Waking the Monkey!: Becoming the Hundredth Monkey

By Claire Rae Randall

What is The Hundredth Monkey? Can we awaken it within ourselves? How do we move beyond a passive sense of victimhood and find the path which truly can lift us into a New Paradigm? Painted against the canvas of the ground breaking Hundredth Monkey Camp event of 1995 this Vision Quest is the true story of a rite of passage through the Dark Night of the Soul to win self empowerment in the face of Opposition.

This is the true story of how I found myself playing the various roles of outcast, scapegoat and trickster; a shamanic rite of passage which picked me up and tumbled me through an archetypal journey of self discovery.

Walk with me as I face my Dark Night of the Soul, woven into the fabric of the camp event which included world healing and guided meditations, Talking Stick Circle, native American spiritual practices, cosmic channelling and more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781326278144

Book preview

Waking the Monkey!: Becoming the Hundredth Monkey

Waking The Monkey!

Becoming The Hundredth Monkey

Claire Rae Randall

Includes seven illustrations and map by the author

A Book for Spiritual Warriors

Copyright

Copyright © Claire Rae Randall 2015

eBook Design by Rossendale Books: www.rossendalebooks.co.uk

eBook ISBN: 978-1-326-27814-4

All rights reserved, Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention and Pan American Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author. The author’s moral rights have been asserted.

Endorsements

Palden Jenkins, (Author of six books, Editor of the first edition of ‘The Only Planet of Choice’, and organizer of the Hundredth Monkey Camps 1995-1997) Hayle, Cornwall

It's strange being a character in a book, but when I first read Claire Randall's book I found her description of the situation and of my role in it to be fair and reasonably accurate. It was fascinating to have played a part in a little chunk of hidden history that the book recounted. I think her rendering of events and the way she experienced them is interesting, even though many people will have been entirely unaware of what was happening then, in the mid-1990s, or even that such things could happen. To many people, what we were up to they will never have thought of before, and the story will seem quite amazing. Yet Claire's rendering of it is pretty close to what happened, and it is the only record of these events that exists. The book also covers Claire's experience of it and response to it, and the process it took her through. So, well done Claire, and I hope this book finds a niche in the book market to reward your painstaking work.

www.palden.co.uk

Ana Cavill (Joint Camp Co-Focaliser)  A striking account of one person’s seminal experience of the first Hundredth Monkey Camp.

Brenda Meech (Registered Homoeopath and participant in Hundredth Monkey 1995/6/7)

Hi Claire,  Amazingly brilliant, I have just read the chapters you sent me and am totally amazed at your recall, and your feel for the occasion, I felt I was back in that marquee with the group at Roger's [Keenan, meditation teacher] first coming together of our group. So many memories came flooding back, I can’t wait to read the whole manuscript. Please let me know when it will be published so that I may once again immerse myself in that organic field at the foot of the Malvern Hills.

John Ferngrove, participant in the Hundredth Monkey event.

I have finished your book. It is an achievement of which you can rightly be proud. I found it deeply moving in parts. I found it very compelling, and could not stop reading it – it was unputdownable.

Swami Bahmi, participant.

This is a book for spiritual warriors.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my Mother

Without whom I could have achieved nothing.

Acknowledgements

I should like to express my gratitude to all those who have in any way contributed to the long path which has led to the making of this book.

Palden Jenkins, instigator and organiser of the camp. Roger Keenan for his wonderful meditations, presence at the camp and generous permission to use near verbatim accounts of his guided meditations. Ana Cavill, Brenda Meech, John Ferngrove, Rob Lenzie, Ivan McBeth and Swami Bahmi for their feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript.

Sheila Martin for her own contribution to the organisation and running of the camp and to all the camp crew who saw us through the week.

All those who have granted permission to use their real names in the narrative, as well as all those who participated in the Camp and whom I was unable to contact to request this permission and whom were therefore pseudonymised, and those who requested that anonymity for their own personal reasons but supported me in the writing of the manuscript.

To the Unknown Photographer who took the snap of the Gate Camp which has become the cover, and to Dawn Carey Jones who has so ably assisted in its digital preparation.

Contents

Copyright

Endorsements

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Prelude   -   Setting the Scene

0   The Fool   -   Stepping Over the Edge

I   Arrival   -   Here We Are!

