This page is the index page to the personal diaries of the author, myself. I started them when I left school around 1986 and have kept them ever since. Originally in books, they have been written digitally since around 1997. The first books were about rebellion and being free of school, but rapidly once free of schooling, my mind turned to it's lifelong interest, magic, spirituality and transpersonal psychology. Thus the diaries are a record of my twenty year journey, starting as an angry teenager soon to be imprisoned with agoraphobia, to the homeless wanderer travelling the world and practicing ... my practice!

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Zi Ye - Chinese folk song

All night I could not sleep
because of moonlight on my bed.
I kept hearing a voice calling,
Out of nowhere, a voice answered, yes.

The Diary

1986-1988 The First Ever Diary

I saw a book in the stationers one day, and started writing. I was still so bitter about my negative experience of schooling, I wrote mostly about happily doing and being nothing.

Little did I know that in twenty years time, after a spiritual oddysey and life traveling Asia, there would be things called 'cybercafes', and I'd know enough about computers to be uploading them onto a massive seris of interlinked documents called, 'The Internet'...

I didn't know that that book, of sadness and anger and the console of writing it down would become so important to me, what an amazing adventure of magic and spirituality it was all to become. If someone had have told me I'd still be keeping it in two decades time, I would have argued that I wouldn't be alive by then!

I notice my writing had a left slant back then... it's upright now. Is that good?

86-88 Red Punk Diary Thumbs

1988 Diary (Second (Yellow))

Spirituality was budding, but I was still into rebellion, thanks to the awful schooling experience and my sister hoping I'd fail at everything.

88 Yellow Diary (2nd) thumbs

Severed Cords

First attempt at a novel, 1988, old dot matrix printer. Valient effort but never finished!

Severed Cords 1988 - Thumbs

1989 Spiritual Excercises Diary

I had the strange idea at the time, that spirituality was a type of education that should be like schooling, with set reading and set exercises to be performed by rote.

!989 Occult Excercises Thumbs

1988 - 1990 - I Ching and Urban Safety

This started out as an address book, but I ended up writing the I Ching by hand in it, also notes about urban safety, which I thought a lot about at the time, basically never feeling safe when out.

Astrology Prediction Diary89-90

Astral Projection Diary 1990

Practical Kabbalistic Magic 1990 Magic Invocation Diary 1990

Practical Kabbalistic Magic 1990

Magic Invocation Diary 1990

Diary of Occult Ritual 1990

Occult Diary Sep 1990

Soul Mates 1990

Soulmate Notes and General Notebook 90ish

Second attempt at a novel, also never completed.

1990 Soulmate Duplicate Thumbs

1990ish I Ching and Urban Safely Thumbs

Soulmate Notes and General Notebook 90ish

Gold Diary 16th Febuary 1989 to 13th Febuary 1990

Practicing Magic, living at A's in England.

160289Thumbs

1991 Will Development Record

Visualisation Diary 1991

Yoga Diary Feb 91

Self Improvment Diary April 91

Diazapam Diary Sep 91

3rd August 1992 - 19th September 1992

Started practicing the 7 month magic. Went to Cornwall with my sister.

031092-Thumbs

92 Travel Plan Notebook

Link and Surrey Training Thumbs

7 Month Magic

7 Month Magic Thumbs

Before Leaving Thumbs Archive

Negative photos taken late nineties, of life generally, scanned on a low quality scanner with the colours a bit washed out, but generally it's all there and included as interest.

Colourful Filofax Diary 1992

The first item I ever obtained using magic. I made flourescent pages and cast my horoscope for every single day in 1992. I, evidently had far too much time on my hands in those days.

ColourfulFilofaxAstrology92Thumbs

College Notes 1992

College Notes 92 Thumbs

General Diary Sep 92

Diary Sep 92 Book of Shadows Bk2

Diary 021092-1802930-LastBeforeLeaving-GhanditoCNY

Copied 1st Leaving Pictures

The Before Leaving Galleries

Photography, writing and spirituality were early lifelong passions. I used to use photography not only to record my life but also to feel I was getting somewhere and sharing a piece of myself somehow.

