The weather's finally improved and I can write in the conservatory (well, sort of shed) without my extremities freezing. I've been doing that this morning and, half way through, I suddenly thought; 'the sun's out, it's a beautiful day, I've got a cup of coffee here beside me and music's playing on the stereo. Things aren't ideal, but this is great!' It reminded me of a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti:

One long boulevard lined with trees.
One pavement cafe in the sun, serving strong black coffee in very small cups.
One not necessarily beautiful man or woman who loves you.
One fine day.

Tags: poetry, ferlinghetti

I woke up last the night last night and thought some more about the strange possibility that we can be influenced by something we do in the future, as demonstrated by the recent experiments of the psychologist Michael Franklin.

On the face of it, this would seem to be impossible. There is no way we can be influenced by something happening in the future. Since it hasn't even happened yet, how on earth could it affect us? Time moves forward and we do things as it unfolds. Some of those things are pretty dull but others are a bit more dramatic, for example:

Read More...

Tags: consciousness, mind

In part 5 of my consciousness thoughts, I came to the odd conclusion that our minds are not only independent of our physical brains but of the whole four-dimension world of physical reality (three dimensions and time). Based on the research of Robert Jahn, it seemed that our minds could affect events in the past and the future. Our brains might be locked into the relentless conveyer belt that is time but our minds, as separate non-physical entities, weren't.

At that time, I could only base the idea on the research done by Robert Jahn but last month (jan 2012) I read a fascinating article in the New Scientist. It reported the experiments of a well-known and well-regarded psychologist called Michael Franklin, working at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Franklin knew that training students in particular aspects of a test on the day before the test should improve their results, something that I think everyone would agree with. Out of curiosity, Franklin decided to do them again, keeping all aspects of the experiment the same but switching the sequence of the events. Instead of the students swotting up before the test, he got them to swot up after the test, then checked whether there was a pattern between the test scores and what the students revised. Clearly, according to orthodox science, there should have been no correlation, there's no point revising a test after you've taken it since it'll have no effect on the results.

In fact, there was. Students did better at a test, on average, if they studied it the day after they took it. The difference wasn't great; a matter of only around 3%, but Franklin did a lot of tests to make sure that random chance was not a significant factor. The difference could not be chance. The students were being affected by their own future.

Read More...

Tags: esp, precognition

I've completed another television comedy script. This one's about four male teenagers who wake up in their school library to find that something strange and terrible has happened, leaving everyone else in the world either unconscious or missing. Unlike more traditional disaster movies, they're not thinking about how they can rebuild society, help other survivors and find a cure for what's happened. Their main questions are 'have any attractive females survived?' and 'if they haven't survived and have become un-dead instead, is it okay to get off with one?'

Here's the script. I've sent a copy and an episode synopsis to Dominic Lord at the JFL agency who asked to read any new scripts I created. Last year's script, 'just the two of us', hasn't yet been commissioned but it's early days yet. I've also added 'aftermaths' to my scripts page.

Tags: television, aftermaths, humour

Morning all!

Just a quick note to say The Golden Web: Part 1, my non-fiction investigation into ancient mysteries, is now available to buy. I could do another proof read but I don't think that's necessary. At the moment, the book is only available from FeedARead's website (they're handling the publishing) but it should soon be available from Amazon.co.uk and major booksellers. It is also available from Amazon.co.uk as a digital download but I need to test the quality of the file first (by getting a friend with a KIndle to buy a copy). Once all that's sorted and checked, I'll add a banner to my website and populate the Golden Web page with the appropriate information.

I'll also improve the content on the Golden Web page on this website so that it's more informative. To be honest, you really need to read the book but I'll do what I can.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Tags: the golden web, feedARead