Tomorrow Jennifer and I head off for seven weeks – to the US and Germany.

In the US we’ll be working on the intuition film, and in Germany we’ll be leading our Romantic Road tour through Bavaria. I believe it’s already started snowing on parts of our route!

We fly into New York tomorrow – and we’ll be there for the elections. On Wednesday I’m doing an interview with Paul Selig, author and channel. I’ve mentioned him several times on this blog. His books have been a big influence on me during the making of the film, and it will be wonderful to meet him, and get his insights on how intuition works.

If you want to read some of his work, start with I AM THE WORD. 

Whilst in America we’ll also be going to Texas and then to California. Our schedule is jam packed – almost every day is now booked with either filming or meetings. Many of the meetings will have to do with marketing and distribution. The film is quite unorthodox, and it will require non-traditional unorthodox distribution.

Technology and viewing behaviours are changing quite rapidly, and ways of distribution that worked even a year or two years ago won’t be working in a year or two years’ time. It’s crucial for me to find out what’s the most current way to best get my film to audience.

Germany will be wonderful –

We’ll be walking each day, and going from fairytale town to fairytale town along the Romantic Road. We’ll be there for the wonderful Christmas Markets, which are unique to that part of the world.

In between all this I’ll be working on my revisions of PALACE OF FIRES – Initiate, for Penguin Random House. So it’ll be a busy time.

I’ll be blogging regularly, and on Facebook too. Watch out for the posts. It promises to be an exciting time!

What do you need to go on a spiritual journey.?
And I’m not talking tours here!
I’m talking about a journey of spiritual growth.

For the past three years, in the making of my film on intuition, I’ve been on such a journey. And it’s by no means over. It’s just started.

There’s so much more to read, to learn, so much more work to do.
But it’s not work, it’s fun.

I was walking yesterday, and I began to compile a packing list for what you need when you go on a spiritual journey – and here it is:

1. You must want to go.
   You must need to want to do it. No-one can make you, nor should they want to try. It’s something you must want to do yourself. The path must call to you, for some reason. For some people, circumstances put them on the path. Often it’s calamity. A major health issue, with themselves or someone close. A death of a loved one. Sometimes it’s a betrayal. A devastating betrayal. Sometimes it’s a financial calamity. Loss of job, bankruptcy, a business collapse – whatever it is, it’s often a major setback in life that puts one on the path. Or, it could be a revelation. Some kind of divine intervention. A call from the Higher Realms that now it’s time to start… Whatever it is, you must want to heed that call, and follow.
2. You must be fearless.
   You must be prepared to face ridicule, rejection, you must be prepared to lose friends who think you’ve gone whacky, or who are confronted by your new stance on life. It takes courage to walk into a room and know that many are laughing at you behind your back. That’s ok. You have to be prepared to accept that. And for every friend you lose, believe me, you’ll pick up many more! Fear will try and come at you in a hundred different ways; through doubt, through humiliation, through a perceived loss of status. How can you lose status when you raise your vibrations?
3. You must embrace imagination
   It takes imagination to go on a spiritual journey. We all have imagination. Some of us have suppressed it out of fear, but we all have that ability to build worlds where worlds don’t exist. Perhaps this is why so-called creative people find it easier to go on a spiritual path – because they have greater access to their imaginative powers. Rational left brain people sometimes find it harder – but there’s no such thing as a “creative” person. We are all creative. We all have the facilities, through our “mind’s eye,” to travel to places beyond the here and now.
4. You must be prepared to accept what’s unknown, and what’s unknowable.
   There’s what’s known, there’s what’s not known, and there’s what’s unknowable. It’s easy to accept what’s known. It’s much harder to accept what’s not known, and it’s even harder to grasp what’s unknowable. What’s not known might well be known very soon. It was only 150 years ago that Louis Pasteur discovered germs caused disease. 150 years. In the timeline of human history, that’s nothing. Before that, we didn’t know germs made you sick. Twenty five years ago, if someone told you that soon we would live in a world where we could have a wireless hand held device that could access almost every book ever written, instantaneously, well, you’d think that was not possible. Rationalists reject elements of spirituality and the notion of a Higher Power because they say it can’t be proven. So what? Does that mean it doesn’t exist? Four hundred years ago the Church tortured and imprisoned Galileo because he dared to propose that the earth revolved around the sun – against religious teaching at that time. He dared to propose something which at the time wasn’t known, but which we now accept as being fundamentally so. You too must be prepared to accept what can’t be proven – yet. And then there’s the unknowable. Which is essential. Because we need mystery in our lives…
5. You must reject the needs of the ego.
   The ego has a vested interest in maintaining your belief that you are a physical body in a physical world, that you are separate from everyone else, that you are either better or worse than others, that you are defined by what you do and what you have, or don’t have, and that this is all there is. It isn’t. You have to accept that who you think you are is merely dictated by what you believe are the judgements of others. You look in the mirror and you see a big fat nose. You think you are ugly. That’s because you live in a society where big fat noses are deemed ugly. Supposing you lived somewhere else, in the Amazon or Alaska, where big fat noses were deemed beautiful, then you would think yourself beautiful. How you see yourself is only a reflection of how you believe others see you. You have to break out of this illusion, which the ego seeks to perpetrate. You are not a human being seeking a spiritual experience, you are a spiritual being seeing a human experience.
6. You must choose love over fear
   Here’s an exercise. Consider your day, any day, and consider how many decisions you make out of fear. You wake up, you get dressed in the morning. Do you select your clothing out of fear? You say goodbye to your partner as you walk out the door. Have you selected your partner out of fear? Or are you continuing in an unfulfilled relationship out of fear? You hop in your car to drive to work. Why have you chosen this particular type, or brand, or car? Was it out of fear? And your job. Are you staying in your job, which you hate, out of fear? A sense of entrapment? If you are truly analytical and honest with yourself, I think you’ll find that many of your choices have been made out of fear. If you want to go on a spiritual journey, you have to jettison these fears.
7. You must become self aware.
   It’s interesting that in the making of my film on intuition, that over the 70 odd people I’ve interviewed all around the world, how many of them use the same words. One of the  phrases that came up continually was: Pay attention. This was key to beginning to become intuitive. Pay attention. Pay attention first, to yourself. How you are feeling moment to moment. What are you thinking moment to moment. And why? Why are you feeling upset right now? How did that happen? Was it because your boss ignored you? Does that strike at the core of your sense of self worth? Do you place your self worth in the hands of your boss? Do you need your boss’s approval to feel good about yourself? Begin to embrace a process of self examination. Self awareness. On little things. Every day things. Only then can you become aware of others, which is at the heart of compassion and empathy and generosity.
8. Get rid of judgement.
   Judgement is about control. And control is fear based. You think you are better than that person. Because you are richer, you are smarter, you are better looking. You believe you have authority over that person. Dominion over that person. You believe you have control over that person. You are in a castle on a hill and that person is tilling fields. Your fields. None of it is real. None of it means anything. You and that person you judge are the same. You are all spirit, from the one source. You cannot go on a spiritual journey and cling to judgement. It will thwart you every time.
9. Begin to understand that everything is one.
   On a level of quantum mechanics, there is no time and space. There are no boundaries between “things,” and people. There is no separation. Everything is energy, constantly intermingling with other energy. We know now, from Entanglement experiments, that the behaviour of one quantum particle on one side of the universe can impact on the behaviour of another quantum particle on the other side of the universe. Everything is inextricably interconnected. Which means we are one. We believe we are separate entities, but we’re not. Stand on a street corner, and look at the various people walking past, and look at them not as people of a different shape or colour or ethnicity – but look at them all as being essences of spirit. Each of them. And that essence is the same, no matter what they look like, what they dress like, where they come from. They all come from the same place.
10. Be humble.
    You cannot learn from a position of arrogance, ego, personality, or status. You need to learn humility. You need to let go your need to control. You need to let go fear. Fear you will be judged. You need to understand that there is strength in humility, not weakness. There is nobility in humility, not ignominy.