II   And So It Begins...   -   Opening the Circle

III   Mururoa   -   Meditation On the French Nuclear Tests

IV   The Garden of Healing   -   Journey to a Place of Inner Peace

V   Herne the Hunter   -   Conversation With My Guide

VI   Bosnia   -   Meditation On the War Zone

VII   Shamballa   -   Journey to a Place of Inner Spiritual Power

VIII   Listen to the Music Play   -   Interlude of Campfire Songs

IX   Nigeria   -   Conflicts of the West African Country

X   Pathway to a Pyramid   -   Contact With Our Spiritual Paths

XI   Outcast   -   I Take a Wrong Step And Suffer the Consequences

XII   Dark Night   -   Spiritual Isolation

XIII   Trickster In the Holy Land!   -   A Step Into the Archetypal World

XIV   The Voice of At-Hlan   -   A Cosmic Guide

XV   Healing   -   Succour From a Friend

XVI   The Crew   -   Invitation From a Family

XVII   Repentance   -   I Look At My Shadow

XVIII   Guides   -   A Source of Assistance

XIX  Shadow Dance   -   Going Beyond the Expected

XX   Eternal Memory   -   Meditation Beyond the Limits of Time

XXI   Oops!   -   My Carelessness Boomerangs Back On Me

XXII   Pathway to the 4th & 5th Dimensions   -   Journey to the Centre

XXIII   Touch   -   Making Connection

XXIV   Hot Tub   -   Sensuality in the Living Darkness

XXV   Broken Angels   -   Life Is a Cabaret

XXVI   Fire and Night   -   Danger and Disclosure

XXVII   Grey Dawn   -   The Veil Is Thin

XXVIII   At the Last   -   Our Final Meditation

XXIX   Farewell   -   Unwinding the Spiral Snake

XXX   Going Home   -   Adventure on the Motorway

Epilogue

Recommended background reading

Websites

Introduction

"Well now can I walk beside you?

I have come here to lose the smog

And I feel like I’m a cog

In something turning"

Joni Mitchell Woodstock 1969

I first became aware of the experiment in consciousness known as Hundredth Monkeying in early 1995 when I received a flyer through the post from Palden Jenkins, the editor of the first edition of The Only Planet of Choice, a book which purported to be channelled from archetypal beings and which discussed the difficult problems we face on Earth from a spiritual perspective.

Archetypal thought beings may be seriously outside the box for most people in the West, but until comparatively recently a belief in angelic and divine beings was universal, and the magical, animistic universe was a part of that worldview, still surviving in religions to this day.

I had met Palden on November 4th 1993, when I attended a talk that he gave at a Friends’ Meeting House in north Leeds on the subject of extra-terrestrials, having been interested in the subject of ET contact and channelling for some years; but I had only read about it, and not had first hand experience of the phenomenon, or so I thought. I had pretty much forgotten Carl Jung’s later work in which he argues that the UFO phenomenon could be modern humanity’s interpretation of deeper spiritual realities, putting them into a contemporary frame. Palden began to join the dots of depth psychology, spirituality and animism into a coherent gestalt of a larger universe beyond the materialist reductionism that is, frankly, responsible for much of the present world crisis.

I must have left my name and address on a mailing list when I bought a copy of  Only Planet on that occasion. I certainly didn’t expect any follow-ups other than information about new books from the publisher, Gateway Books, and by the time that 1995 came around I had entirely forgotten about that anyway. Right from the start the universe was showing me how small things can lead to incredible developments given time. The metaphor of the grain of mustard seed is apparent here, and indeed the potential for the evolution of the smallest of energies into something significant has for me probably been the most important insight of the whole experience. It is no surprise that the ancients envisioned the paths of our lives as being woven by the fates from threads, representing  the diverse influences which act upon us, and which we choose between or integrate into the fabric of our lives.

The ‘Hundredth Monkey’ principle is a concept that has been around for quite a while, based on the work of Ken Keyes, an ethologist who studied the behaviour of primates on islands off the coast of Japan in the 1950s. Keyes apparently observed a young female washing sweet potatoes in water to clean the dirt off them, and in a similar way separated mixed rice and sand which the scientists gave to them, by throwing it in water and eating the rice that floated. This behaviour was transmitted first to her peers, and then most of the adults on the island through observation, imitation and the reinforcement of finding that this improved the food. The interesting and controversial point which followed is that this behaviour was then observed in primates on other local islands which had not had any contact with the ‘founding’ troupe. This led to the hypothesis that an idea could be transmitted through the collective unconscious if a critical mass of those holding the original idea were to be achieved, the hypothetical number of one hundred monkeys thereby symbolizing this threshold.

This is the basis on which ‘Morphogenetic Field Theory’ or ‘Morphic Resonance’, as proposed by Rupert Sheldrake, is founded. Essentially, once a particular pattern of behaviour has been established in the world, it becomes more likely to manifest elsewhere, through resonance in the Collective Unconscious. This has been shown to happen even with such material level events as crystallisation of compounds in laboratories. Once this has been achieved in one place, other scientists mysteriously find it easier to do so elsewhere. Apparently the Universe is capable of learning…

The introductory flyer for ‘Hundredth Monkeying’ invited one to attend a week long meditation camp dedicated to world healing which attempted to use this concept to create a morphic field which would encourage healing in some of the world’s most intractable conflicts. I still remember well the opening words of that leaflet, beginning It was a chronic sense of impasse about the Bosnian situation .. which led to the instigation of this meditation work. It was something that I could relate to immediately. I had been in an absent healing meditation group with the White Eagle lodge, a mystical Christian denomination, for about eighteen months and had been trying to use some of the visualizations for the aid of people suffering in the Bosnian war at the time. I, along with many others, had been holding a protective circle of light around Sarajevo for some months. Who can say whether we were having any effect, but seen as prayer many might believe it possible. It was certainly an interesting connection that the universe had given me an opportunity to develop the work or assistance that I had been attempting to give on behalf of the beleaguered citizens of Sarajevo. This city seemed to have particular resonances in that not only was it the place where the Great War had been ignited, but also was renowned as a multi-cultural city famous for its inter-ethnic tolerance, and it was being hammered under the blows of ruthless Serbian nationalists who seemed determined to bring that city to a destruction of the very values which made it the cultural example to the world that it was.

