I have been working on a book for a long time.
The book is will be called Raki Without the Bollocks, and here is an extract of an idea I'm working on.

Newbie Group

A few years ago I had an idea for a spiritual and paranormal exploration group as it struck me that many people seem to be interested in the whole area but had very little idea where to start.

With the aid of few friends I created a group called the Newbie Group, the concept was explore some aspect of the spiritual or paranormal every fortnight, at first we met in a pub, then as the summer season kicked off we moved to a local wellbeing center.

Most groups or development circles seem to be run by someone with a particular talent, what was unusual about this one was that I had talent or agenda other than providing something that people wanted to participate in. Often this meant calling on the many and diverse skills of my friends to provide a small talk or demonstration each week. The only cost was a small a small one to cover costs, the feeling being that if someone took the group for one meeting, during the next they might learn something from someone else's area of expertise.

 My role during the meetings was to act as a ring master, sometimes asking questions to clarify some point. We always started with a small mediation and ended with one, this to me always seemed to make sense as it ensured that the group was always in the correct space and provided a very definite start and ending to the meeting.   

We were very lucky to have Dr Alan Jones supporting the group from the very start, what Alan provided with his immense understanding of how the mind interprets stimuli was a counter balance to the more mystical aspects of the group. Alan demonstrated that often what we think happened was not what actually what  happened. For  instance  for one of the earliest meetings he provided a  piece of film of a group passing a basket ball among themselves, what he did not tell us that someone dressed in a monkey costume ran through the group and waved at the camera.  Most of the group, and I hate to admit myself included never noticed the person in the costume. Only when told about the man in the costume and shown the film again did the everyone  see the what was clearly on screen for at least 30 seconds. What was very clearly shown that often we only ever see what either what we expect to see, or perhaps what we want to see. The human mind that by its very nature is always slightly behind events creates patterns to allow an understanding of the world around us. So in essence what we think has happened is not what actually happened.

The world that we think is so real and solid is often a construction of our own ideas ..

Wow that is a really deep idea, OK I think we better both take a deep breath and think about that for a moment.

How often are we sure that we see something, but when in fact what we have seen is our  own interpretation of those events. I'm not discrediting the validity of those experiences, just creating a space where we at least allow the possibility of  another understanding of those events. I have met many in not only the 'New Age' world but also in the more general world (to be honest I do not see any difference) that seem to be unable to accept that we are all fallible and that what we understand of the world around us is based on our own personal bias.

For example, if a car was painted down its middle in two different colours, say red and green. Two people on different sides of the car would swear that car was only the one colour. Unless they could walk around the vehicle they would naturally assume that the whole car was the colour that they could see. Apart from being a really unusual way to do a cut and shunt job, what this clearly shows that we can never be truly sure that what we experience is what actually has happened. This does not invalidate the experience, just means that everything is open to more than one interpretation.

I stepped back from running the group after I started at university, I tried to ensure that the group continued, but it taught me that often the best way to make things happen is by having a benign dictatorship. One of the other things running the group taught me was that I could it and did make it work. Some of the egos that that seemed very secure became threatened by the most gentle questioning and this was something that I had remember when Dez Richards asked me to co present on his new radio show.

By our minds very nature what we understand of the worlds is an illusion. But it is one that allows us to function in it, but please do not mistake it for being real.