angelic intervention
I nearly couldn’t write this book.
I wanted to. I felt I needed to. But when I actually sat down to do it, nothing came out. I spent several days staring at a computer screen, feeling ever less able to express myself. Every so often, I’d get up, go for a long walk and come back. Or I’d disappear into a quiet space and attempt a deep meditation. Nothing, though, seemed to help.
I knew I had plenty to say, but something was blocking it and I just couldn’t work out what it was. It certainly wasn’t a lack of personal experience. I have done quite a lot of cosmic ordering in my time.
I’ve successfully requested contracts, coincidences, offers, opportunities, insights and invitations. I’ve ‘wished into my life’ some wonderful people…and some great solutions to seemingly hopeless problems. I have (or at least I seem to have) summoned traffic jams to delay meetings that I did not want to hold and, when running late for meetings that I really did want to make, I have asked for (and apparently been granted) clear roads in the middle of rush hour. As for parking spaces? Why, I’ve called up cloaks of invisibility to cover cars left in tow-away zones. Once, I even manifested a house…The need was great, the situation was urgent and, whilst I tried to remain open to the idea of another solution, it seemed that what was sorely needed was a new home for a family in crisis. I cared, and I wanted to help…and, for various reasons to do with availability and suitability, the only possible solution involved a purchase, not a rental. Rentals can sometimes happen very quickly. Purchases happen at the speed of a stoned snail. Usually. This one, however, was all accomplished - from finding the property, to negotiating the loan, to helping the existing occupants move out, to completing all the legal red tape, to moving in the new residents - over four straight days. It took every last ounce of my willpower and my wishpower. I was mentally and physically exhausted for a long time afterwards. I now realise that I put more into it than I needed to. I could (and should) have let the universe take more of the strain. But it worked. Nearly six years later, the crisis is long past and the family are still living there.
And it showed me exactly what is possible when you ask the universe for help and then offer to do all that you possibly can from your side, to help the universe help you.
At that time, I had no idea that I was making what some people now call a cosmic order. I was just doing what I have been instinctively doing all my life. I was trying to reach outside my limited, physical self and make myself more ‘in tune’ with the energy that keeps this whole world turning. I was attempting to surf the sea of serendipity; to put myself in a place where a wave of opportunity was most likely to break…and then wait patiently whilst remaining ready with my board, so that when the chance came I could seize it, or follow in its wake.
I didn’t have a short, catchy name for this. I just used to say I was trusting that the world is, by and large, a benign and generous place…and that I was hoping to make it as easy as possible for the world to be that way towards me!
By then, I knew from experience that I could ask, within reason, for almost anything…and be in with some chance of getting it. And I had long learned, from much the same sort of experience, that it wasn’t always so smart to do this.
I was definitely getting ‘more enjoyable results’ by being open-minded and adaptable about what ought to be happening. My more specific requests to the universe were often granted, but it seemed to me, they often had a tendency to backfire.
I had, some decades previously, become so keenly aware of this phenomenon that I became inspired to seek out an explanation for it. ‘How does it all work?’ I had wanted to know. What are these goals and objectives that people set themselves so determinedly? Why does the universe sometimes offer us such spookily apposite and immediate assistance and sometimes show us such apparently callous indifference? And why, even when they have what they claim to want more than anything else in the world, do so many people still feel that their lives are empty - or as if something is somehow ‘missing’?
My quest for a half-convincing answer led me down many roads, literally and figuratively. I hitchhiked across America. I journeyed to the East. I studied psychology and (of course) astrology. In the process, I began to develop a lifelong fascination with eccentric philosophies. In much the same way as some people hoard books, records or china statuettes, I collected cosmic curiosities. Odd ideas. Unusual beliefs. Wacky, zany, offbeat and downright peculiar points of view.
Naturally enough, I explored magical practices and mystical insights. I researched Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, Pagan, Moslem, Hindu and Sikh beliefs. I also tried to find out as much as I could about New Age cults and traditional sects. Although I couldn’t help developing my ‘favourites’, I tried to be eclectic. I still do.
I also tried to avoid being judgemental, although I was not and still am not wholly successful. I get along fine with any creed or culture that effectively accepts intrinsic merit in other creeds and cultures. But despite many years of consciously cultivating a wider world-view, I’m afraid I still can’t tolerate intolerance!
What’s more, I am still very much a traveller and not a man who has reached his destination. After over thirty years of seeking the answers to the questions I outlined above, I can happily put my hand on my heart and say, ‘I still don’t know.’
I am, however, enjoying the search for those answers as much as ever. And as that search has taken me up and down a lot of streets, and round in several circles, too, I have learned at least a little bit about what some people might call ‘spiritual territory’. Thus, when a philosophy called cosmic ordering recently caught the attention of the British media, I immediately knew what was going on. The name was new, but the process was the same one that I had been exploring in all those ways, for all those years.
Clearly, others recognised this, too - for I suddenly found myself being invited on to prestigious TV and radio programmes to talk about this new phenomenon. Somehow, even the more sceptical, casual observers of my daily newspaper column could tell that this was something I knew about, too.
In this regard, they were quite right. Whatever’s going on in the heavens, regardless of what else needs to be communicated, I am forever encouraging my readers to have faith in themselves…and to ask the universe for help.
Nonetheless, I had a problem with that phrase ‘cosmic ordering’. It is a clumsy, inelegant name for a deeply graceful process, and has the unfortunate effect of implying that our entire, amazing universe is just some kind of giant department store that does home deliveries.
I also had a problem with the way in which it was being thrust into the limelight. ‘Hey, folks. Here’s a great new way to get what you want. Just tell the cosmos what you are after! Place your order, following these simple steps…and all you have ever wanted can be yours.’
I felt in honour bound to point out that, while it is that simple in principle, it really isn’t so simple in practice. Driving a car is pretty simple, too…but there’s a very good reason why we train and test people before we let them loose on the road alone.
Technically, to make cosmic ordering work, all you need do is desire something. But if you apply this without also employing some serious discrimination, you’ve got a recipe for big trouble.
I happen to know that some deeply spiritual people on this planet have similar concerns. A few years back, the head of one of the oldest, most respected religions in the world banned a traditional practice