The stated purpose of the meditation retreat was to help heal cancers and running sores like this by meditating on them, and assisting the movement of psychic and spiritual energies through our meditations. In Only Planet the beings that called themselves The Nine had explained that situations like those in Bosnia, Northern Ireland and Palestine/Israel were caused by bottlenecking of karma, whereby more karma and conflict were being created than was being resolved, and that this was spilling out all over the world so that the whole world was blocked and backing up with conflict. One didn’t need cosmic beings to relate to such an explanation of the world at the end of the twentieth century, but the proposed way of dealing with it did add a cosmic dimension to how one might relate to such situations; the classic western consumerist attitude of the nineties being one of mixed embarrassment, guilt, helplessness and avoidance of really considering what was going on in these places, who could say what might happen if we truly did engage with these issues?

In the commentary to Only Planet  Palden had made mention of the concept of ‘turning the wheel of the Buddha-nature’. Awakening of the inner seed of desire for enlightenment. How this may be achieved is a matter of endless debate, from Zen koans, cosmic riddles that are designed to make us see the world in new ways, through meditational discipline, to pure grace. Could we turn that wheel within ourselves, could we set up a morphic resonance that might help others in the world beyond?

A structure was offered for the meditations, although not obligatory. The three stages were; tuning in to the situation, being with it, and watching to see if anything changed. Who can say if any of the imagined scenarios existed objectively in the material world?  If anything was changed or affected beyond the limits of our minds and the camp?  Of course there could be no way of telling what psychic ripples of change we might send out by our meditations, but I was reminded of some very interesting work on Transcendental  Meditation that I had come across while in the USA many years before, that had indicated significant differences in crime rates in high crime districts when groups of meditators had sat anonymously in these areas. A fairly basic mechanism could be imagined for such an effect if one allowed the existence of psychic vibrations of some kind, as yet undetected, as radiation used to be. A group of meditators could be postulated to set up a standing wave of tranquillity, or a vibration that opened doors of possibility in consciousness, to go beyond hostility and conflict.

What was to be attempted at the Hundredth Monkey camp took this concept to a further level, a logical development. If the psychic harmony field could be focused onto the areas of protracted conflict, then perhaps we might be able to facilitate those in such situations to find constructive ways out of them by offering a different reference point to that in which they were trapped; one of compassion and acceptance of their own and others’ experience ~ ‘inner aid’. This was cutting edge stuff for the time: transpersonal spirituality meets the collective unconscious.

The process of earthing and sharing these meditations would take place in the collective circle in what was to be known as Allting, a Norse word meaning a meeting in which all things may be considered and spoken of, using a Talking Stick. We  were invited to bring whatever truth we might have or find, either before camp, or in our meditations and speak it in the Allting.

The second information sheet for those who replied to the flyer gave many details of the camp and its structure; obviously a hundred or so people in a field for a week would need some sort of organization, and I was impressed with the amount of forethought about what would be necessary for such a venture. Catering would be vegetarian. We were requested to commit for the entire week and disengage from outside commitments, and advised that we might meet with unexpected last minute obstacles to our attendance, whether from external interference or our own unconscious. I had heard of the Oak Dragon camps of the eighties, that had aimed to create sacred space in which the participants could find healing of self through reverence for the universe within that space, and Hundredth Monkeying had drawn on that organizational experience; the ‘crew’ and most of the support staff had been involved in those earlier camps, giving, if not exactly a professional feel to the venture, at least the confidence that things of this nature could be pulled off in logistical terms.

It would be well-nigh impossible to exaggerate the impact that this had on me. Since I had developed M.E. after an acute viral attack at Christmastime 1991 I had evolved my interest in meditation and related phenomena. When I was laid up in bed for considerable lengths of time there seemed little else to do except perhaps go crazy, especially as the relationship that I was in at the time was not withstanding the strains that my illness placed on it, and I was looking for a  way forward.

For most of my life I had had a feeling or intuition that there would be something that I would be involved with in my life which would be of value in helping the world in its present precarious condition and that this would give me meaning. Part of me had also regarded this as a fantasy, wishful thinking, or perhaps simply the manifestation of my need to project structure onto an uncertain world. Just as the patch of damp on the ceiling becomes the shape of your dreams and nightmares, so perhaps I was grasping at straws at a time when my own life had itself reached a sort of chronic impasse.

Or could it actually have been the case that my meditation practice bore fruit in bringing me into an orbit where I would connect with others who shared the same aspirations?  The White Eagle Lodge is quite emphatic that trusting the power of the Holy Spirit to arrange things for the absolute best of all beings in the Universe is the key to all wisdom and happiness, and the willingness to recognise this in everyday events enables one to go forward. Synchronicity is a large part of this, and it can even happen in such a way that it goes unrecognised, when apparently chance contacts can lead to great developments at a much later stage. Indeed all reality is like this perpetually, as each moment we create our own world, deciding which way to turn, what to choose to make real and what to discard; and despite all this, great things still grow, like the acorn which escapes the squirrel and becomes a huge tree that affects the world for many hundreds of years, even though at one time it might have been no more than a meal for a small animal.

Yet despite the apparently chance nature of the way that many connections in our lives are made, these are only the clothes that fate has chosen to wear; the underlying movement is the response that the Universe gives to the questions that we ask, the goals that we seek, the reality that we strive for.

