Also, I will need to replenish the war chest, which has been mauled by the past six months, so am interested in any random job stuff that is coming up that people know of. And any options of places to live, be it a flat, or a house sit, or even a couch or a backyard for a while, anywhere in the country really… everything is wide open. Surprise me.

Email is probably best way to make sure I get a message, or Skype (billydancingmoose). (If you don’t have an email for me, there is one linked on the sidebar.)

I will probably update the blog/tweet a bit but not sure how much.

http://twitter.com/#!/billymoose

At a guess, probably won’t read much facebook, or most of twitter, or people’s blogs. If you want me to know something, send an email or direct message of some form.

My local cellphone will be left behind. Will have various new simcards on the road. Will try to let folks in each relevant country know those.

I have had the privilege of reading widely and in depth during a prolonged period of self-education. This is a rare thing, and I am very grateful for it.

So: here is a list of the non-fiction books that are most highly recommended by the moose.

This is a really hard list to make. I want to get a sense of what has most influenced me, and what would be most useful for others to read. The real challenge is what amazing mind-blowing stuff to leave off; what entire disciplines don’t even get a mention.

I could rant at length about each of the books listed, and someday mean to, but for now the list and a brief precis will suffice.

Over time I have found the one of the most important laws of scholarship to be “always read the original”. Reading these volumes will repay truly great dividends. In some cases I am picking authors rather than books, as it is difficult to fit many thinkers into one volume.

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Robert Anton Wilson: Quantum Psychology.

Wilson is like the Irish Buddha. Compassionate, funny and wise, with an uncanny ability to explain complex things in ways that make you feel much smarter than you are, as he teaches you how to think for yourself. His books are wide ranging and profound, and totally unique.

QP deals with quantum physics, language, the mind, and how we make ourselves a reality tunnel to live in; it is gentle and funny and unspeakably brilliant, and will free up your view of things by stealth with its mix of theory and practice.

Prometheus Rising, and Cosmic Trigger Vol 1, are the other two must reads of his non-fiction. They are both also pretty indescribable, but totally worthwhile. (Also recommended is the audio set Robert Anton Wilson Explains Everything, particularly the 2nd and 3rd lectures.)

His humour, and staggering originality and clarity of communication, make him the best entry point into the world of ideas that interests me.

David Bohm: Wholeness and the Implicate Order; Thought as a System.

Quantum physicist and philosopher whose thought touches on the most fundamental questions of existence. Bohm is much more than a physicist. In my eyes he is quite possibly the most important philosopher of the late 20th century.

WATIO is about his take on quantum physics, and relativity, and their implications for everything else. There is one long chapter with many equations that will be over most people’s heads (sure was over mine), but it is interesting to read along the development of the logic. Also discusses language and philosophy, putting forward fascinating and brilliant stuff as he grapples with the deepest issues of meaning and existence.

TAAS is much easier going, taking the form of a weekend long dialogue he led, and covers analagous material in a completely non-technical fashion. Both are very brilliant.

(I often feel much of my own work is covering ground that Wilson and Bohm covered better.)

PD Ouspensky: In Search of the Miraculous; Tertium Organum.

Russian philosopher from the early 20th century. Genius in his own right, while perhaps best known as a disciple of Gurdjieff.

ISOTM introduced me to the best, most lucid, most grounded and practical model of human psychology and spirituality I have encountered; a genuinely life-changing experience.

The first ten pages of TO are still probably the most comprehensively mindshattering thing I have ever read; in fact, in many ways that is where my journey began, and the return was being able to say what had already been said, but from myself, in my own words.

Buckminster Fuller: Critical Path

Visionary genius, design scientist, humanist; original thinker par excellence; world-system thinking at its finest; one of the most optimistic paradigm shifting thinkers of all time.

Want to save the world? Start here. Not easy reading, but off-the-charts brilliant. Written the year before he died; a summation of his life’s work. Almost impossible to communicate just how powerful, joyous, and uplifting this work, and Fuller’s vision, is. (Actually, we wrote a – frankly awesome – song about Bucky in Idle Faction: right click to download Go Bucky Go, which maybe captures some of how rocking this stuff really is )

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Those four, in particular, are giants whom I am standing sheepishly on the shoulders of, feeling out of place.