I had an idea that I would go off to Asia and settle and one day sort them all out into albums and project the slides and just enjoy them, when I have a settled life and a home in Asia.

As it turns out, I've grown up, and am sitting in Starbucks in Thailand living on the road, not putting them in albums, but using a computer and the Internet. Not what I expected, but I'm happy nethertheless.

These are mostly negative film copied on a cheap scanner and the quality isn't always great, most of the colours are off. I've done what I can with the better ones.

Various pictures of me
Artsy-type pictures I couldn't place anywhere else.
Northampton Baloon Festival

One of the few things the place I was born is 'famous' for, along with shoe making, Barclaycard HQ, Carlsberg UKHQ, Charles Bradshaw (well-known atheist/sectarian) and Francis Crick (co-founder of DNA).

The Burglary

We were burgled when I was alone sleeping in the house. I might have left the door open, though various people had a key.

Of course my 'brother' came home drunk and overreacted.

I had a steel box which contained the seven month magic, which had been forced open and thrown over the floor.

Chinese New Year

I think this was '93 shortly before I left. I always had an affinity with Hyde Park, and the seven month magick was in the Serpentine. The previous year I'd had a 'difficult time' at a Vietnamese event, and went down to the Chinese one in London.

Northampton College

I got an A in English. I did actually really enjoy the classes.

Holiday in Cornwall with my sister, and babysitting at her house.

She met this guy who took her biking over Europe, but beat her. She had the wanderspirit for a while. She was talking about doing an accountancy course so she could work sometimes and travel.

Photography class and a trip to Derby

I did this evening class. It was OK. I didn't learn anything, passed but they never sent my certificate. The project we did was themed 'water' and we went to Derbyshire for a day to get pictures. I turned up in a suit and felt stupid. Included are various pictures for the project.

Staying at Jason's place

The guy he lived with had some time in hospital, so I had to go and stay there. I had so little confidence I sat there trembling and panicking. Next day I went back to A's but had a 'rising', i.e. an intense bolt of energy threw me out of bed with the thought, ' I HAVE to go back', so I did... and continued to grow in confidence.

When I left he thanked me for coming and I realised that it hadn't been for my benefit, but because he couldn't be alone.

I used to see him daily, then one day he just disappeared without a word, and came back married, took my driving liscence, then I never saw him again.

Life

General pictures from my life at that time.

Link Training Centre

I did an nvq in business administration right before leaving. It was in Gile's street.

Magick and Occultism

I did a piece of 'master magick' over a seven month period, but also pictures of other magickal operations, study, practice and life.

Misc

Oxfam

Taking the voluntary job in an Oxfam shop was another important part of my recovery.

People

People I knew at the time.

Places

Places I went to, some unlabelled here.

Reading

I went to the Reading Festival with Matthew Topp. It was only once; I think he realised 'how I am' and never came back, but it was an important part of getting better. Also, it gave me a long break away from A and her house and a taste of how it would be to be alone.

Surrey

I did a short tefl course before leaving thinking that I could teach English.

Gallery of select images at higher resolution

Duplicated images in the other galleries have their description.