It was very exciting to find that the Universe had finally answered my call for a purpose, but even at that early stage with this new energy I knew that I would not have connected with it had I not been prepared to work with what was already there in the world, and my life, at a higher level than was current in our world dream at the time. A slightly different way of looking at it might be that I was ready to move on to further levels myself. I guess I must have known that. I have always strained at the leash when it came to new experiences on the spiritual pathway, but I certainly had not the slightest conception of what I was entering into in terms of the degree to which the authenticity of purpose that had led me to this pathway would be challenged; how I would be forced to question the very foundations upon which this world healing initiative was based and not least my own motivation.

Prelude   -   Setting the Scene

1995 was for me a truly wonderful year. I shall be clear from the outset that I cannot separate my own personal experience from the record of the camp. It would be impossible to attempt and would remove the fire from what happened even if it were. Everyone who attended the three events, which happened over the years from 1995 to 1997, will have their own stories and will have come to their own understandings as to what happened for them, and what it all meant. I can only tell it as I saw it myself from my point of view. There is an objective flow of events which certain people participated in, and they each may have come to take away different meanings into the spheres of their lives. Despite the radically diverging views which emerged as to what it was all about, I can say without any doubt that the experience was a hinge upon which my life turned, and nothing has been the same since. It was like a great whirlpool of energy into which I willingly allowed myself to be sucked, without previously realising that I would be disgorged into a universe that had changed beyond all recognition, because I myself had been transformed.

The heatwave and drought had already made 1995 legendary before the camp even happened. I had felt an increase in my physical energy as a result and after a spring in which I had found the confidence and strength to perform at a town pub’s amateur night on a number of occasions, my physical stamina had improved to the extent that I could feel I was up to coping with the travelling necessary to take a holiday, which I had not done for a very long time. Specifically to Glastonbury Tor and the Festival nearby.

This tied in well with the approaching camp looming on the horizon since Palden Jenkins lived in Glastonbury and it might be an opportunity to briefly reacquaint with him while I was there. I had visited the town and sacred sites only once before, when I had taken an afternoon out from the festival to walk to the Tor in 1984. This time I was able to spend longer there, tuning in to the wonderful vibration of the place. I briefly met Palden again and did the tourist bit, taking in the detail.

Especially powerful was Midsummer Night when a circle of drummers played in the Tower of St. Michael on the summit of the Tor from dusk to dawn, pausing only once. The resonance of the djembe drums was amplified by the acoustic of the hollow tower and could be heard at a great distance from the hill in the still night. As I ascended the narrow and winding stair that hugs the steep north-easterly face of Glastonbury Tor to join the several hundred people already assembled in the darkness on the flat summit, expectant for the dawn, I could hardly suppress the feeling that the place was like a rave about to be raided at any moment. The circle of drummers were far too imaginative to be accused of making ‘repetitive beats’, but the whole feeling of the place was bursting with energy. It has to be said that few of those there were true pagans celebrating in any traditional way. Most were simply people who had been drawn there by the power of the place at Midsummer and the legend, and we were all transformed by its spirit and the call of the djembe into cosmic beings surfing the solstice. Some say that the Tor is a dimensional portal. Perhaps it has just learnt to become that way because of how people have worked with it.

We did not see a bright golden sun that morning, but as the white light strengthened in the mist it seemed that we were on an island, floating in and on the clouds, like Olympus, or some mythical land suspended beyond time and  space. People would emerge from the shining greyness like beings appearing from another dimension, becoming more distinct with every step, rising up through the foggy astral planes till they reached the clarity of the summit. Briefly it felt that we were a ship sailing in eternity, and that we had touched something which perhaps was within us, that high point of awareness we each are searching for. And when the day fully awoke and it was time to come down we would descend those astral planes, re-enter the veil of the material plane and return to the warmth of homely surroundings on the flat and level in the everyday world.

Not that the festival immediately afterwards was exactly everyday and homely, but I was able to take it at a more leisurely pace, visiting the many tented cafes, playing my guitar and meeting people. The weather was wonderful for my health. I had taken a bit of a risk going to the festival; if there had been a year of mud similar to the one I had seen in 1985, or  that were to follow in 1997 and 1998, the effect on my health would have been devastating. But the gods smiled on us that year it seems, and the climate was positively beneficial and  strengthening for me.

As I became more attuned to the hum of the great mass of humanity that I was swimming in I began to see the entire event as a giant superconscious entity in which we were the neurones connecting with each other. It seemed that only some transdimensional reality model like this could account for the incessant waves of synchronous events, as people that you might be thinking of would appear out of the crowd, blurring the boundaries of reality. I determined that this perception was something I would take with me to the camp. If the world is to go forward from its present crisis then a degree of intuitive and spontaneous co-operation of this sort is not only a vital quality but one that needs to be recognised in order to be encouraged.

After many wonderful vignettes and fascinating whirlpools of energy that I became involved with it was time to set off for home and I was astonished at the experience of going back out into the world. I could feel the friction and viscosity of the fear in the atmosphere as I myself began to lose my attunement and return to mundane reality and everyday life. But I had awakened something in me that would not so easily be dulled.

The summer fun continued for me at the Loversall Festival near Doncaster in late July. This loss-making musical event featured the Cosmic Charlies, a London pub-rock Grateful Dead cover band, and I was given the opportunity to play my own covers of Hunter/Garcia tunes on a P.A. that was probably of a similar power to what the Dead had used at the Lyceum when I saw them in 1972. There were barely more than a hundred people on the site and listening to the soundboard tape of my performance I am truly awestruck at the dreadfulness of my singing, although perhaps I may flatter myself that I rescued the performance with a competent guitar part. More than anything else it was an exercise in overcoming my fears and proving to myself that I could keep it together under pressure. These would be faculties of which I would need all my reserves in the camp experience that was to lie before me.