Now two which are just things any intelligent person in the West should have read, or the equivalent thereof, in answer to the basic questions of where did we come from, and how our current world and ideas about the world came about:

Richard Tarnas: The Passion of the Western Mind

The best one volume history of western thought I have encountered. A truly incredible performance, weaving together the many strands of thought into one amazing narrative.

(An excellent Eastern complement to this is Heinrich Zimmer’s “Philosophies of India”.)

Arnold Toynbee: Mankind and Mother Earth

The best one volume history of the world I have encountered. Written the year before he died, and after his mammoth 12 volume history of the world, here Toynbee brings it all together, revealing the patterns of things across time.

History, in general, is vital for any understanding of what we are. Though also a highly problematic, impressionistic art. A discipline I wish I was better read in.

-=-=-

While I could go on and on listing many great books, with vital insights, I am also aware they form part of my process, and may or may not be essential to anyone else.

Honestly, the above would keep most people going for quite a while, and would gird you well to take on the world; the first four in particular feel essential, and have done a lot to shape my thinking and experience.

A bit of a cheat, as there are about 10000 words to go back and fill in, chapters that I sketched rather than wrote, but I got to write “the end”. The whole story is there, the structure and essence.

Hard to say how long it took. Started it at the beach last year, got a bit distracted this year, nice to get it out. A few months actual writing time.

It is a fantasy novel. (The working title is Mosaic: Imago.)

Fantasy was in many ways my first love in writing. Way back when, I spent a few years creating a world and a story I never got more than a hundred pages into, then got distracted by the real world and had to process what I made of that, which turned out to take a decade or more, and materialise in the form of my first novels and non-fiction books. Now, I sort of know what I think – I know I don’t know anything, at any rate – and this idea for a fantasy kept raising its hand over the course of a year, ideas coalescing into a mass, and eventually it was time.

The process of writing is fascinating. Particularly, I found it interesting to return to fiction after several years of non-fiction stuff. Fiction seems to go deeper into the unconscious, and become a form of self-directed alchemical psychotherapy. Whatever needs to come out, comes out. This time around I was way more conscious of this aspect of the process, which was interesting.

Also, in previous novels, there had come a point where suddenly the novel went insane in a way I hadn’t anticipated. The characters demanded to go in certain directions, and I had to follow. This time round, I didn’t notice it happening, and was a little disappointed. It is only when I stop to think about where it started and where it ended up that I realise that it did go crazy, but I just rolled with it; maybe because I had less sense of where the book was going anyway, and it was more fluid; a certain flexibility comes with familiarity with the process – knowing what a first draft means, and how much changes with successive drafts, is very liberating.

The first fugly draft is a milestone, but there is a long way to go.

I look forward to reading it, and seeing what I have actually done. Right now is mellowing in a vague sense of accomplishment, blissfully ignoring the work to come.

Essentially it is asking the question: given the nature of consciousness and reality and how they interact, what is the best approach we should take to engaging with it on a practical individual level?

There is a small group interested in such matters that is the obvious audience, but what I am wondering is if there would be wider audience, and I should look at making it a semi-public sort of thing.

So yeah. If this sounds like something you would be interested in, comment or contact me.

The topic is consciousness and reality, the nature of story, and bad SF movies. It is kind of amusing and maybe a touch mindblowing. It is about 25 minutes long and structured in a way that you would have to watch the whole thing to follow it.

It doesn’t have the Q&A afterwards, which is a shame as that seemed interesting at the time.

(The slideshow itself is at http://prezi.com/xvws90nq7rt-

if you find yourself curious about any illegibility.)

You can listen on 88.3 FM, or, more likely, streaming on www.vbc.org.nz

I will play Interesting and Good music, according to me.

It should be interesting.

Make clicky on the picture for more information.