My eldest son Henry has been listening to Jordan Peterson, a brilliant Canadian academic who has caused a furore on the internet by challenging the far left on gender issues.

He’s a highly erudite clinical psychologist who’s been dubbed by some the new Joseph Campbell. That’s a big call – but there’s no doubt this man is very very bright. And articulate.

Henry put me onto a podcast by Sam Harris – another brilliant mind – called Waking up with Sam Harris. 

https://www.samharris.org/podcast

In this particular podcast Sam Harris interviews Jordan Peterson, wanting to discuss mythology, religion, spirituality, and other weighty matters.

However, these two brilliant minds can’t get past the definition of what is truth. And what unfolds over two hours – yes, two hours – is this fascinating interchange between these two intellectual heavyweights over the nature of truth.

In amongst this complex to-and-fro is an exchange on consciousness, and its basis in religion. Here is an interesting excerpt from that two hour discussion:

SH: I think there is a subjective dimension of reality that is undeniable – and consciousness is the one thing in this universe that can’t be an illusion. It’s the only thing that you can be absolutely sure exists at this moment.

JP: I think part of your fundamental ethical metaphysics and it’s a point on which we agree is that you are very concerned with pain, for lack of a better word, and one of the conclusions that I’ve reached – and let’s call consciousness a reality – I would say that the most undeniable form of consciousness is acute agony, because no-one doubts that, not if you watch them act, and that’s one of the criteria by which I judge whether someone believes something. If people act out something uncontrollably then I’m convinced that they believe it, regardless of what they think they believe. And I think it’s for that reason that so many religious systems start with the same metaphysic, which is that life is suffering, that’s the ultimate reality. And that’s associated with consciousness, certainly, but it’s more precise than that, because maybe you can doubt whether you’re happy, but it’s very difficult to doubt that you are in agony and have that actually work, and so people act as if that’s the most real thing..   

I don’t know about you but when I heard that and I thought about religion, it struck me as true that most religions have as their basis the notion of suffering. Christianity generally – look at Christ on the Cross. And Catholicism has taken that notion of suffering and honed it into a belief system. So too Buddhism – of course.

I’m not an intellectual – haha, not by any stretch of the imagination – nor am I a scholar. But I can’t quite grasp this notion that life, reality, consciousness, is rooted in suffering. I don’t believe we were born to suffer.

I believe we were born to experience joy, and love, and fulfilment. And that as we awaken our consciousness, the pain and the suffering disappear. Because we step out of the illusion of life, of who we think we are – and we awaken to the possibility of who we really are… which is divine beings.

All of us.

Even Donald Trump.

Jordan Peterson – Professor of Psychology Toronto University

A quick post to let you know that the South Australian shoot for my intuition film is going well.

We’re getting some amazing footage for sequences that will link between the film’s chapters.

Scott Last is the Drone Operator who is doing this shoot. He’s using his new fancy-pants DJI Inspire drone, that is quite incredible. For the tech heads, it has a Micro Four Thirds chip and interchangeable lenses. We have a 24mm, a 30mm, and a 90mm lenses. (35mm equivalent)

We sill have several more days to go – but we’re camped at the Nullarbor Roadhouse at the moment for two days getting some unique footage.

It will give the film a very cinematic feel.

We’re on track to complete the film by end of June… and release? Not sure yet. Sometime next year. Because there will be a big marketing push ahead of release.

As many of you know, I am making a theatrical feature length film on intuition. I’ve been making it now for several years, and very soon it will be finished.

And by very soon, I mean months.

For more than two years I’ve been shooting all around the world, interviewing Sadhus and Saints, Mystics and Psychics, Scientists and Physicists.

And last year I went into editing, with my editor Rishi Shukla. We cut for twenty weeks last year, and got to a 87 min cut that was pretty damn good.

I showed the film to some people whose opinion I respect – got feedback, and then sat on it for 6 weeks over the Christmas / New year break.

Thinking.
Dreaming.
Struggling.
Worrying.
And dreaming some more.

And then I got back into the editing room with Rishi and changed everything. I made some outrageous and bold decisions, taking the film into a completely new direction, not knowing if it would work or not.

Now, some four weeks later, I know it will work. It won’t be to everyone’s taste – some will see the film and hate it. Others will dig it, big time.

(Did I just use the term “dig it?”)

Anyway, about a week into this new cut, I had a dream – or rather a nightmare – where I showed this new cut to some friends who had seen the previous cut, and they said:

Oh no Bill. You have RUINED what was a perfectly good film! 

I thought about this – and saw it as a test.
A test of fear.

