I’ve long wanted to write a book which draws from my experiences with this website, the research and personal experimentation I’ve done, and the conversations I’ve had with all of you on and offline. The few times that I have tried to sit down and start doing it though, it doesn’t really work. I feel like I am lying or being a hypocrite when I sit down and try to actually make myself into an expert on any of this stuff.

The only thing I seem to have reliable expertise on is my own life. And not in the sense even of understanding it, what it means, what I should do or how it all fits together. But simply in the actual living of my life. But at the moment, I am way too close to that subject matter to be able to write about it and share the intricacies of it in any meaningful way. So I’ve been looking about for that part of my life which is universal, which I really have experienced and can share about, but which everyone else has also experienced or may be experiencing.

Over vacation, I realized what that is, and what I think I really am qualified to write a book about at this point. Basically it is: not believing but trying desperately to believe. Failing again and again until somewhere in that failure a breakthrough is made via the negative path.

The gist of it goes something like this: I’ve always always been interested in this stuff, whether you call it occult, spiritual, paranormal, religious, consciousness, whatever. There was never a time or a day in my life when I wasn’t fascinated by it. And yet, at the same time, I looked around and I saw so much of what I considered to be self-deception. I saw and heard people who said they believed things and experienced, saw, felt or heard or even touched things. And I desperately wanted to believe them, but couldn’t. I believed their mind was playing tricks on them. I believed they were lying to themselves, to me or were being lied to by someone else.

But somewhere all that changed. And what I would like to explore when I do write my book - is just how that transformation occurred. What did I do or experience that flipped the switch? I still struggle at times with extreme skepticism, with wanting proof, with wanting to believe somebody but not trusting them or outright suspecting them of lying to me. But those feelings are less and less. It’s not that I uncritically accept everything and everyone that crosses my path. But somethings different. I give it all a chance. I don’t stop it before it can even happen.

And that’s the one thing I feel like I really know about - this struggle to come to this place to basically stop not believing. And I think that’s really important. Because some people can just jump right into the believing part from the starting line. But others of us don’t even believe in the starting line. And I realize, what I’m interested in isn’t so much getting anyone to believe one particular point of view or system of belief, but simply to show that not not believing is much more worthwhile, fun and interesting than simply categorically not believing.

Maybe that sounds needlessly complex or stupid. I don’t care. It’s the one thing I know I can write about. It’s the one thing I’ve spent all my time writing and reading and thinking about and acting on in my own life. Maybe it will mean something or be useful to somebody else in their own experience.

On my mind now, as I gear up to that project is how to distill my experience down into something which can be used by other people. How do you teach people not to believe, but to not not believe? Right now, it seems like one of the easier ways to do it is by debunking consensus reality. And that’s not an easy task at all. I don’t just mean debunking propaganda lies or indulging in conspiracy theory, but these are tools in that quest, I think. As is breaking down rigid thought patterns into their inherent contradictions and unsolvable paradoxes. It seems that when you can unharden some of your own existing beliefs (especially the invisible ones you weren’t even aware of), that you can start making room for other things - whatever they may be.

In any event, it’s nice to have one of these small moments of personal clarity - of realizing what it is I’m good at, what I want to be able to share with other people, amidst all this other chaotic stuff swirling about in our worlds and minds. Hopefully there is a great deal more on this subject to come!