First Foreign Diary on J's Birthday

Hong Kong Diary 1993

Hong Kong and Shanghai Copies

Australia Notebook 1994

Magical Practice Diary 1994

Diary July 1994 - GT Guesthouse

Letters received 1995ish

95 Letters to Me and Papers

Diary 121295

Apasia Synopsis

95 My Magical System Books

1995 Postcards

95 Postcards

Diary 12th December 1995

1st Draft of 1st Novel

Diary 121295

1st Draft of 1st Novel

Sweet Letters

Rejection Letters Post93

Letters From Me 96

Diary 15th March 1996

150396 Diary Delhi-Katmandu

Ideas Book Jan - Apr 1996

Idea Books Jan-Apr 96

Diary Sep 96 Indonesia

Diar

Ideas Book 16th September 1996

Idea Book 160996

1996 Non Fiction Travel Proposal

Drafted in Nepal

96 Travel Synopsis

90s mind maps

Sketches

96 Travel Synopsis

Diary July 96 SEandA Asia

Ambrosia Notes 1997 and general scrapbook

Diary Feb 98 Goa

Happiness Hike Draft

Aug 98 General Learing Notebook

Misc Writing Late Nineties

Astro and Homeo Diary 98

Diary July 98

Sketches late 90's

Diary Aug 99 Nepal

1998 Magical Attainment Recording Book

98 Magical Attainment Book

1998 Computer Learning Notes

98 Computer Learning Notes

16th June 1999 Homeopathy Diary

16 June 99 Homeopathy Diary

Annecdotes

I travel from place to place and search much the way I watch the turnings of my mind and seek. I'm rarely still, within or without. Am I going to find it? A panacea for the world's happiness. I don't know, perhaps it's not in my hands. Kai sara sara - this is a travelogue of the pursuit.

So in other words, this is what I've been doing. It begins with me in Kathmandu around October 1999, and continues to the present day. Earlier entries were part of my main site and are available here.

Much of the text is illustrated by thumbnails, which you're welcome to use for non-commercial use. They're available here. Click on any picture to see it full size.

I"m always so busy, but I'll do my best to keep this current, and hey, if I find it you'll be reading about me everywhere!

1 - Leaving Kathmandu

Have I wasted five months of my life? As my problems overwhelm me I fall asleep praying - and see my prayers answered the very next day.

2 - Evidence of my Neuroticism

At Kathmandu Airport, some may speculate that my behaviour indicates mental illness.

3 - Evidence of my Vanity

I arrive safely in Varinessi, North India, where using a guest-book to advertise my website backfires.

4 - Disaster

The day I left for New Delhi started well, after a fascinating encounter with a toy-seller. Yet Lady Luck deserts me as I'm robbed on the train, and lose almost all of my possessions

5 - The Angel - Around October 1999?

In Delhi, I conclude I'm better off with nothing, now I would be free. Perhaps I was relieved of my burdens by an angel?
As a painful anniversary approaches, I set off for Islamabad.

6 - The Golden temple

In Amritsar, I spend the anniversary in the holiest temple of the Sikh religion, then am inspired by the revelation of how each person's 'hotspots' torture the human race - and how we might cure ourselves. I also manage to keep my temper with an over-zelous bank official.

7 - Amritsar to Islamabad

The boder of Pakistan/India is anarchy. Islamic women have a punch-up. My bed collapses in Lahore - and I make it to the capital.

8 - Islamabad, and an Encounter with Danger

A friendly taxi driver explains why the recent coup is good, and that democracy is 'just a word'.
    I realise my vegetarianism is going to be a problem.
    The rude and heavy security at the Indian embassy is annoying.
    And the supposed puritanism od the people around me falls flat.
    Lastly, I could have been killed when a terorist rocket attack occours just 100 meters away.

9 - Back In Delhi

A Sikh festival leaves me confused and offended.
    The Bihar tourist board almost leaves me sleeping on the streets.
    I meet an interesting man on the way to Bodhgaya, the place where the Buddha obtained enlightenment and wghere I'd decided to spend New Year.
    I miss my stop and spend hours trapped in a surreal purgatory, my mind torturing me with regrets.

10 - New Years Eve - 2000 - Milenium

Walking roung the mahabodi Temple, the holiest spot to the Buddhists, Tibetans pray for world peace. Stars shoot into the sky. My watch beeps - it's midnight.

11 - The start of the Millenium

New Years Day. Western Momks that just don't get it. Weird Tibetans on the train to Delhi are a little too familiar. A terrifying teddy in Delhi ... and in Goa a miricle.