Okay, so this is my packing list for a spiritual journey. It’s not a full packing list – it’s like a “day pack” list. But perhaps the most important thing on the list is the first item – you need to want to go.

When you’re ready, everything will come to you that you need. Trust that. You will be given everything, and everyone, you need. That’s what happened to me – and it’s still happening.

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve signed a three book deal with Penguin Random House. They will be publishing my modern-day witchcraft series, Palace of Fires.

Palace of Fires is the new title of what was formerly White Witch Black Witch, which I self published earlier this year. As soon as I realised that there could be interest from traditional publishing, I withdrew the book from Amazon.

So how did this happen?

Well, through various means the manuscript got to Lisa Riley, publisher of the Young Readers division of Penguin Random House. She read it, along with her Commissioning Editor Amy Thomas, and they both loved it.

Lisa Riley, Publisher – Bill Bennett – Amy Thomas, Editor

Lisa told me later that she found the novel “unputdownable.” Amy said she read the whole book in four hours. And then they offered me a deal, not only for that book, but for the next two in the series.

Here’s a synopsis:

Palace of Fires tells the story of a young girl in Northern California who discovers that her mother has been abducted by a clandestine organisation of witches, intent on collecting her mum’s soul to repay an ancestral debt to Satan that goes back centuries. The only way this fifteen year old girl can hope to rescue her mother is to become a witch herself. Accompanied by a Native American shaman boy, they set off to find her before she’s ritually sacrificed.

Penguin Random House see it as a highly commercial series for the Young Adult market, with the potential to cross over into an older readership.

The first book will be published in February 2018, with the next two books coming in six month intervals thereafter.

I’m thrilled to be working with such a prestigious publishing house as Penguin Random House – one of the world’s top publishers. And delighted to be working with Lisa and Amy, who will help me take my story out to the world.

For those of you interested in the progress of my film, INTUITION IS YOUR PERSONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM – well, I can now report that the film is now a film.

What does that mean?

As of yesterday, editor Rishi Shukla and I completed this current phase of editing – seven weeks. This is on top of the 9 weeks earlier in the year, making a total of 15 weeks so far.

Where is the film at now?

Well, it’s down to length, at 87 minutes including end credits. And I think it’s looking pretty damn good.

What do I have to do to complete the film?

Well, I have another couple of interviews to do – one in New York, in early November, and another in Dallas Texas shortly after. I also have to shoot some dramatic recreation sequences, and some visual overlay material to cover some of the talking heads.

I also have to incorporate some animation sequences into the body of the film, to help visualise some of the concepts involved in explaining how intuition works.

After shooting this additional material I’ll probably need another 4-6 weeks editing, and then we’ll lock off and begin scoring, sound editing, mixing, and picture post.

Wayne and Libby Pashley, owners of Big Bang Sound (where we’re editing), will be doing the sound post. They have been fabulous supporters of this project right from the start, and I thank them for their generosity and commitment.

Rishi too has worked his heart out, and I thank him as well for his continued dedication to the project, and to me. Also to Aldous Massie, the graphic artist, who is giving the film a magical visual aesthetic.

It’s now very apparent that this is a theatrical feature. And the decisions I’ve been making, both technically and in terms of structure, content and style, have been reflecting this.

I need about $150K to finish the film. I’ll be looking for investment around Australia and in the US, when I travel there in November. To those of you who have already invested, thank you. I could not have got this far without you.

Based on a screening yesterday of the film so far, I’m allowing myself to get quietly excited.

Bill Bennett
bb@bjfilms.com.au

I’ve been Missing in Action lately – hunkered down in the editing room with my intuition film.

My apologies.

My apologies for not responding to some of your comments here, and especially to Julian, who has argued his case for Christianity with his usual level of scholarship and passion.

I’ll be shutting down the editing at the end of this week. We need more funds to continue, plus I need to shoot some more interviews too. Jennifer and I will be going to the US in early November to begin that shooting, which will last about 3 weeks.

