless place.

The thing about meditation is that it is very relaxing. The thing about relaxing is that it makes you fall asleep. This isn’t usually a problem, but when you’re trying to stay awake in order to free your soul from the confines of the body, sleeping is somewhat of a hindrance. Meditation also doesn’t gel with cats and naked flames.

After my online research I decided to give astral travel a bash. I cleared some space on my floor and switched off all the power points in my room, figuring they might affect my energy flow or something. I laid a few blankets and towels down on the carpet so the surface I was lying on was firm but not uncomfortably so. Conscious of the Feng Shui, I shut the windows and pulled the door all the way open, then lit a candle and placed it on top of my clothes cupboard. I would have used incense but it stinks and I hate it, so naturally there was none in my apartment.

Switching off the light, I lay down and aligned my body so that it was as symmetrical as possible, knowing that I would always be hanging a bit to the left. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, doing that thing where you turn your palms upwards and press your thumbs to your forefingers.

I was ready to perform astral travel.

Two minutes later I was sound asleep.

I don’t know how long I was out for or what spooked my cat so, but the next thing I knew I had a razor sharp claw sticking into my inner thigh and five kilos of cat propelling itself off my testicles and out the open door. In an attempt to scramble to my hands and knees, I bashed into the cupboard and knocked the candle on top of my head.

The fall extinguished the flame, which I’m sure was a good thing, but it did nothing to cool the wax that now filled my hair. I screamed (in a very manly way), ran to the bathroom and put my head in the sink.

As you’re certainly aware, wax is used as a hair-removing agent for a reason. As the water ran over my head, the wax reformed itself into a candle with my hair smack bang in the middle of it. I grabbed a comb and tried to dig it out, succeeding only in snapping off half the teeth of the comb.

Swearing profusely, I tried a sturdier comb and yanked out a tuft of hair. I tried to do it more gently, then more roughly, then really carefully, then with my eyes closed, but everything I tried ended up maiming my beautiful locks.

By the time I’d removed the wax I’d given myself a Friar Tuck.

So I bought an akubra the next day on my way to work.

Wearing a hat in the office wouldn’t be an issue. I work in customer support for a charity (as in, the call centre), and much like college, they have a very laid-back attitude towards dress. In fact, for all I knew bandanas were mandatory and I’d been unwittingly breaking the rules.

Working in a call centre is tedious and frustrating at the best of times, but arguably worse at a charity. If you aren’t copping abuse from the illiterate, you’re listening to a plethora of opinions people are desperate to pass on. They think that because you’re involved in an environmental NGO, you’ll be interested in their thoughts on the war between Palestine and Israel.

If I want to listen to idiots giving me uninformed and one-sided views of the world, I’ll watch the six o’clock news.

‘Nice hat,’ said the receptionist when I arrived at the office. ‘Thanks,’ I replied with a wink.

The day was uneventful – long hours of data entry punctuated by a few dozen phone calls. Pleasingly, no crazies called. Today must be the day everyone bothered the telcos.

At lunch time, I had a very interesting chat over Japanese takeaway. One of my colleagues claimed to have experienced astral travel before, and she’s right into the whole spirituality thing.

I was both impressed and disappointed to hear how rational Sandy was, considering the topic. It was beginning to damage my low opinion of spiritualists. Even though we talked about visiting past lives and talking to the dead, I never once thought she was crazy. It was quite clear she genuinely believed she’d had these experiences, even if they were just illusory.

The most interesting thing our discussion raised was the following idea: there is no such thing as privacy in the ethereal world.

Let’s imagine you’re sitting at home one evening. Your day wasn’t very good. Clients were annoying, your boss was a jerk. You’re upset and frustrated. It’s the end of the week and you decide to spoil yourself with a bath and an ice cream. Afterwards, you towel yourself dry and lie down in bed. No one else is around. For some reason, while you’re looking for your pyjamas, you start thinking of the temp who worked reception that day. That cute smile, that sexy phone voice, that funky hairstyle. Maybe you won’t get dressed for another ten minutes. Maybe there’s a fun way to pass some of the evening.

All of a sudden, your mother projects her astral body into your room to make sure you’re looking after yourself and finds you wet, naked and spread-legged with a handful of genitalia. A minute later one of your future selves materialises inside your body, only to observe that he was a chronic masturbator in a past life.

And you have no idea they’re there!

Ever since my first successful astral travel I haven’t felt comfortable doing private things. Whichever god invented the metaphysical world is a cruel one who has no respect for the concept of personal space.

When I got home I did some more research online. Awesome. Now I can claim my internet bill as a tax deduction.

I fell asleep that night with the horrible thought that I might be starting to believe in all this new age, hippy rubbish.

*

Seeing as we’re most of the way through the first chapter, why don’t I tell you a bit about myself? If you hadn’t worked it out by now, my name is the same as the one on the front cover of this book. I was born with that name and I don’t go by any nicknames, at least none that I’m aware of, but you can drop the ‘R’ from my first name if it makes you happy. I was born and live in Sydney, Australia, where I have lived for my entire life minus a few months in Germany.

I fill my time with many different things. When I was in high school I wanted to be a musician. Ten years on, I play the bass guitar in a funk-rock band called Flow. I also play the piano.

Not having a driver’s License keeps me fit, as I burn off a lot of energy sitting at train stations being pissed off at bureaucrats. I frequently go rock climbing and I recently took up dancing, but that doesn’t make me gay, okay? A few years ago I was quite serious about my martial arts and that’s a very manly sport.

If I didn’t already mention it, I work as a massage therapist and I’m going to college to complete a higher qualification than the weekend certificate which is no doubt legally insufficient for me to be practising (shh!).

I have written four novels prior to this one, as well as plays, short stories and articles. That’s right, I did not start my career with the most important book in the history of literature. There is experience behind these innocent-looking words and I can string any number of them together to suit any number of purposes, so you’d better watch your back.

I have a passionate interest in the environment, hence working for an environmental charity, but I also hate hippies (they’re dirty and annoying!). Physically, I’m more or less average in the proportions department, and if I were to describe my looks I’d reluctantly say I’m painfully handsome and the stuff of statues.

Pleased to meet you.

Now let’s get on with the guide.

Every evening that week, I added in a meditation session. I would drape towels and blankets on my bedroom floor and lie supine on them. When I was comfortable, I’d start taking slow, deep breaths, each one a little slower and deeper than the last.

When I’d got it down to three breaths a minute, I would tense the muscles in my feet for several seconds, then let them relax, then tense my calves for the same amount of time, then release. I moved all the way up my body until every major muscle group had been tensed and relaxed. This left me lighter and limper.

I repeated this process several times in a session until my muscles felt like jelly (in a good way). After about twenty minutes, I would attempt to clear my mind.

I don’t know if clearing one’s mind sounds difficult, but at first I was convinced it was impossible. Your brain likes to think. That’s what it does. There is never a waking moment where you aren’t thinking about something, regardless of whether you’re paying attention or not. It’s like TV playing in the background. You might tune in at times, or you might ignore it and do something else.

Each day for that first week I lay there thinking about not thinking. ‘Alright,’ my mind said. ‘Let’s clear these thoughts. Just clear them all away. I’ll stop thinking of anything