One last event, which added the poignancy of loss, remained to define that summer for me before going Hundredth Monkeying.

In the early hours of August, 9th Jerry Garcia, lead guitarist and powerhouse behind the Grateful Dead, died of a heart attack in California. Coincidentally I had arranged a barbecue and campfire party for the following Saturday which turned into a wake for the great man and many of his songs were performed by myself and other Deadheads.

Perhaps I should expand on this Deadhead thing. The Grateful Dead were the house band for Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests in 1965, the single most important and seminal event in the West Coast cultural explosion of the late sixties. These were multi-media events in which a tab of LSD came with the ticket price, in the days before the substance was made illegal. If there was any subtext other than blowing your mind and having fun it was to experiment with  reality and discover new ways of being that went beyond the blinkers of the time. Ken Kesey was the man who had given us Randall P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Breaking out of straitjackets was his game, and actually giving people the opportunity to do so in their lives at the Acid Tests was more real than just reading or writing about it. The world has moved on a long way since then, found other ways than psychedelic entheogens to crack open reality, but at the time LSD was in the front line armoury of inner investigation for a generation of kids who felt that there was more to the life than they had been taught to believe.

The music itself was country blues in origin with influences from bluegrass, Rock’n’roll and jazz, but their unique character was in the spontaneous nature of their performances, and the almost telepathic intuitive interaction of the performers during lengthy improvisational pieces. Since my late teens I had been interested in the metaphysics that would come through from interviews with Garcia, my favourite one being how he used to say that when the band was really flowing and on fire it felt that some greater being was playing the music through them. They were also determinedly independent in their musical path and although never achieving acclaim in the world of commercial rock music, built up a huge following through their almost ceaseless touring for thirty years. They variously described themselves as working for ‘Misfit Power’ and their message as being simply ‘Think for yourself’. They epitomised an attitude which refused to sell out deeply held values, ultimately those of community and heritage.

The world had moved a long way from such values in the twenty five years since I had first known the Dead, and I had despaired that we would ever get through the mire of self-interest and resulting conflict that the world seems so embedded in to reclaim them.

The advance camp literature spoke of building communities; indeed this would prove to be of very real practical importance if we were to function as a miniature village for seven or eight days. It also suggested that participants might care to symbolically represent some country, tribe, nation or group at the  camp to further promote inclusion. I had already chosen to speak of my link with the Fulani people, but it now seemed appropriate to include myself as a representative of the Deadhead tribe.

I truly intended this as a genuine magical act, although there were those who thought of it as mere jest. My main intention at the time was to bring a recognition of process and dissolution to the event. The key thing about Grateful Dead music that set it apart from everything was their willingness to take risks and to go into unexplored territory, even to the point where the entire structure would dissolve into amorphous Space before reassembling in a completely new form. The only way this can work is if everyone trusts everyone else’s intuitive flashes all the time and also oneself implicitly. There was something fundamentally spiritual in the Dead. There had to be. Kesey chose them to play to kids on acid, and the way that they brought them all back down to earth after going half-way round the universe, including some scary bits, had to have a certain kindness to it, a respect for the human soul. LSD and the Grateful Dead were made for each other, and their musical odysseys became the textbook for the LSD experience.

These lessons had of course been learnt in other fields too. I myself had seen the value of spontaneous intuitive behaviour facilitated by trust as an Art Therapist, and knew how much creative power could be manifested when we let go of our scripts. It can be totally scary, a leap into the void, but the alternative may be to remain trapped in outmoded and self-limiting behaviour, a personal shell that prevents new growth and development, which may cause these energies to turn in on themselves and become self-destructive.

It seemed to me that the opportunity for some sort of collective breakthrough presented itself at this meditation camp. If as a large group of people in harmony we could reach that trusting point beyond fear, then perhaps it really would be possible to move something in the mass psyche of the world.

The present World Dream is running to a script which decrees that greed, domination and revenge are primary motives. Control. Moving beyond the present world agenda is of the essence. Recommended background reading for the camp included The Celestine Prophecy, which, though a work of fiction, nonetheless purports to offer a blueprint to do just that. At bottom it is a worldview which says that we create our own future realities by the energy that we put out and the corresponding energy we attract back. If we put out love and trust to the Universe then we can expect it to lead us on, but one of the main lessons of the book is how fragile this reality can be to the invasion and destructiveness of fear. I thought my faith was strong enough to allow me to face my fears, but all the weirdness that I had ever known before was nothing to the abyss into which I was eventually to peer.

As the summer progressed last minute updates and information about the camp arrived. We were to be gathered in a number of campfire circles, meals were to be had in the cafe marquee served by the crew, morning meditation was at 10 a.m. followed by Allting till lunch. Afternoon was to be taken up with small group workshops led by people with unusual skills and experience. I didn’t actually pay much attention to this at the time, although they included various references to such subjects as native American practices and psychic work. Late afternoon and the evening were to be taken up with a variety of one-off optional talks and workshops. We were invited to bring devotional objects with which to create altars, and to wear colourful or shamanic dress. Every morning we were to have the opportunity to join in with the Dance of Life, a sacred dance of the Cherokee people, and besides being a vegetarian camp, there were also to be no generators or power cables on the site at all and no electricity except for batteries giving low voltage D.C. for torches and suchlike. Acoustic instruments and music only were to be allowed. Electronic games were not. There was a children’s programme so that parents could attend meditations and groups knowing their kids were being taken care of, a shower, hot tub, and shop. It was so well organised by the sound of things I thought that I had really stumbled onto a total bunch of post hippie New Age adepts who had every angle covered. It was to be a full on attempt to cut ourselves off from the outside world for a week, and not be involved with anything out there except what we might pick up in our meditations.

