Today was a big travel day.

We left the hotel in Portland before 5am, and caught a flight at 7 to Chicago. There we waited for 3 hrs for a flight to Buffalo, where we picked up a van and drove two hrs to Toronto. We got in after 11pm.

Why not fly straight from Portland to Toronto you might ask?

Money.
It was cheaper this way.
We can’t afford direct flights on this budget!

During the flight I finished John Geiger’s book – THE ANGEL EFFECT.
It’s an incredibly powerful book.

John details instances, both contemporary and historical, where people have literally been touched by an angel.

Most of these people did not hold religious beliefs, but the majority of them tell of their experience with a sense of awe – and a belief that it really was their Guardian Angel that stepped up to help them.

It’s a terrific book – beautifully researched and written – and if you’rre interested in this stuff you really should read it. Read it even if you aren’t interested, because it might make you consider the world a little differently.

John was formerly a highly respected journalist, and now he’s an academic at Toronto University, and Governor of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

He writes from an objective secular viewpoint, and includes many interviews with neuroscientists, psychologists, and researchers who provide plausible rational explanations for these phenomena.

However, as John says in his book, science can’t answer all the questions that arise from these first hand accounts.

The overwhelming conclusion that you have once you’ve read the book is that there is more unknown than is known. And those that believe in angels – those that have had first hand experiences with these incorporeal spiritual beings – have as much right to say they exist as scientists have to say that they don’t, and it’s all a function of the brain under stress.

I’m interviewing John tomorrow for my film on intuition, and he promises to make a fascinating contribution.

On the drive from Buffalo up to Toronto we stopped in at Niagara Falls – right on our route. None of us had been to Niagara Falls before, and so we had to drop in for a quickie selfie.

Just as I never expected Uluru to impact me as powerfully as it did, nor did I expect Niagara Falls to make an impression. I’d always thought it as being a bit tacky and down-at-heel – like the back blocks of Las Vegas.

But i found the energy that came up from the tumult of water – the prana in the air – was almost so thick you could grab it and swallow it whole.

I stood back and soaked in this prana – and wondered at how extraordinary it must have been before the arrival of white settlement – what this must have meant spiritually to the Native Americans. What myths and legends they must have created.

Now it’s hard to find beauty there.

Carparks have replaced woods, and ugly buildings – mainly casinos – crowd the skyline, and concrete walkways jut out over the falls. But none of this unfortunate aesthetic can take away from the prana that exists independent of all that.

We could only spare a short visit, and so I quickly tried to find some interesting shots which weren’t the usual touristique shots you take when you go to one of the great Wonders of the World.

Here are my attempts:

I had a persistent cough since Assisi. 

That’s since April. 

I went to the doctor twice. He checked my chest and wrote me scripts. 

Despite double rounds of two separate antibiotics though, the cough remained. 

I should add here that I don’t usually take medicines of any kind. I have a belief that the mind heals the body. It took me about a month after returning from Assisi to finally bring myself to go to the doctor and ask for antibiotics. 

That’s how bad my cough was. 

Sometimes it was so bad I couldn’t speak. It kept me, and my wife, awake at night. It was exhausting me. 

And I don’t get sick. 

I never get sick. 

I thought leaving Mudgee in winter and coming to the U.S. in summer would fix it. 

It didn’t. 

Then one night while I was in Mount Shasta my cough was so bad it kept me up till 1am. When I woke in the morning I saw that I’d coughed up blood. A worrying amount of blood. 

That morning I had to interview psychic teacher and healer Michael Tamura. 

When I arrived at his door that morning he took one look at me and he knew something was wrong. 

I told him I’d been up a good deal of the night coughing, and that I hadn’t been able to shake the cough despite various antibiotics. 

He asked me if he wanted me to heal him. 

I said yes. 

He directed me to sit on their lounge chair, and he sat opposite, about ten feet away. Then he did what he called a reading. He closed his eyes, and used one hand to feel the energies in my body. 

And then he opened his eyes and asked me three questions of a personal nature. 

They had to do with a person in my distant past. 

He was checking what he knew. What he’d picked up with his energetic exploration. He was right with his three queries. Startlingly so. 