I’ll start up editing again when we land more investment. It’s a stop-go process, this film.

It’s starting to look pretty good though I think.
Then again, I’d be the last person to know.
It’s feeling like the film I’ve wanted to make though.

The cut is sitting at 83 minutes, not including end credits. I’ve had to leave a lot out, given that I shot more than 75hrs of material. I also shot more than 60 interviews, and at this stage I’m only using 24. So a lot has hit the cutting room floor.

But the film now has pace, and it’s compelling.

So that’s why I’ve been Missing in Action. It’s been an intense period, and I’ve not had the brain space for other things, other than watch the Swannies lose in the Grand Final.

Oh well – I love my footy team…

Last month, Jennifer took Sue Hansen to India.
Here is Sue’s guest post on that trip…

~~~~~

Susan Hansen – India Sept 2016

As I have been a fan of Bill’s blog since I first discovered it in 2013, just before we both did our individual Caminos, I decided to use this forum to thank him for his part in organizing my amazing recent trip to India.

I hope it will be the first of many and cannot say enough good things about his organizational & trip planning skills!

THANK YOU BILL!!

A little background…I was signed up to go on his Mother Ganga Tour last year, but chose to cancel for medical reasons, with the plea that he and Jen do another similar tour in the future, for which he could sign me up for.

This was scheduled, however, plans changed and it ended up being just me on the list! I was willing to go it alone, but Jen wanted to go regardless (or was just being nice- I will never really know!) so a trip for two was born and was a tremendous success.

I met Jen in Delhi after spending a few days on my own traveling to Agra for the Taj Mahal.  Bill arranged for my airport pick-up, driver and tour guide in Agra and all went smoothly.  The Taj Mahal at sunrise and sunset…need I say more?

Upon my return to Delhi, I had a day and a half to tour around with Jen and spent time with their driver- friend Naveen and filming-friend Ratchit who couldn’t have been nicer. Though Delhi is a different sort of place, it was special because of the people I was with.

From Delhi Jen and I traveled to Varanasi, Amritsar, Dharmsala, and Mumbai and experienced amazing energy as we visited four of the most spiritual pilgrimage sites for the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Muslim religions culminating with the Hindu celebration of Ganpati in Mumbai!

It would take me far longer than this short blog to explain (if I even could) the special and magical moments we shared and experienced in each location and will let some of my photos try to convey these feelings.

I will be forever grateful to Jen, my fantastic travel companion and new, age-old, friend for showing me the ins and outs of India and sharing many laughs, long discussions, spiritual incite and of course we can’t forget to mention the FANTASTIC shopping opportunities!!!HAHAHA!!!

With the amount of India we covered in a short 19 days, I was so happy (and frankly a little surprised) at how everything went so smoothly and without a single hitch.  The hotels were lovely, the drivers excellent and the flights much nicer than most of my Stateside experiences!

Bill was in constant contact (though missing Jen may have had something to do with that!) and ready to tackle any unforeseen problems that may have popped up- but none ever did!

Again, I need to express my heartfelt thanks to you, Bill for making my first (and definitely not my last) trip to India so special.

~~~~~

Note: Sue has taken some wonderful photos of the trip, which I will put up on this blog separately. In the meantime, here is a selfie of the two of them, at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab.

The way Steve McCurry uss natural light is nothing short of brilliant…

A lot of people try to find perfection in their lives.

What about if you let perfection find you…

It means letting go.
Letting go of the struggle.
Letting go of the need.

Trust.

Become still.

Perfection can only find you if you’re still.
It can’t find you if you’re scrambling around, trying to find it.

Breathe.
Go inside.
Wait.
It will come.
Don’t seek, just ask.

It will come to you through your intuition.

As those of you who frequent this website know, I have in the past expressed my antipathy towards structured religion.

I was reading Paul Selig’s I AM THE WORD yesterday and I came across this passage that eloquently expresses my concerns:

Excerpt from I AM THE WORD
by Paul Selig

Religion has been created as a manifesto individually for different groups to make changes in consciousness. Ultimately, the focus of all religions in truth, and the true religions, the religions that benefit spirit, are to bring up the frequency of those who engage in it.