Would I trust my intuition, my PGS, and keep going with this new cut? Or would I succumb to the fear that this nightmare was trying to instil in me?

I looked deep into my heart, and I knew this new approach to the film, this new cut, might not appeal to everyone, because it’s really out there – it goes against all the conventions of a “New Agey” film on intuition – but I liked it.

In fact, I loved it.
In fact, it’s really really cool!

Anyway, I was swapping emails with Michael Tamura, who is featured in the film, and who saw the 87 minute cut last year. I told him I was taking the film in a new direction, and about the nightmare I had.

He emailed me back with some sage and well written advice, as usual. I thought it was worth posting here – because it’s full of wisdom, and you might get something from it.

Here is what he said:

MICHAEL TAMURA WRITES: 

Your imagined scenario of that person telling you that you’ve ruined your perfectly good film after seeing the new version is quite an important one.  It’s a bit like analyzing a profound dream to discover a lesson.  After all, an imagined scenario is a dream as well.  Of course, we can imagine a nightmare or a wonderful dream. Hahaha…

It seems to me that your scenario had to do with not only the process of creating and destroying/letting go, but also of letting go of any attachments to the result of what it is that you’re doing at any given moment.  

Krishna offers that wisdom to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita as perhaps the single most important keys to attaining liberation along the way of service and action.  

Interestingly enough, one of my favorite interviews that I’ve seen Michael Jordan give was immediately following him sinking one of his legendary last second 3-pointers to win the championship.  The journalist asked him if he expected to make that basket or if he was worried that he might not and then lose the championship.  

Michael Jordan said that if he worried at all about whether he was going to make the basket or whether he was going to win, he would almost always fail.  He said that he practices intensely when he practices so that when he plays in the game he just has to do what he’s practiced doing so many times.  

He trained himself to never think about whether the ball is going into the basket or whether he’s going to win the game or any kind of expectations of how things are going to turn out.  He focuses entirely on playing the game and doing what he’s practiced doing.  He said that whenever he did that successfully, he almost always made the basket.  In other words: No expectation of results.  Just play.

Jordan wouldn’t be playing basketball if his goal wasn’t to make baskets and win the game.  So, he’s learned not to worry about how things are going to end up.  That’s exactly what Arjuna learned from Krishna on the battlefield.  Both Jordan and Arjuna are warriors – action-oriented souls.  

It’s our ego that seeks results and gets hung up on results.  Even the greatest singers get nervous and worries whether they’re going to perform well before a big event.  They may imagine the same kind of scenario that you imagined for themselves.  Yet, what makes them masters of their art and craft is that they are able to acknowledge that imagined scene and “blow it up” in their mind – or forgive themselves of having imagined it and recognizing that it’s just in their imagination – and shoot for the basket without fear or expectation of results, one way or the other.  

After all, the film that you are making is for the whole of Spirit and not for one small ego or another.  If you do everything that you are doing to make the movie what you envision for the whole of Spirit, then, all those in the world who are seeking what it offers, all for whom this film and its lessons and messages will be answers to their prayers, will flock to see it and embrace it for the miracle that it is.  

Those for whom it isn’t yet time won’t even know that it exists until they are ready.  It will be only a few who will bitch and moan about it because they will be the ones who have been asking for it but still can’t receive of it.  And, it won’t be your job to answer them.  That will have to come from those who are already on-board but closer to them.

I don’t hold any expectations on how this film will turn out.  I already know that whatever you do with it, it will be wonderful.  So, relax.  Take your time, but hurry up and finish it so I can see it! Hahahaha….

Steve McCurry is one of the greatest portrait photographers of all time. His Afghan Girl portrait for the cover of National Geographic is one of the most iconic portraits ever taken…

On July 7th, 2014, I wrote a post about how I had a prophetic dream – a dream that would launch me into making my film on intuition.

What really launched me though was not the dream itself, but that I woke up out of that dream at 4:44am. I immediately Googled What does 444 mean? And I was shocked at the response.

What I read would change my life.

I mention this now because that post, strangely, is my most read post ever.

Every day, it’s read by people around the world.
Every day.
And I wrote that post two and a half years ago.

How many people? I don’t know. I guess I could add the figures, if I had the time and inclination. I have neither. But I notice, when I go through the analytics for this site, that every day that post appears towards the top of the posts that are read that day.

I didn’t even tag the post. I don’t do any of those nifty things that draw people to your site. I figure that if people find me here, they find me – and if they want to stay, they’ll stay.