How could he have possibly known about a person in my past that he said was causing my cough? Again I won’t go into specifics, but he told me things about this person that no one could possibly know, other than myself and that other person. 

He did more exploratory work, told me more startling things about myself and my life that were unerringly accurate, and then he did his healing work. 

It involved clearing energetic blockages that were causing the cough. Blockages caused by unfinished business between myself and this other person. 

He did this by twirling his fingers in a way that looked like he was conducting a spiritual orchestra. 

His eyes were closed, his eyelids fluttered uncontrollably, and his mouth was agape. 

He was somewhere else. 

I haven’t coughed since. 

That’s not entirely true – I have coughed now and again – but more of a clearing, rather than the entrenched persistent cough that I had before. 

What he did, whatever he did, worked – where antibiotics and western medicine failed. 

It’s amazing. 

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I’ve changed the banner image back to the Camino shot that I had before.

I got some feedback which suggested it was a better shot.

The feedback came from Cinematographer Extraordinaire Pieter de Vries, who knows bugger all about photography.

Still, I do like to keep Pieter happy – because he is a New Age newt after all.

We’re in Portland Oregon right now, and at 5am tomorrow we head off to the airport to catch a flight to Chicago, then we transfer to a flight to Buffalo, then we drive to Toronto.

On Tuesday I do an interview with John Geiger, author of THE THIRD MAN FACTOR and THE ANGEL EFFECT.

Both books detail recorded incidences where people, often under extreme hardship or duress, are visited by what John calls a “sensed presence” that helps guide them to safety, or gives them advice to help them in their moment of distress.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about the Third Man Factor –

The Third Man factor or Third Man syndrome refers to the reported situations where an unseen presence such as a “spirit” provides comfort or support during traumatic experiences. Sir Ernest Shackleton in his book South, described his belief that an incorporeal being joined him and two others during the final leg of their journey. Shackleton wrote, “during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia, it seemed to me often that we were four, not three. His admission resulted in other survivors of extreme hardship coming forward and sharing similar experiences.

In recent years well-known adventurers like climber Reinhold Messner and polar explorers Peter Hillary and Ann Bancroft have reported the experience. One study of cases involving adventurers reported that the largest group involved climbers, with solo sailors and shipwreck survivors being the second most common group, followed by polar explorers. Some journalists have related this to the concept of a guardian angel or imaginary friend. Scientific explanations consider this a coping mechanism or an example of bicameralism. The concept was popularized by a book by John G. Geiger The Third Man Factor, that documents scores of examples.

John Geiger is an academic at Toronto University. He’s also Governor of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and a former editor at the Toronto Globe & Mail. In other words, he’s no mug. He’s a man who researches thoroughly, and writes with objectivity.

He is not a religious man – he writes from a secular viewpoint – and yet many people whom he’s interviewed who also are not religious describe this “sensed presence” in terms of it being a Guardian Angel.

It should be a fascinating interview.

We then drive from Toronto all the way to Chicago, and there we interview Caroline Myss, who is well known as an authority on intuition. Caroline will be our last interview on this trip. We return to Australia next weekend.

Last night we had dinner with Dr. Jill Ammon-Wexler, and today I interviewed her.

Dr. Ammon-Wexler lives in a beautiful little town called Ashland, in Oregon. Her field of expertise is the brain, and particularly how the brain functions in heightened states of awareness.

She calls herself Dr. Jill – and she’s the most delightful woman.

She spent years studying Tibetan Buddhism, and she really does look like a smiling Buddha. There is a serenity and knowing-ness/knowing-nothingness about her that is quite palpable.

I like to have a meal a day or two before with a person I will interview. It allows us both to get a sense about each other – it makes for a more intimate relaxed interview later – and a more informed one too, because I’m able to ascertain early on what areas I should cover.

No matter how much research you do from afar, there’s nothing better than sitting down with someone beforehand and chewing the fat in informal circumstances.

At dinner last night Dr. Jill told us about some quite startling new research about the pineal gland that really ties in with the concept of a guidance system.

