Response to my reviewer

 A review of my book "Yoghurt Weaving in a Nutshell" appeared in an obscure church newsletter in rural Switzerland. Here is my response to them:


Dear Mrs Wells

I hope you are well. I am writing in response to a review of my book which appeared in the march-april edition of your newsletter "Contact". I was not sure exactly which of the contributors wrote the piece, so I selected yourself as being, hopefully, the best person to direct my query. If I am wrong, please accept my apologies, and I would be grateful if you would forward this to the author of the review.

Since the purpose of my book was to generate debate, I am keen to enter into discussion about the comments made.
In particular, the reviewer appears to disagree with my assertion that spiritual healing of the planet is possible. I ask, are there any examples that may be cited where spiritual healing has ever actually brought "healing" to the earth?
Also, the reviewer only mentions one of my articles, and there are more than 30 in the book. I am very interested to hear what a Christian would answer to my views on Astral Projection, for example. Is it possible for the spirit to leave the body at will?

Finally, I am most intrigued as to how a copy of my book ended up in Switzerland in the first place...
I wish you all the best

Many thanks

John Broken Willow

Quote from my next book (2)

Cannabis smoke filled the recovery room of the large house. Shane Boon's body had been on the sofa there for exactly one hour. Shane Boon's soul, well, that was a different matter. He couldn't be sure. He felt sick and somewhat disorientated. He didn't know how his body had got from the ritual room to here, his memory of returning to the house was somewhat hazy; so he was quite confused as to how long he had been back in his body. In fact he was only about 70% sure that he was in his body even now, though to imagine otherwise seemed laughable. He saw that his body was, indeed, laughing.
"What are you laughin' about my friend?" enquired a light-hearted voice from the other sofa. Boon looked over. He was sure that only a few moments ago he knew who was on the other sofa and he had in fact been having a conversation with them, but now it seemed that information had gone. He felt extremely guilty at this apparent failure to socialise properly. He sat up, squinted a little, trying to focus his gaze on the person who had spoken. It was Lizzie. Rowena sat next to her. Both seemed to be smiling. Rowena's hand was extended towards him, with something white between her fingers. He could not make out what it was, and scrunched up his face at her hand in confusion, before burping. He laughed again, at which Rowena and Lizzie collapsed into fits of giggles.
"Mate, mate, I'm saao glad ye came round here, this has been a right entertainin' evenin'! Lizzie'ere's telled me all sortsa funny stories! Saahnds like ye've done yeself praahd mate! Nice one!" Rowena's accent was much more London than before. Boon struggled with this concept as well, was with really the same person he had met earlier? He squinted at her some more. Then he realised what she held in her hand, which was a spliff she was offering to him, and that she held a bottle of beer in the other hand, then he realised that there were empty beer bottles everywhere and that Rowena and Lizzie were quite drunk as well as more than a bit stoned.
Boon laughed again and took the spliff from Rowena's hand, taking a long, deep toke on it before finding an ashtray by the side of him and sitting back again on the sofa. A flood of increased consciousness swept through him, like the spliff had literally topped it up. Suddenly he was becoming more aware of his surroundings and his mind. He was in a brightly lit room with a large window in the ceiling. There were three large sofas, a couple of coffee tables in the middle, a fridge, tea-making equipment, drinks cabinet, and a small stereo with old-fashioned CDs strewn around it. Some sort of slow-beated ambient music gently oozed out of the speakers. The tables, as mentioned before, were littered with beer bottles. They also harboured a box containing weed, various other potions and powders. The only people in the room were himself and Lizzie and Rowena.
"Are you happy, Shane?" asked Lizzie, more seriously. He gave serious thought to the question, which was both very simple and yet extremely complex.
"Yes," he replied. Then he burped again and the three of them creased up with laughter once more.
Coming to, a moment later, Lizzie explained: "We are still heavily under the influence of the psilocybin. It has been three hours in the normal world since we took the drug. You will be tripping for quite some time yet. In the meantime: sit back, get high, enjoy the ride baby. You have passed your initiation test with flying colours. Congratulations my friend! You have left your body and found your astral consciousness. And you have seen how our group does its work."

Quote from my next book

To start off this blog, here is a small quote from my next book, which is a novel. Boon works for an organisation called the Freedom Network, and he has met the others today, they are a political activist group who specialise in taking out surveillance equipment.

Boon found himself sitting cross-legged, on a cushion, in the middle of a room in the house he had not seen up until now. The walls were mostly purple, with strange symbols painted on them. No shrines here, no pictures or sculptures...apart from the symbols, the room seemed almost devoid of form. The only exception was some low tables with candles on. There were five of them arranged symmetrically around the centre of the room and some sort of star-shaped pattern was painted on the floor, with the tables at the apices. The four of them were sitting in a square - he was facing Lizzie, Paul was facing Ellie. All were cross-legged and had eyes closed. They had sat like that for several minutes, quietly, relaxing. Boon was having trouble relaxing as he was full of anticipation, but nonetheless the soporific mood of the room was making his mind slow down gradually.

Lizzie began to speak softly. Her voice assumed a more monotone, dramatic style. First she snapped her fingers, at which, as if by magic, music began playing. It was slow, with rhythmic drumbeats and small, subtle flute noises, seeming to come from some distant mountain village ceremony. "Now begins the ritual of initiation. By the powers of the ancient earth, by the powers of the human spirit, and with the assistance of the pixies of psilocybe, we initiate Shane Boon into the Astral consciousness. By these powers shall he be brought, with humble spirit and wonder, out from his body to the astral realm. By these powers shall we show him the eternity of consciousness, the infinity of existence and the enormity of his potential as a human being." As these words were sinking in, Boon was wondering whether this was really a good idea.

Lizzie then took a small box, and some strips of cloth, from under one of the tables and placed the box, open, in front of her. It contained four syringes, a selection of injecting needles, and a vial of clear, colourless liquid. "We will now each inject ourself with the psilocybe." 

Not thirty seconds after injecting, the hit started to swathe over his mind. This was definitely something different to the few times he had eaten mushrooms picked in the Yorkshire Dales. Time began to slow down. Light coming towards his eyes, which normally behaved so well in the way it stuck to travelling in straight lines, decided to start making slight curves in its journey, so that everything around him began to blur slightly. His hearing was heightened such that the breathing and heartbeats of the others in the room suddenly became obvious, and the hustle-bustle of people moving about downstairs, talking and laughing, became clearer. He could hear a moth flapping around in the corner of the room and wondered if it was happy. His skin became very sensitive, he could feel the press of his clothing on some parts and the chill of the air on the exposed parts, yet he did not feel cold, as there was a kind of fire building up inside him, as if his spirit was rising up from some hidden part of his body to consume the existence of his being, which he realised in an instant was usually shrivelled in a corner, hiding from reality. He felt ashamed that his spirit was so closed to the world, angry at himself that he was missing so much of life, and full of wonder at this whole new way of experiencing things. Since the injection, he realised that he had opened his soul.