What is it about that post that attracts people? Well, it’s startling. I found the whole thing startling at the time. I still find it startling.

And as I say, that dream, and 444, changed my life.

Here is the post again, in full – written in July 2014, before I began my film: Today I woke up at 4:44

Today I woke up at 4:44

How does the universe connect with you? Prod you? Encourage you?

Guide you?

It does so in a variety of ways, and one of those ways is the use of numbers.

The startling use of numbers.

I’ve been troubled lately. Soon I will be starting filming on PGS – INTUITION IS YOUR PERSONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM. My plan is start filming in India, then go across to the US and film there. I feel very strongly that I need to get this film going.

But I will be taking a financial risk starting when I believe I should start. And that’s been troubling me. I’ve been wondering if I should delay, and wait till all the finance locks in.

Last night I dreamt vividly. In my dream I saw myself equivocating – questioning whether it was the right thing to do, to commence filming in September. And then my dream took me to an image of several computers, lined up one beside the other, all connected by cables.

And I knew immediately what this was. This was an image of how the Spierig brothers made their first film – a very inventive film which they made at home, in their spare time and on their own dime. They didn’t have the money for a powerful computer to do all the film’s digital imaging work, and so they cobbled together a bunch of cheap home computers which, in series, gave them the computing grunt to do what they wanted to do.

The resultant digital work was brilliant, the film got made and it launched their careers.

I woke up immediately with the very clear message that I had to get on with it. That I had to do what I intend to do. That I shouldn’t equivocate. I shouldn’t have doubts. Everything will work out.

Then I looked across at the bedside clock, and it was 4:44.

It hit me very powerfully.

4:44

I quickly googled: “What does 4:44am mean?” And this is what I read:

444 asks that you pay attention to your intuition and inner-wisdom as your connection with your angels and the angelic realm is very strong at this time.  You are encouraged to continue on your current path as your drive and determination will lead to success and fulfilment.

444 is a message that the angels and Archangels are with you, encouraging and guiding you. They are offering you positive energies, inner-strength and 
support to enable you to get the work done that you need to.  

They know and understand that you have been toiling diligently towards your goals, and encourage you to continue on your current path to achieve the success and results you desire. Use your strong connection with the angelic realm to your benefit and be open to their promptings and messages.  

Listen to your intuition and follow its guidance.

444 is a message that you have nothing to fear in regards to your life, work and Divine life purpose and soul mission. When you take positive action towards your highest intentions, aspirations and goals, the Universe works in your favour and helps you to establish solid foundations and advance you along your path. 

Know that the angels surround and support you, encouraging you to keep up the good work you have been doing.  

Do I believe in Angels?

Damn right I do!

Do I believe that the 4:44 on the clock was a sign?

Damn right I do!

I’ve been told clearly that I’ve got to stop doubting and get on with it…

Podcasts are cool.

They’re the new way of accessing information that you won’t find on more traditional media.

To say they’re new though is fake news. They’ve been around a while, quite a while in fact – but lately it seems they’ve made a big shift into the zeitgeist.

I listen to podcasts on my walk to the editing room each morning. I listen to This American Life, which launched Serial, the true crime podcast that started a worldwide interest in podcasting. I also listen to Alec Baldwin’s Here’s the Thing, and Real Time with Bill Maher, and lately I’ve been listening to Crimetown. 

I love podcasts.

So when Dan Mullins contacted me to see if I’d be interested in being interviewed for his new podcast show – My Camino – I was really chuffed.

Dan is a Sydney based radio producer. Each morning for the past seventeen years he’s produced a news-based talk show that consistently tops the ratings for the breakfast slot – a highly competitive time slot. This must make Dan Mullins one of the most successful radio producers in the country – if not the most successful.

Last year he walked the Camino, and it affected him deeply. He came back home to his wife and children and took up yoga and meditation. Like many before him, the obsession with the Camino didn’t end with the walk though, it was just the beginning. He wanted to “keep an engagement” with the Camino, as he said, and so he began a podcast.

Dan interviewed me late last year, before the podcast was launched. I was in Los Angeles at the time, working on PGS – my film on intuition.

As the interview progressed I noticed a couple of things about Dan –

#1  He’d done his homework. He was well researched and well prepared. You’d think this is Journalism 101, but too often it’s not the case. Too often interviewers try to “wing it” with sketchy research pulled from a cursory glance at Wikipedia.

#2  As an interviewer, he listened, and followed up on what I said. Once again, this is a skill sadly lacking in many less experienced journalists. It makes for a more organic interview.