Dr. Jill has written a book on the Third Eye / Pineal Gland connection, and it’s effect on intuition. Here is a link to her book – It’s fascinating reading….

PINEAL GLAND & THIRD EYE – PROVEN WAYS TO DEVELOP YOUR HIGHER SELF

Today during the interview she talked not only about the Pineal Gland as being an underused muscle when it comes to achieving intuitive insights, but she also talked about the “Gut Brain.” She said the gut has more neurones than the brain – and it plays a crucial role in intuition.

By the way, everyone I’ve interviewed – including Swamis and theologians and Sufis and scientists – have all agreed that calling intuition a “guidance system” is a fair call.

Dr. Jill today went further and gave me even more apt analogies to a car’s GPS, and I won’t reveal them here – I’ll let you wait for the film – but what she said made so much sense! And it tied in beautifully with what Michael Tamura said in his interview yesterday, and prior interviews with Dr. Norm Shealy and Dr. Judith Orloff and James Van Praagh.

You know you’re on the right track when there’s essential accord with those from different disciplines.

Dr. Jill today largely veered away from Higher Self connections, angels etc – instead she talked more about brain waves, and there being a special band or frequency of brain activity where she believed intuition and clairvoyance and other so called psychic abilities lay. The trick she said, is being able to dip into that bandwidth and bring what you’ve seen, what you’ve learned, up into the higher more conscious bandwidths.

It can be done, with training, but isn’t that fascinating? And doesn’t it make a lot of sense?

Our Director of Photography, Pieter de Vries, (who ain’t very spiritual, let me tell you), found this stuff really interesting. If there’s such a thing as spiritual evolution, Pieter is crawling out of the primordial ooze.

He’s like a spiritual salamander.
A New Age newt.

Mind you, I think by the end of this shoot Pieter will be donning orange robes and adopting the lotus position and chanting Om…

I’m making this film intuitively.

What does that mean exactly?

It means that I am following my intuition on where I go, whom I film with, whom I choose not to film with, and how the film should be put together.

I have only one rule with this film – that anyone who has anything to do with the film has to check in with their intuition to make sure it’s the right thing for them to do.

Today was a perfect example.

I did a wonderful interview with a highly regarded intuitive healer and psychic named Michael Tamura.

Michael Tamura and his beautiful wife Raphaelle live in the lee of Mount Shasta. You can see the mountain through trees from their windows.

Michael was a key figure at the Berkeley Psychic Institute for more than twenty years, and some years ago he and Raphaelle set up their own business teaching psychic and intuitive awareness. They hold seminars all around the world.

About Michael Tamura 

When I left Australia I didn’t know who Michael Tamura was. Never heard of him. But this is how I’m making this film: I told James Van Praagh that I was going to Mount Shasta, and was there anyone there he could recommend I speak to.

Immediately James said I had to speak to Michael. It turns out James wrote the foreword to Michael’s best selling book – YOU ARE THE ANSWER. And today Michael gave me a wonderful interview for the film, touching on areas that no-one else has broached.

I made the decision very early on that I only wanted to interview true experts – working practitioners and researchers and authors. I didn’t want interpreters of knowledge, I wanted those with the knowledge, using it first hand.

Michael is one such person, so to is James Van Praagh, as is Dr. Judith Orloff and Dr. Dean Radin, as is Dr. Norm Shealy and Caroline Myss.

I’m getting a fascinating blend of views and perspectives from those throughout the world who really really know about intuition. These aren’t show ponies – these people are the real deal. I’m very excited by what I’m learning – and I’m learning more every day.

Michael & Raphaella Tamura

Mount Shasta in Northern California is a place of deep spiritual significance for many people. 

We are filming here – 

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We started off the day meeting up with a woman whom I interviewed last time we were in the Northern California Mill Valley area – Christine Hodl.

Christine works as an intuitive healer, and she is very effective and very powerful. She also has a full-on personal energy that for some might be overwhelming. She’s a beautiful woman and has become a good friend to Jennifer and me.

We then drove north to do an interview with Dr. Dean Radin, Chief Research Scientist at the Noetic Sciences Institute.