12 - In Goa Again

My family discover e-mail. Stray dogs don't link me. Mysterious men. A pathetic attempt to revive my "career". And the day I leave for Delhi, a broken heart, tears and the monsoon arrives.

13 - Delhi Depression - May 2000

In Delhi, my brain chemistry imbalances and I lie in a darkened room for too many days. I get it together for my 29th birthday, and decide to go to Bangladesh. At the embassy I manage to avoid an eccentric Ditch man. A dead human feutus lies discarded in the gutter. I make it to Calcutta.

14 - Bangladesh, and the Pace of Life Speeds Up

The first leg of the journey to Dhaka, Bangladesh. I get lost at the station and who helps me but... the Dutch eccentric I had two weeks ago avoided at the embassy in Delhi. We travel on together, and going over the border I start to realise he's a little more complicated than I had anticipated. We "connect" in an expensive Thai restaurant. He leaves for a monastery. My Indian visa is refused and I have to leave for Chittagong to apply there. A Canadaian reminds me how crippled I am. I end up accidentally living in a brothel. I try all the best restaurants in town. Then a bus, rickshaw, bus, another bus, rickshaw, an auto and a train get me back to India. I witness another miricle concerning a bat (the kind that flys) and a wailing lunatic welcomes me home - to my India.

15 - Calcutta - Far Too Much Time Wasted

Hassled by professional beggars, Robin gets in touch, I write 10000 words, only half good, and can't sell any of it. And, just spend far too much time there without achieving very much at all.

16 - Calcutta to Delhi, and starting a new project (at last) -- July /Aug 2000

A lynching in Varinessi; I'm cursed in Goddess of destruction ritual by an irate shopkeeper; the desolute death bed of the Buddha; and I make it to New Delhi.

17 - Delhi - Shimla - Delhi - Nepal - Delhi --- Going Round in Circles

Abused by the police going north, finish the New project, send it from delhi and no one wants to buy it. Up to Nepal and back. One huge circle.

The diaries changed around this time, as did life. I'd always been journaling, and when I started on the web it was far more in addition to written journals, and tended to be undated travel pieces.

But that kind of stopped at became dated diaries as I'd always kept, and I stopped keeping the dreams seperately from them. Until I used the Internet dreams were always part of the diaries ( and an important part of my life) and now they went back into the diaries.

New Diary - Log One 29 July 2001 - 10 Febuary 2001

I started off in Delhi dealing with a lost credit card. I went up to Udaipur but ended up in India over new year 2002. I heard from Junko on Christmas day. I didn't know at the time but it was to be the last post. The next day, my brother phoned and basically attacked me over the phone, leading to a breakdown. In total lonliness and desperation I nearly got together with an Australian woman, but got away.

Log Two - 17 March 2002 - 21st April 2002

I was in Delhi and went up to Kathmandu, where stress and general build up mean I convince myself I'm dying from a cancer, which turns out to be a cyst, but I'm given Prozac for anxiety.

I went up to Dharamsala and traveled for a bit with some Dutch guy I'd met, stayed in a haunted room. Not really sure when I got to Cochin, but recall the awful night on New Year I told my family I'd go back. It was New Year and a year since I'd broken down.

Log Three - 6 May 2003 - 4 August - Egypt - Syria - Jordan - Turkey - Romania - Hungry

Thought I'd make the most of my overland trip if I have to go back. I traveled, writing my LifeMagic project as I went. Starting through Egypt, I went through Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Romania.

Log Four - 29 December 2003 - 8 November - Hungry - Ukraine - Poland - Germany - France

I traveled across the five countries, staying in each except Germany. I finished the writing while in Hungry and sent my proposal to the only publisher who ever asked to see the whole of my manuscript. I ended up as far as Paris.