#3  He subordinated himself to the interview. Again, particularly in podcasts, this doesn’t happen often. Often the podcaster uses the platform to spruik themselves. It’s their show after all. Not Dan.

The result was a well informed and lively chat about everything from the weight of my backpack to the underlying spiritual imprint of the Camino – and how it can change you.

I also spoke about how I walked the Camino intuitively, using my PGS – my Personal Guidance System – to lead me along The Way, from day to day. And I spoke about the alchemy of the Camino – how it can unlock the potential for transformation, if you allow it.

Dan very generously allocated two podcasts to our talk – two half hour shows. (weeks three and four on the podcast…)

As Dan says, you don’t do these kind of podcasts to make money. It’s a passion project – and even after just four weeks from the launch, he’s finding the reaction from around the world has been extraordinary. And he’s already lined up plenty of amazing characters, and wonderful stories, for future podcasts.

Here is a link to the podcast –

You can also get it from your regular podcast app.
It’s called My Camino – The Podcast 

Subscribe to it – it’s a weekly half hour show – because it promises to be a fabulous resource to further your understanding and appreciation of one of the great pilgrimage walks on this planet we call Earth.

Dan Mullins – My Camino, the Podcast

While walking my first Camino in 2013, on this blog I talked about the “soul imprint” of the Camino.

What does this mean?

It means that all those millions of pilgrims who have walked the Camino since even before the time of Christ – because it was a pagan pilgrimage before it became a religious pilgrimage – that all those people who walked with intention left a soul residue on the path they walked. An energetic imprint.

Why is it that the Camino heals? Why is it that people as old as 90 can walk the Camino – defying all physical and medical logic?

It’s because of this energetic soul imprint.

I was listening to Lee Carroll channel Kryon the other day while I walked to the editing room, where I’m working on my film on intuition. I’ve interviewed Lee as part of the film – he’s regarded as one of the world’s great channels – and he travels extensively, channeling to sell-out audiences. He later puts all these channellings up on his website for free, and these are what I listen to as I walk to work.

The other day I listened to a channel he did at the beginning of the year, in Boulder Colorado. He was talking about the Akash – the energetic history of everything you have experienced on the planet earth, spanning all your lifetimes.

Here is a Youtube audio of Kryon explaining what the Akash is…
Structure, Keys to the Akash – Kryon channelling.

It was interesting. From a spiritual perspective, Kryon doesn’t refer to our “past lives,” he refers to them as “expressions of energy.” He says:

“To you, life is everything. To us, we see life as passing, as you in transition constantly, from one to another to another. We never see a life, we see a system. There is no death. You just move from one system to another, from one paradigm to another.

“The very essence, the soul – all that you think is gone and lost isn’t. It’s all still there, and the beauty of the system is that some of it literally goes into the veil of the earth. Every life expression you’ve ever had, part of your soul goes back into the planet and the grid when you leave, and it stays here. 

“How does it make you feel to know that you’re part of the dirt of the earth? That’s part of the grid that starts to work with other human beings. Your wisdom, and what you’ve learned, stays here, and works with your next incarnation.

“Don’t be shocked and surprised when you walk into the forest and you feel family. You’re feeling you!”

When I heard this, I went wow! That’s what I’ve been saying about the Camino’s energetic soul imprint. You walk the Camino and, if you let it, if you are open to it, you can take in the soul energy of those who have walked before you, who have allowed a part of themselves to seep into the earth’s energetic grid.

You may choose to believe this or not believe it.
I happen to believe it.
I’ve felt it – I’ve experienced it.

If you’re interested, here is Kryon’s full 26 minute channeling… it’s fascinating listening.
Kryon at Boulder, January 2017 

Yikes!

I published some fake news last post on the inaugural Australian Camino Festival.

I indicated that it was a joint effort between Tony Jacques, and Rowan & Margaret at Glenella. In fact it was Rowan’s baby from the get-go – his brainchild and his and Margaret’s organisation behind it all.

Rowan had noticed how Parkes, a small town further west, had created a huge annual festival celebrating Elvis Presley – and he twigged that maybe he could do the same thing with a Camino festival in Blackheath, in the Blue Mountains behind Sydney.

The pilgrim dinners that Tony and Ce had established, and are always held at Glenella, had become a big hit, and Rowan thought that maybe he could do something larger, such as a four day festival and expo that’s Camino-centric.

His instincts were sound because already, even a couple of weeks before it kicks off, it looks like it’s going to be a big success. Registrations are strong – and they’ve run out of speaking slots.

My apologies to all concerned for the fake news. I’d made an assumption, and I should know from my previous incarnation as a journalist that you never make assumptions.