The Noetic Sciences Institute was established by Edgar Mitchell, an astronaut on an Apollo flight. On re-entering the earth’s atmosphere he had a mystical experience that he described as being like samadhi – a sense of oneness with the Universe.

He subsequently established the Noetic Sciences Institute in order to promote the research of human consciousness.

I’d interviewed Dr. Radin on my last trip to Northern California, however this time we’re shooting 4K Ultra High Definition, and if there’s to be a cinema release for this film, which there well might be, then 4K is better than the 2K I shot previously.

I’m glad I did the interview again because surprisingly, Dean was able to tell me about new research data which gives a plausible scientific explanation about intuition.

Essentially Dean told me that these new findings have discovered that the neurones in the brain work quantumly, specifically the ions in the synapses. The findings have determined that one single neurone can “cascade” an awareness within other surrounding neurone, and indeed large sections of the brain itself.

Dean said it is scientifically plausible that because of the quantum nature of these ions, they can transcend the limitations of time and space and can “travel” in dimensions in which all future probabilities exist.

One of these probabilities might be a future event, or an insight.

I’m not explaining this as well as he did – but he was excited that this new research could provide a lot of answers to questions about how psychics get their information, for instance.

He also talked about the Akashic Record and the Jungian Collective Unconscious as being just different labels to this dimensional information which could be available to a wandering neuron ion.

He told me all this in plain speak – easily understood by anyone – and I found it fascinating.

Dean doesn’t believe in God, angels, spirit guides, the Higher Self, or any other New Age spiritual concepts. However when I asked him what did he think would happen to him when he died, he said:

One of two things – everything could suddenly go black, and that would be the end of my life and that’s that. OR, my “awareness” could survive, and go somewhere else, and then I could research what was going on, and that would be fun because then I would get to go to other galaxies. 

Dean’s interview will be a centrepiece for the film, because he is able to explain how intuition works from a scientific and rational perspective. Plus he’s very entertaining!

After the interview we had lunch, and we sat at a table in a small cafe. The table was positioned wrong, and Lina, Dean’s research assistant, asked if we could move the table.

Move it how? Dean replied, quick as a flash. Through time or space?

After lunch we drove 300ml to Mount Shasta, where tomorrow I have an interview with a very interesting man. More about him later.

I go to sleep soon though very happy with the interview with Dean Radin. He is a research scientist with impeccable credentials, and his perspective in the film will be of utmost importance.

And, I sleep within cooee of the energetic vortex of Mount Shasta.

You’ll notice that I’ve changed the header image.

This is a photo taken on a trip to Jaipur India several years ago. It was on the wall of a building in the Royal Palace.

For me, the shot represents the divine messenger – the embodiment of intuition.

I guess I’ve made this change because this blog has also undergone subtle changes. It started off as a Camino memoir blog, and as you might remember I was going to shut it down once I’d completed my first Camino, however I was convinced by you guys to keep it going.

And I’m pleased I did, because it’s allowed me to chart my spiritual growth since then.

But the blog is also part travelogue, part personal ruminations, part tour blog, part social forum.

Above all though it’s never shifted from its original intention, which is to discuss spiritual matters, particularly pertaining to intuition. That’s why I called it “PGS The Way.”

So when Camino related stuff comes up I’ll still blog on that – because I still want to do a very long walk – about 2500kms – from my front door to the End of the World.

But I can only do that once my PGS film is finished. That’s the treat I’ll be giving myself once it’s all done.

So – that’s the story behind this new banner photo…

I wrote to the editor this afternoon. I told him that we have 70% of our interviews now, but the interviews will only represent maybe 40% of the film.

The other elements include:

• Dramatic recreations
• CGI and animation sequences
• Linking sequences
• Overlay sequences
• Sequences involving the use of archival and stock footage.

We’ll shift into this secondary phase of production once we’ve completed the interviews. We can’t do it concurrently, or earlier, because these secondary elements will be contingent upon the content of the interviews.

So they will have to be rough cut before we begin this next phase.

This is a complex film and it will be a lengthy process putting it all together.
But enormously exciting.

If I can make the film that’s in my head, then I believe it will be a winner.

What do you think Jennifer?