Just in case you're really, really, really interested in my inner as well as outer life, I've added a new page called Confessions. It was written to a friend during a time of severe depression and and gives the dirt on the events in my past that led to total insanity (or if you want to be quaint, we could say slight eccentricity but I'd say that was just kidding ourselves personally).

I've decided, after more than ten continuous years, to go to England. I plan to go overland straight from India, but can't get the Visas, and end up flying to Egypt and doing it from there.

I travelled by land up to Antalya in Turkey.

White Elephant's Limbo 14 Nov 2003 - 10 October 2004 - London

It was very hard going back after so long. First, I remembered why I left in the first place. Then I realised that my sister's gone mad. I can only afford to stay in transient hostels in London. My Aunt, true to form, hasn't looked after the things I sent back.

It is nice to see my mother again though.

I have to go through all the memrobilia concerning Junko and that causes a lot of pain, because my Aunt has destroyed or lost a lot of it, because I stopped hearing from Junko and some of this stuff I'd never seen at all.

A wanted more space in the house, so I got a camera and started copying all of the diaries, then destroying them. I ended up with just one precious suitcase.

I stopped writing to J, except for her birthday. I went to France to send the card from there.

I was thinking of trying for Indian nationality, which led me to meet my father for the first time in 30 years. We got on OK, but aren't especially close I guess.

I hate England, and manage to do what I really came to do, and that is archive most of my stuff and get away.

New Start

I finally get away, have a hard time in Romania, meet friends before that in Vienna, where I open the last of the post from Japan.

Night Page

A retrospective of dreams, without interpretations.

Pink Page

A photo page, starting from saying goodbye to family members in UK, and then traveling overland as far as Turkey.

Christmas Special 17th December 2004 - 24th January 2005

Travelled at far as Turkey, I meet this professor from the US and have a decent time, apart from being falsely accused of theft. Then I travel as far as Goa in India.

I get Junko's mobile number.

After more than a year of waiting, I phone Frank DeMarco of Hampton Roads publisher, whom still has the full manuscript, and his secretary tells me that he doesn't want it.

Disaster

Two disasters in one. First, a diary page was accidentally deleted. The other was an OBE/ clairvoyance premonition, of my mother's death, including the date.

I get as far as Colva, south India.

Plant Page - Monday 21st March 2005 - 13th June 2005 - Colva to Delhi

I have a very sociable time in Cochin Island and end up with a group of people, which is both good and bad. I go out on a day trip with a Jewish woman but end up upsetting her but I'm not sure how. I go out and play poker with UK uni students, then miss them. I get to know a UK Jewish woman, but don't like her friend. It's a warm, bright heatwave.

I start to think that there might be a herbal cure for my excessive drinking.

I come up with a plan to run a hostel in Europe and M is really enthusiastic about it, so I go up to Delhi and make arrangements to go back to the UK with the idea of settling on the European continent.

Cochin Island Experience

Photos of the very sociable time I had in Cochin Island.

The Lucky Green Elephant - 17 June 2005 - 24 September 2005 - Prague to London Overland

Working on the hostel plan while going across Europe, ending up back in London.

The 'What Happened to My Plans?' Pictures

Leaving India and getting as far as one picture in Amsterdam, where my poor, overworked camera gives up.

Disaster 2

I am in London with my plan, but somehow (and I still don't know how this happened) end up on welfare and homeless.

I spend Christmas with the Jewish woman I met in Cochin, but it's horrible; I just can't get on with people.

Christmas day in Bath.

New year in Oxford.

I registered my address as a homeless person in Hammersmith, West London, and applied for a training course in the travel business.

Starting 2006 - A Retrospecitve

I meet Nikki and her friends, fall out and never see them again (Thank God).

Get thrown off the travel course.

True to the prophesy, Mother is diagnosed with cancer and gets very ill, ending up in hospital.

Untitled 18 Febuary 2006 - 10th April 2006 - London

While I am moving from hostel to hostel in London, M is getting worse.