Certain advice was given; not to have any ongoing business which might require your attention during the camp, and not to leave the camp. This is sound advice for any closed group process, and since one of the terms that Palden had used was ‘pressure cooking the worlds problems’, it would hardly be suitable to have a pressure leak. There would be designated people who would be empowered to deal with whatever necessary and unavoidable interactions there might be with the outside world, such as milk deliveries, or collections of medicine from local pharmacies. The literature stated unashamedly that the organisers wanted to run a tight ship: indeed one factor in this was that the location was to be kept a secret, and participants were requested not to divulge it when it was disclosed shortly before the starting date. There was on the part of the organisers a feeling that we might be considered fair game by gatecrashers if the venue became known in certain quarters of the alternative world. Events at a number of Glastonbury festivals with the so-called Peace Convoy had perpetually raised the spectre of disruption at this sort of outdoor summer event, and splits within the Camps movement had led to the development of groups with a somewhat more anarchistic frame of mind who it was feared might wish to join in the proceedings uninvited as if it were some kind of impromptu and open party.

Consequently there was an edge of military espionage about it all. We were even warned that we might experience elements of psychic attack and attempts to prevent us from reaching the camp by the appointed time. My lift to Malvern, the location of the event, nearly fell through, my close friend Julie was unable to attend the full week’s camp for family reasons, but she and her husband still gave a lift to the camp nonetheless, to both Gwen, a friend of hers, and myself, an act of great generosity. It  was August 25th, my father’s birthday.

*******

Many people will say ‘How can we change the impetus and direction of world events?’

It seems like a massive impersonal onrush of power beyond reason, which leads to an ending that is not desirable. It is cramped in an  armour of defensiveness and bloated on self-indulgence, the turning away of love from our fellows through fear. The waking of the world from this dream, even a slight nudge, could not go amiss. I anticipated that the Allting process would relate strongly to this and I hoped to be able to strengthen the group nerve for it.

Perhaps I should have thought about how I could keep my own nerve  on this Vision Quest before I considered others…

0  The Fool   -   Stepping Over the Edge

I am The Fool  I said. The Fool who stumbles into your circles without warning.

That didn’t come out as I intended… I had meant to say ‘I am the fool who stumbled into your circle last night’. I could almost discern the capital letter which the word Fool demanded, with all the associations of card 0 of the Tarot and the mediaeval Fools of courtly fame. As this word fell out of my mouth my body fell into a crouching posture, tense and poised; akin to that one might imagine taken by a witchdoctor around some village fire whilst his tribal audience looked on. My eyes narrowed and my head flicked from side to side, darting looks about unexpectedly and briefly arresting members of the Gathering with a piercing gaze as I began to circle the altar looking out at them, my lips curled in a sardonic grin. I held the ancient yew Talking Stick like a wand, pointing it slowly around the circle, defying the multitude, holding them at bay. They seemed taken aback, shocked into alertness.

I am the Fool who stumbles into your circles without warning, that old Trickster known to some of you as Lucifer, but others call Satan. You don’t like it when I upset your plans.  I looked at the Shadow Master and met his gaze. He looked surprised. Perhaps he saw something of the creatures who had interrupted his meditation, or simply someone taking the opportunity to make a very public reply to behaviour which he had hoped would not be referred to again.

But I was far more surprised than he could ever have been. I had no idea what was happening. I had begun with a personal statement, driven by my bottled up adrenalin but then something beyond my control had taken over. A release of unconscious material?  Or something stranger. It was my own nervous energy that drove this, that this was riding upon, clearly, but my conscious mind and intention were not at the wheel. They had been thrust aside as some greater program intervened, as if it had been waiting for the moment to be triggered when all the circumstances were right.

It continued.

You cast me out for that ten thousand years ago. I have been outside in the cold and dark, where there is but weeping and gnashing of teeth. I am angry!  I am lonely.  I could feel my body miming the emotions. Fierce and proud for ‘angry’, shrinking and sad, the voice plaintive for ‘lonely’.

I saw Brigantia in the middle of the sunlit opening. She was smiling, almost laughing, leaning forward, her attention rapt.

It bowed to her and smiled thinly in a kind of mock deference. She seemed to appreciate this display and nodded, as if knowingly.

"You always want it tidy and so nice. Why do you think there are thirteen moons in a year?  It wasn’t meant to be easy, it wasn’t meant to be easy at all!

"You may cast me out beyond the circle but invite me in and I will teach you wisdom. Cast me out and you cast out yourself.

"It was once said: ‘Every Man and Woman is a Star.’

‘Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law.’

… not my will, but Thy Will be done…

But do you know what is your True Will?

… the True Will, the Divine Purpose…

I have been on the outside, but you only look inward. How can you know your Will if you are afraid to look outward?  You see only a sea of fears.

