I returned to the Middle East, a graduate of The Silva Method, diploma intact. There, I began to practice the Silva Method lifestyle improving techniques and becoming more aware of my thought patterns. This was when I started to write a novel titled, UNSHRIVEN, set in 1963, in the English Cotswolds; from a mind that I thought was, freewheeling. 

Gradually, an account of a tragic miscarriage of justice, perpetrated in the 17th century, started to weave itself into my plot and location. It would not be dismissed and I finally incorporated it as a past life regression experience by one of my characters. Then I continued to write what came to my mind's eye.

This is an excerpt:

“The yoga exercise continued...   .The clock ticked on, silence carried perfumes in from the roses round the open window and, as though moving into a bubble, a membrane of peace closed around and all was stilled as Ruth sank into a centre of peace and balance. How long had she been there, ten minutes, an hour?  No matter. Time was irrelevant. Time had stopped, like the motion of the earth had stopped and Ruth was at one with everything and comfortable in the oneness - until, like the silence in the forest before the storm, hushed, expectant and still as stone, even before the first murmured sound was heard through ancient and long gone trees, a sixth sense tensed and prepared for change.

The pressure came like the push of a thumb in the centre of Ruth's forehead, her mind's eye, a clearing window as the pictures polarized. Brown smudges became hoods, became monks, a procession of monks in brown habits, following close on each other’s heels. They came over the hill and down between the lines of hazelnut trees above the manor, crossed the cart track and headed down the gully to the ford: an unstoppable force, the power of the Church in its armour.

Evenly paced, faces concealed, hands together, chant hypnotic, marking time as sandaled feet relentlessly slapped the dry earth. Their plain song, like the dead words of old spells, strengthened by belief and repetition, holding their minds in tight unwavering, unquestioned belief. It was a force that would suffer no interruption as it marked the ecclesiastical boundaries and cleansed all evil in its way.

At the ford, now waving incense and chanting rituals, they formed into a power filled circle on the ground of a ruined cottage where weeds clawed charred stumps and desolation was rife.

 

Panic! A surge of heat on the side of Ruth's mouth, a burning sensation that increased as she focused on charred timbers. You have no right, no right, her sense of justice protested without knowing why, but still they sang with controlled monastic breath as the ceremony progressed relentlessly on and on. Sprinkling the water, ringing the bell, sealing lies into history by accepting injustice as truth. Leaving the burned flesh stain of bloody belief on this poor bit of land, pulling Ruth into a time that was not hers, cleansing the ground of evil where, she knew deep in past mind, there had been none.

Stop!  Stop this charade, she cried with a passion but her lips were sealed with the heat from this closed-in place and though her brain was working, her body seemed set in stone. Out there she was witness. In here she could only hear, could not move or feel her body, had no sensation of anything but a screaming mind and a mental energy that was not powerful enough to break through this suffocating stone chamber. Suspended in time but dear God, not lost forever. Please don't leave me in this in between place, forever, she pleaded as a wave of sheer terror engulfed her. Then, into that wave a voice called her name! It came again and as it penetrated, the nightmare scene halted, then went into fading reverse leaving her alone, less threatened but still trapped and that desolation was worse. Find me, please find me! Don't give up. All cried from deep within because her lips set against the hot stone, had no power to move. All was still, everything waiting as she listened, seemingly aeons, concentrating on the call to come again.”

......................

Months later, on leave in the U.K., my visa back to the Middle East, delayed (it had never been delayed before). I was guided by the most bizarre trail of coincidences to the hamlet and the 17th century cottages I had written about. Jose Silva said: ‘Call them coincidences and you will be amazed how many there are!’  Everything from the Hazelnut Walk, the gully and the ford, to hidden rooms in the manor house and a gravestone without a name, and much more were exactly as I had documented!

There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind, that without my Silva training, my usual 'butterfly' mind would not have had the discipline to channel this information and as a result, write, Unshriven.

Life is fun, look for the magic!

(c) J R Kydd, 2003