(Maybe that’s why I sashayed into being a dramatist… !)

Here are the details again:

Dates: February 23rd to 26th
Where: Blackheath, Blue Mountains (Glenella Guesthouse & Restaurant)
Registration & info: www.auscamino.com.au
Contact Rowan: festival@auscamino.com.au
Accommodation: auscamino.com.au/accommodation

Rowan & Margaret / Glenella, Blackheath NSW

I started back in editing this week on my mammoth undertaking – a film on intuition. I’m calling it: PGS: Intuition is your Personal Guidance System. 

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been making this film since 1999. At the time, I was in New Orleans working on a movie, and I was driving to the airport very early one morning when a voice told me to slow down.

I was approaching an intersection – it was before dawn – there were no cars on the road at that time of the morning, so there was no sense of impending danger. But this voice was insistent, so I slowed down.

As I entered the intersection, on a green light, a truck suddenly hurtled through running the red light on the cross street. Had I not listened to that voice, I would have been killed.

My intuition saved my life.

Ever since, I have been determined to find out what that voice was, and why it saved my life. And being a filmmaker, that determination has expressed itself in the making of a film.

After years and years of researching, then trying to get the film financed in a traditional way, without luck, I started shooting in September 2014. I went out and bought a camera and started shooting it myself.

That’s not as crazy as it might seem, because I have been a professional photographer since the age of 17 – I’ve shot second unit on most of my movies – I’m an Associate Member of the Australian Cinematographers Society as well as an Accredited Member of the Australian Institute of Professional Photographers. Plus I’ve been directing feature films since 1983. So I know my way around a camera.

Even so it was daunting – and I had to skill myself in a lot of areas, particularly sound, in a very short period of time.

I decided I would look at intuition from three viewpoints: science, religion, and spirituality. That took me to India several times, and Italy – to the Vatican, and to Bhutan, to interview the Prince of Bhutan and his Spiritual Advisor (a Buddhist Grand Master), I went to Dharamsala to the Dalai Lama Palace, to Turkey to talk to Sufi Masters and a descendent of Rumi, and several times to America to speak to scientists and psychics and spiritualists.

On some of these trips I took cinematographer extraordinaire Pieter de Vries. He’s better than me at camera stuff…

Anyway, I ended up with about 90 hrs of footage for a 90 minute film.

Last year I started editing, with a wonderful editor, Rishi Shukla. Rishi is a skeptic – which is what I wanted. (During the making of this film though he has become less of a skeptic!) We edited for 20 weeks last year. I ended up with a cut of 87 minutes. It was good – but I wasn’t happy with it.

It didn’t excite me as a piece of cinema.

I went overseas late last year, to do some more filming in America and Germany – and showed the cut to some select people. I got very positive feedback – but some notes too.

Good notes.
Useful notes.

They wanted more of me in the film – more of my journey. I’ve been reluctant to put myself prominently in the film – because I’m no expert, I’m just someone who’s curious.

But I took their notes on board.

I came back just before Christmas, exhausted from all the traveling, but also very confused. What do I do now? I knew I had to finish the film this year – 2017. But I couldn’t see how. I couldn’t see a clear way through the film. I couldn’t see an elegant way through the film.

I knew I had to start editing on Feb 6th – this last Monday – and as the day approached I got more and more panicked.

What was I going to do?

And then things slowly started to come to me. In dreams, and in moments of insight while I was contemplating, and meditating. I started to see the film on two levels – a search for this voice, and a search for myself. My true self.

I immediately started organising a two week shoot out in the desert next month for what I’m calling an existential magic-realism road trip. 

On Monday morning, this Monday past, I walked into the editing room and I said to Rishi:

Let’s play. 

So I played with some stuff. With an unconventional editing technique which I’ve been excited about for a while. Something very bold. Something quite unusual for this kind of film. I haven’t been this excited with an editing technique since coming up with the cutting style for my thriller KISS OR KILL many years ago.

This new approach scares the crap out of me.
I don’t know if it will work.
It’s a painstaking process that is very time consuming –
And it’s in-your-face.
It’s audacious and goes against the grain of films of this type.
Wussy spiritual films.
This won’t be wussy.

I walked to work that first morning listening to Deepak Chopra on my iPod.
I walked home listening to The Who.

I’m excited.
I’m scared, but excited.
Cinema is exciting me again…

And it occurred to me this morning that I’ve spent all this time trying to find the film – when in fact I should have let go and let the film find me.

Which is what’s now happened…
The film has found me.
Finally…