With a sudden jerking look over my shoulder I felt the energy expended.

The moment I relinquished the Talking Stick to the altar this Trickster fell away from me like a shadow at noon. I was left to return to my place emptied of the coiled tension and stabbing attend of whatever it was had taken me for this short spell. I had not spoken of my concerns of covert black magic or personal bullying. I had not really spoken at all.

At once I felt sheepish to have made such a bizarre spectacle of myself, but amused that I had apparently made something of an impression. Somehow I had managed to contain my personal emotion so that it had transmuted to a different level where it had taken on an archetypal persona of its own. It was curious to feel how the anger of the dispossessed outcast could be perceived as Satanic by those within the safe wall of community when to that exile it was no more than misunderstood feelings.

The scapegoat became the Devil. No coincidence that the Devil of Satanic mythology is portrayed as having the head and cloven hooves of a goat.

We all have a bit of the Devil within us. That’s what archetypal beings are about. In choosing to open up to the Universe and grow I had unleashed a dynamic passage through the archetypes. I had to step away from the safety of my ‘poor me’ mask and challenge the intimidator I had somehow attracted, magnetized, projected. Was the Devil also something outside of us with an independent will?  Had I let him in?

It is hard to see in others what is not already in ourselves; if we see that which we do not recognise then we must go through that hard awakening to find it. Follow your Truth, speak your Truth, be in the Truth, it is Light. Truth is like imperishable gold. The Trickster tests to see that which is true. He who holds onto a lie in the face of truth is indeed a fool. In denying that he sees the initiation into a new path of learning and truth as folly. He brands that initiator, that Light Bringer as a Fool, as Satan. They may see and believe that to be so, but it is not. The Truth will stalk them like a Jackal, old Coyote the Trickster waiting to track them down and trip them up. The letting go of falsehood is the Death which leads to Eternal Life. It is always the outcasts who must carry this message. To understand that you are a fool is the beginning of wisdom. No wonder people like me who were at odds with their bodies and alienated from them are natural shamans, we are already set apart from ourselves and need to find our way back.

A brief stunned silence followed this archetypal manifestation. I was as shocked as anyone. Looks of amusement, horror, bewilderment.

A middle aged man somewhere to my left was the first to recover. We need to retain our focus. We mustn’t descend into chaos.

A young woman from the far side. Let us hold together and try to understand each other and where we are coming from. We have such diverse backgrounds that it can be difficult, but that is one of the strengths of this circle, we must work on it.

Another: How can we impose order on each other?  We have to find our own pathways. Who are we to pontificate on the problems of others when we can’t even come to agreement amongst ourselves? 

How had I come to this place of doubt and faith when all I had desired was to spread the light?

Follow me in the story of how my inner Trickster had led me here to find my truth…

I  Arrival   -   Here We Are!

Friday 25th August 1995

The sun was westering behind us as we turned down a narrow country lane that held no obvious promise of anything much. Just when we thought we were completely lost we came across an open farm gate in the twilight with a sign on it which read Monkeys and an arrow pointing inside.

Exultant and relieved that we had found our destination before full nightfall, we drove through onto the lumpy grass of the field. To our left the hedge stretched forward. Just beyond its end we discerned a yellow geodesic dome with a campfire set before it. We bumped across, testing the suspension of the VW microbus to its limits and pulled up in the gap between the hedge and the fire, where a curving branch bedecked with coloured streamers and a woven spiral web was set up; at its base a sign read ‘Welcome’ in a fine script reminiscent of Elfish, on a background of a tree amidst stars and surmounted by a crimson and gold sunburst. Next to this, more prosaically, was written on a square of brown cardboard ‘GATE  Stop and check in’.

People were getting up from the fire, coming out of the dome behind, striding towards us across the field as we disgorged from the vehicle, cramped and claustrophobic from our lengthy confinement. The first to approach us was Sheila, Palden’s partner and co-organizer of the event, her long, almost pointed ears adding to the Elven resonance. I introduced myself and my friends who had given me a lift and would be moving on, my name was ticked off a list and I  bought the week’s meal tickets in no time flat as we tried to reorient ourselves to surroundings that were rapidly becoming invisible in the fading dusk.

The Camp proper would not be opened formally as a ritual magical space until the following evening, and the majority of participants would be arriving during the daytime, so although most of the site facilities had been erected, there were actually very few people on the site. . This being the case, Ben was able simply to drive the microbus forward into the open space ahead, which by that time the following day would be filled with tents. It was already too dark to put up ours and I was advised to dump my gear in the large circular marquee about a hundred yards behind and to the right of the Gate encampment, where there was space to sleep an army. Not that protection from rain would be needed, as it was an exceptionally fine and clear evening; more likely from the chills that such clear nights can bring in late August.

The welcoming committee had bidden us to take our time in becoming acclimatized, and find our way back to the Gate encampment in our own time for a cup of tea. It seemed that the Gate was the sort of place where the kettle was always on the hearth.

Gwen and I unloaded our packs into the marquee and after a very brief turn around the field found our way back to the Gate. All that we had been able to discern of our surroundings was that there was a wood just beyond where we would sleep and that making a triangle with this and the entrance was a second large marquee, twin-masted and lit from inside with oil lamps so that the light seemed to spill out of the cracks and share its gift with the night. But there was no-one inside, and it looked better from the outside, so after a brief look inside we rapidly gravitated towards the campfire to which we had been invited to return.

