About

 

I have sometimes referred to myself as being a ‘turbulent priest’, to better convey a sense of the immense range of dynamic – turbulent – energies and ideas that are my life drivers. Drivers which in more recent times led me to abandon my life as an academic and seek the higher spiritual quest of eternal truths in India.

This period began in November 2019, when I left my life in the UK, taking with me just one small cabin bag size suitcase and a small rucksack and everything else that had represented my life until then I had given away to family, friends or charity.

What followed was an extraordinary journey where I travelled from North India to the South and back again, spending nearly eight months in Rishikesh throughout the long Indian lockdown during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. During this time I studied Indian theology and deepened my knowledge of western mystic traditions. With the gradual ending of the lockdown, I made three separate inspirational journeys to the high altitude temples of Gangotri, Badrinath and Kedarnath, where I had my first significant ‘enlightenment’ experiences. The following year I travelled in Nepal, making the high altitude temple Muktinath – close to the Tibetan border – my ultimate destination.

 

 

My first website ‘In the Spirit’ is the outcome of much that I studied and experienced during this time, drawing upon a lifetime of acute observation of the world and my work within the disciplines of anthropology, psychology and comparative religion.

But I have long been a voyager through life and almost all I have done can be seen in the light of pilgrimage to a higher truth. Temple travel has always been a key component of my later life journeys as I seek the heart of what is sacred within the kernel of many different cultures.