If you are anything like me, you will occasionally, as if by serendipity, come across a book you intended to write yourself.

As Albert Einstein put it, “If I keep asking the question long enough, the answer will be given me”.

The book I “chanced” upon is The Secret History of the World by Jonathan Black, a nom de plume of Mark Booth, Chief Executive of Century publishers, a British imprint of Random House. The author has used his many connections within publishing to amass an impressive array of data on his topic.

The simplest way to explain his subject is to state that science has become a militant materialist philosophy that believes matter precedes mind. Some scientists have even called consciousness “a disease of matter,” as if it were an interloper in a senseless universe.

This view is the complete opposite of what a majority of the greatest minds throughout history have believed — or better, known.

The perennial philosophy, as it has been called — that mind gives rise to matter — is still believed by the larger part of the human race. The last Pope, John Paul II, was taught in his youth by a Rosicrucian master. Following a car accident which nearly killed him, he had a spiritual experience which mirrored exactly what the teacher had taught him. Such was its overwhelming power, the young mystical Pole signed up for a seminary that led all the way to his becoming Pope in Rome.

The Rosicrucians (followers of the Rosy Cross) teach the age-old knowledge of idealism — that all is mind — in a Christian context. It is said that there are 20 miles of books in the Vatican library dedicated to this and similar points of view.

Quantum mechanics comes very close to idealism without quite letting go of the materialist base of science. There is no doubt that Einstein was a thorough-going adherent too. Everything he wrote screams “perennial philosophy”.

The problem is, the early Church came down very hard on anyone who challenged its materialist worldview, and, as Jonathan Black writes, today’s scientism demonizes anyone who as much as suggests an alternative to rocky lumps floating about in a void. Richard Dawkin is a prime example of the modern scientific inquisition. On the face of it, an alliance between early Catholicism and modern science is bizarre, but it’s a fact.

Most early believers in the supremacy of mind formed secret societies based on the Mystery Schools of antiquity, where spilling the beans meant death. According to Black, many of these societies still exist, though often branded with the tag “occult”, a word that simply means “hidden”, as in occluded.

Despite the iron fist in an iron glove approach of the present-day intellectual establishment, the vision of man’s ancient understanding of the universe lives on and thrives. As well as Einstein, the British astronomer James Jeans stated that, “the universe is nothing but a gigantic thought”. Isaac Newton spent most of his life studying aspects of it, so did C. G. Jung, the great Swiss joint-founder of psychology as we know it.

Buddhism and Hinduism are based on it, as are most religions, even Christianity, whose earliest exponents were Gnostics, a term meaning “knowers”, as opposed to believers. They sought, and many found, direct experience of the secret knowledge that mind creates matter, and not the other way round.

Dr Rupert Sheldrake, a contemporary biologist, has conducted many scientific experiments showing the influence of mind over matter, or “extended mind” as he calls it. His recent The Sense Of Being Stared At is a treasure chest of empirical idealism. His other work on the psychic abilities of animals is ground-breaking science at its unprejudiced best.

Black’s book is eye-wateringly comprehensive across the field, but concentrates on the ancient timeline and secret society aspects of the topic.

Anyone who has ever doubted the primacy of matter over mind, should read it with an open mind. It is a richly rewarding classic of its kind.

This review first appeared in Syntagma.

I have announced my new book, Mediate Yourself - Stand Out From The Crowd, over in Syntagma and on Twitter — a sign of the times.

The title is targeted for pre-Christmas publication. The publisher is still not set in stone. Announcement soon.

The book’s title more or less explains what the book is about, but not why it has now taken primary place above two others I’ve been working on for a while.

Superdemocray - A New Art Of Corporate Governance was always a long-term project and is slowly falling into place.

Cosmosity - The Natural History of Nirvana was almost finished when an Indian author nicked the main title, and someone else “borrowed” the principal theme. Writing an online running commentary on a work-in-progress is not always a good idea. This book has been put on the shelf pending a complete rewrite.

However, Mediate Yourself has been quietly writing itself for some months and exists in multifarious pieces widely distributed on many sites and blogs. It would be impossible for any literary pickpocket to find them and piece them together into a coherent whole.

In fact, so much progress has been made beneath the radar that I’m able to announce it now without fear of exact plagiarism.

The domains, mediateyourself.com and .org were also available, which is always a good sign. The site will go up within shouting distance of publication.

The only decision still to make is whether the subtitle should be “stand out from the cloud”, instead of “crowd”. The first is more colourful and unexpected, while the second has more precision.

So many people are confusing Dial Publishing with other imprints going by the name of Dial that we have decided to rename the publishing house, Syntagma Publishing.

All print titles published by us will now use the main branding of the business, Syntagma Media.