But the level of distortion that religion has received through acclimation to agendas, to politics and the use of fear to control those who would benefit from a shift in consciousness has gotten to the point where we must make this distinction.

This is not about religion. The world does not change because of a doctrine. A doctrine is a set of rules, if you think about it, and this is not a set of rules, it is a set of instructions that will align your frequency to the Christ vibration. The Christ vibration does not belong to Christians. Period. Do you understand this? The Christ vibration does not belong to one little group of people who believe the same thing.

It is a frequency of consciousness that was manifested in form by Jesus and by others in different names over this time of history, over the last thousands of years. That is the truth. Now when one group of people claims to have any answer that precludes other people from knowing something, you better watch out.

If this book were to tell you that if you don’t read this book, something dreary would happen to you, you’d better get another book very, very quickly, because that would be terrible instruction. And if any man tells you that the way to salvation, for lack of a better word, is their way and their way alone, run in the other direction today. And we say this with great seriousness. Run in the other direction today. Because that man is actually invested in control.

There is no “my way or the highway” in consciousness. The high road is a wide road and anybody is welcome to their consciousness at this frequency. It does not preclude them from having religion. Religion can be wonderful and on a personal level often is.

The personal level that God exists in man is remarkable and truthful, and religion can give you the opening to an understanding of this, and then the individual experience is wonderfully transformed. So we are not knocking religion as a pathway, only the way religion can be and has been distorted over the millennium. Period.

Following on from my Post the other day declaring that I won’t be doing tours for the next couple of years, I would like to state that a) I’m not getting old, b) I’m not getting tired, c) I’m not admitting defeat to my workload, and d) I’m not relinquishing my superhuman status. 

It’s all about focus, and how I use my time. 

I have met, during my lifetime, some big achievers. Dick Smith is someone who comes to mind. Dick never wastes a moment. Dick financed my first two independent documentaries, and I learned so much from him when I was young. 

One of the things I learned is: TO SAY IS TO DO.

If Dick says he’s going to do something, he does it. 

A lot of people don’t. 

They talk, but don’t do. 

I try and do, too. 

I try not to waste any time. For instance, at the moment I’m editing my film but I’m also writing a book about the making of the film. I do this while Rishi (my editor) is working. The book is now at 60,000 words, and it details how I have made the film intuitively. It will come out when the film comes out. 

If I wasn’t doing this, I’d just be kicking around, waiting for Rishi to finish a sequence. 

This way I can be productive. 

Some of you think I don’t sleep, and that’s how I’m able to pack so much into a day. That’s not actually the case. I regard sleep and rest time as an important part of the work cycle. If you drive a car 24hhrs a day, day after day, at some point it’s going to break down. Then it’s no good to you. 

Same with your body, and your spiritual being. They need rest, nourishment, re-energising. Fitness and good sensible eating are integral to that. 

I remember Edward de Bono once saying: Some people read a book on a flight. I write a book. 

I’ve always remembered that. 

Getting back to putting a temporary halt to the tours – I know that PGS will require travel, and my full attention next year in terms of marketing and publicity. But also, I have to write two books in the WHITE WITCH BLACK WITCH series. (more on that later). To be truly productive, you have to know where to place your focus. And when. 

I can do several things concurrently, but I can only do one thing CREATIVELY at any given time. For me to work effectively as a creative person, I have to lock in on what it is I’m doing. I have to channel, if you like. I have to give it my complete and total focus. I can only do that one thing at a time. 

It’s all about how you use your time. If you’re in a bus or a train, do you stare blankly out the window? Or do you go onto Facebook or Twitter? Or do you read a book? Or listen to music? 

Do you feed yourself? Or do you deplete yourself… We are defined by what we do, not by what we say we’re going to do. That’s the way I look at it… 

So to all you naysayers who thought that I was finally becoming human – nah… not happening! 

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