The fire by the dome was the only one in the field and looked like a Caravaggio with the brightly lit faces standing out from the surrounding blackness. It seemed to be a miniature universe entire of itself. If one looked away it was possible to discern the looming shapes of the trees behind us, even the distant raised profile of hills we had so recently traversed against the background of the stars, but look to the fire and everything else vanished, except, ghostlike, the vaguest intimations around the periphery of vision.

It was easy to understand how the so-called primitive world view populates the universe with chaotic demons who try each night to break into the circle of light and extinguish it before the dawn comes to rescue us. I was already finding animistic feelings reawakening, primitive perceptions which might be frowned upon or feared by modern city-dwelling rationalists; but if we truly were to go beyond our everyday lives in some way then this was a fine starting point. We might not be able to leave the twentieth century physically, but abandoning as many of its trappings as we reasonably could was a good first step towards getting in touch with a more real level of being, experiencing, understanding ourselves.

This was entirely different from the Glastonbury experience that I had had at solstice time that year, whether at the Tor or the Festival. The former had been a primal experience fuelled by rhythmic djembe drums and the tide of the season, while the latter had been in some ways more akin to primitive living in a nomadic village, close to the earth and its daily cycles, stripped of the expectations of our city personae.

Here for the moment, it was intimate. No pulsing djembe set the mood, no crowds jostled amidst the hustle of trader’s stalls.

A voice called out as we approached the fire: Know any Grateful Dead songs?  The guitar I was carrying had clearly been discerned from a distance by the speaker, a wild looking fellow with long blonde hair straggling down the sides of his near bald pate. His wide grin disclosed several of the longest teeth I have ever set eyes upon, and there was a twinkle in his eyes. He wore a ragged sleeveless sheepskin jacket not unlike my own, which had a grinning skeleton holding two hearts above an exploding sunburst and the legend Grateful Dead ’72 painted on its back.

About thirty-five.  I replied, somewhat taken aback by the question. I was so accustomed to my musical interest being no more than a curiosity to most people that to have this enquired of me at such an early stage was both a surprise and a delight. In the darkness he could not have seen the design on the Afghan jacket I had only just unpacked and donned. There was an added poignancy to the question due to Garcia’s recent death, and I was still feeling the grief. Here I had jokingly intended to come as a member of the ‘Deadhead Tribe’ and almost the first contact I make is with one of my kin. I felt validated in such a synchronous and metaphysical connection

Amazing he replied. I’ve been asking people who turn up with guitars that question now for more years than I care to recall, and you’re the first person ever to reply in the affirmative!

We were all amused at this and it helped break the ice as we were introduced to the others round the fire. The speaker was one of the site crew and introduced himself.

Swami Bahmi, the Barmy Swami, at your service.  Grinning, he made a slight bow and we all laughed.

Despite his interest in my music somehow I still felt uneasy. Perhaps it was his outlandish appearance, or maybe his impish grin. It might just have been my own unreadiness to cope with the unexpected after a tiring journey. Other than Palden and Sheila there were Ivan, a giant of a man with his head shaved in Mohican style, and Brigantia, a slender woman of slightly above average height. She gave me a strange look that I was to remember later.

The Swami’s greeting had seemingly been a good augury, despite my inner feelings of reserve, so I set into a couple of songs as I sat down to wait for the kettle.

‘Ripple’ is always a good toe-tapper, but perhaps my second choice was already contacting energies which lay beneath the surface, ‘Ship of Fools’. I had intended it as a reflection on the world which we were there to help change, but perhaps it was not taken as such.

It was not the time to be getting into controversial stuff, and so tea led to chatting about the journey we had had. Ben seemed keen to retire to the comfort of his camper van after a long day of driving, and it was not long before Gwen and I chose to follow his move.

Swami was also planning to sleep in the marquee, and so we went off together in the darkness with just a torch to find our way. My new found companion had a rough and ready manner which had put me in two minds. He was not abrasive, but sleeping in the same space as this wild man had activated some of my unconscious fears and taboos. It seems I had brought more of the city and its neuroses with me than I had been able to acknowledge.

Gwen and I bedded down a some paces from each other, Swami was in the dark recesses of this large sheltered space, but in fact only a few yards away.

Here was someone accustomed to taking his rest in whatever protection was at hand. As I drifted off into oblivion inside my mummy-like sleeping bag I seemed to sense a deeper presence behind his fearsome and feral exterior. Somehow I felt accepted in a way I was not accustomed to, having encountered so much rejection over the years as a result of the long path of my unfolding.

I awoke some time later regretting that I had indulged in the tea by the fireside. Welcome as it may have been after our exhausting journey, it had run its inevitable course through my system and I needed to answer nature’s call before I could return to my slumber. I lay there for a few moments, plucking up the will to brave the chill night air I could feel on my nose.

Steeling myself I hurriedly slipped out of my little cocoon and headed through the open sides to find a space sufficiently far from the marquee. Squatting on the open ground I looked up and became aware of one of the most breathtaking and awesome sights I have ever witnessed.

The fire at the gate had died down, and we were sufficiently far from any towns or major roads for there to be no artificial glare thrown up into the sky. The total absence of cloud cover, though it made for a chill night, allowed me an untarnished view of the wondrous vault that stretched above.

The memory of the African sky which I had known as a child had long dimmed. Living in a city I was accustomed only