Moodomatic 16 April 2006 - 3 May 2006

Still homeless around Hammersmith, Mother dies on 3rd May.

The Black Page - May 2006 - London and Portugal

I see Mother in an out of Body experience, and we can say hello and goodbye properly.

Clockwork Orange 15 May 2006 - 20 August 2006 - London Portugal

I go to Portugal while M is buried.

Back in London it's hot. I watch the world cup. Start self-publishing my book. I get homeless advice which turns out to be useful. I meet the solicitor in charge of M's will. I sell my first book. Go to Brighton and get mugged, losing my phone. I get an MP3 player for ten pounds, and spend nearly all my time listening to Gill Fronsdal.

Pictorial Interlude - December 2006 - London

Around London, I try and market the book.

I went up to Hexham in North England, where I joined a Zen Buddhist temple for a while.

I am illegally searched in the street by a policeman, and bring an official complaint against the London Met, which is upheld.

I volunteer to work at a homeless shelter over Christmas.

Stretching Wings - 1 January 2007 - 7 Febuary 2007 - Salisbury - London

Dealing with the aftermath of Mother's death, and getting ready to leave.

New Chinese Diary - 18 Febuary 2007 - 28th April 2007 2007 - England - Hong Kong - China

Chinese New Year of the Pig, starts with a Strawberry dream of J, which becomes quite apt. I buy a ticket to Hong Kong on her birthday and leave a month later.

I fly to Hong kong, over to Guangzhou on mainland China where I start studying for two A Levels, sociology and religious studies, to sit exams 2008 and see if I can start a degree, which has been a very, very long goal.

Studying, traveling and living, I go over to Guilin and then settle for a long period in Yangshou, central China.

Indochina 2007

14 July 2007 Nha Trang, Vietnam - 23 September 2007 Sian Ream Cambodia (with long Vietnam recap)

I come from Nanning in China to Hanoi, then a very hard trip down the Vietnamese coast.

I travelled down as far as Nha Trang and settle down and have a good time. Reflective and meditative, life is good and I get a lot of writing done. The problems of how expensive my university exams would cost starts to become an irrelevance. As I'm researching a book about adult education, I find out that I wouldn't actually need the qualifications to start study at the Open University and start looking into it.

I had a long conversation one night with my Aunt. As I am about to put the phone down, for the first time in twelve years she mentions 'my little Chinese friend [sic]'. While she was going through shredding all the papers she could find, she found a photo of her which she lost over a decade ago and I'd spent months looking for.

It was only an after-thought to her, but it triggered some kind of mental breakdown in me, and I end up in bed taking diazapam just to get me through the nights.

Thailand to the End of 2007

25 November 2007 Ending January 3rd 2008

My Thai visa had been refused in Cambodia, so to be safe I'd flown to Laos. I applied for the Open University online and sent A the application for her to forward. When I phone her about it she has some kind of stroke while on the phone.

I went by land to Nong Khai in north Thailand. I start texting my niece Carly and find that A's in and out of hospital.

I went onto Chiang Mai, the place I came straight to after leaving J and haven't been there twelve years. I arrive on the day of the Lantern Festival and have mixed emotions.

Various phone calls to A lead me to find out that she was confused to the point of not making sense.

I have Christmas in Chiang Mai, then am in a little hut in Chiang Saen (the last place at the Chinese border) to welcome 2008 looking at the Stars and then listening to a Buddhist talk by Gill Fronsdal. I was in Chiang Saen having arranged a boat to China.

Includes an end of year wrap-up.

2007 Dreams Retrospective

I tried recording them seperately from the main diaries for a period and since decided they're better integrated into the main text.

2008 Start

Up to leaving Jinghong Airport.

Returning to Hong Kong 2008

Up to strolling along the Avenue of Stars.

Euro Jaunt to see A

Brief trip to see A, then back to Hong Kong for my birthday.