Owing to a lot going on at our digital publishing arm, Syntagma Media, the opening list at Dial Publishing has had to be postponed until 2008. However, we intend to set the ball rolling with an early series of chapbooks on a variety of topics. More later.

Recap : Dial Publishing began life in 1999 as the heir to Hermitage Press, our educational publishing arm which concentrated on distance-learning courses and textbooks.

It was specifically aimed at a British Government scheme which subsidized 80 percent of the buyer’s cost of approved courses. It was abruptly withdrawn overnight when Ministers found that Animal rights activists and others were defrauding the system.

Now we are relaunching Dial as a general non-fiction publisher, with two titles, one for our edgewise imprint and another for Hermitage.

Dial Publishing has two new imprints :

* edgewise : for new novels and cutting-edge nonfiction.
* Hermitage : for philosophy and spirit.

Dial Publishing itself will specialize in business and digital publishing. Its first title will be :

The Syntagma Story, followed by Superdemocracy : The Art of Corporate Governance, both by John M Evans.

Other titles to be announced in due course.

With Syntagma Media’s redesign currently underway by Thord Hedengen, it seems the right moment to declare our new business structure.

Syntagma Media will now have two operating divisions. The first, Syntagma Digital, will contain all our online properties — some 53 websites — including, three network magazines and the (currently) top secret plans codenamed, iSyntagma.

The second new division of Syntagma Media is Dial Publishing and will handle all print and other offline publishing and consulting work. This side of the business is set to swing into action in Q3 and Q4 of this year.

These changes will be progressively implemented and the present site developed accordingly.

We can now announce that the first title to be published by Dial Publishing in 2007 will be, The Syntagma Story — How a Cashstrapper Became a Serial Magazine Publisher by John M Evans.

Since Dial’s previous existence as an educational and textbook publisher, I’ve toyed with a number of scenarios for relaunching the business in the book trade. However, as Syntagma Media’s print publishing arm, it seems logical to start with the story of its creation, especially as Syntagma was started as an experiment in bootstrapping an internet business with the aim of writing a book about it.

Nowadays, with the plummeting cost of hardware, software and bandwidth, it is possible to build a substantial internet company using careful cash-flow techniques and funded by expertise and hard work rather than VC money. A credit card is vital in the beginning, but if you’re good at what you do and you have a sustainable vision, even that source of funding will fall away.

The book will delve into the secrets of internet success, both financial and technical. But it will mainly look at the flaws in the concept of “blog networks” and how the author converted the idea into a series of network magazines.

Dial Publishing is a project for next year, 2007, when it will become the print arm of Syntagma Media, currently an online publisher.

This site will keep those interested fully informed of progress on the project.

The reason for the delay is that our online Network Magazine, Syntagma, with its 45 websites, is taking up so much time. New partners in the business should open the way for our expansion into the print market in the new year.

Stay tuned for further information.

The Nirvaneans is my new book, due for publication by Humdrumming on June 21 next year. Here’s a little taster from the preface :

The basic premise of this book is that “Nirvanic experience” is more common than we might suppose, but often goes unrecognized. Moreover, it is not an abnormal event, but a sudden emergence of our subtle background consciousness: our Nirvanoception.

An American study showed that a majority of people claimed to have had spiritual experiences, but that a significant number did not want to repeat them. Even a glimpse of our real self-nature overturns every canon of the materialist world-view, and that can be deeply challenging to some.

Reality is clearly multi-layered, at least in texture. Quantum physics recognized the fact when it postulated an infinite number of dimensions in its mathematical equations. The danger of this particular approach, though, is that the further we stray from direct experience, the less our speculations are worth in any practical sense. Many of our religious woes are caused by the misconstrual of texts which sought to hide the secrets of our nature from the uninitiated. A simple adherence to phenomenology would make a difference to our understanding of many of the inscrutable mysteries of life.

Alan Watts once wrote : “It is especially important for Westerners to understand that high lamas, Zen masters, and Hindu gurus…are human beings, not supermen. We must not put them, as we have put Jesus Christ, on pedestals of reverence so high that we automatically exclude ourselves from their state of consciousness.”

I have set out here to describe the state of Nirvana—including detailed, attested descriptions of it—and the radical implications of its realization for the realizer. The process is mostly misunderstood in the West and is practically ignored in the East, where it originated in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. An extraordinary spin-off is that it delivers powerful confirmation of the survival of consciousness after death. It also gives us invaluable clues to the mystery of the Holy Grail and the wonders of the Philosophers’ Stone.

John M Evans

After all the publicity effort over the launch of Denys Val Baker’s: The Sea’s in the Kitchen, I hope to have news of the results soon.

The new Denys Val Baker is now on the streets, so lots to celebrate for Humdrumming after all their work.

Congratulations to the team and to Martin Val Baker in Penzance.

You can buy a copy of the book by clicking in the link in the sidebar.