Introduction

Finalist Best New Age Non-Fiction USA Book News 2008 The book is about a whole new way to interpret your life. It is a brand new esoteric theory with it's own concepts and terminology. It is meant to stand alongside other systems like astrology, numerology, palmistry etc. This is territory never before explored, yet it is based on a weight of evidence. The whole book uses the metaphor of a train taking a journey and stopping at certain stations. This image is presented as the ultimate enigma. I was led to write this book over many years, as certain key observations were made in my work as a career counsellor. I am thus not so much someone who went to the top of the mountain for inspiration, but who built things slowly as more bits of the puzzle came to me. I understood at age 55 that I was meant to write this book as I explain in detail. If I can't back up what I say and make my theory relevant to everyone, then it won't deserve a place. All readers are thus pioneers and I hope you will never look at your life the same way again when you finish. The implications of Life Cycles being correct are enormous.

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Excerpt

PROLOGUE

There is a popular saying, that in its polite form is:- “misfortune happens”. No one can deny that this is true. It is also true in reverse, that fortune happens as well. In the great poker game of life we have all experienced some lucky breaks, along with some really bad beats. This is the area I will be exploring in this book. Only I will be exploring it in a totally specific way. I will be looking at what fortune and misfortune occur in just a few key years. Now I don't deny for a minute that this is selective and that fortune and misfortune happen all the time in a seemingly random way. Except I don't see the really big events in your life happening totally randomly. This is new territory and I am inviting you to explore it with me. You see the niche that my theory Life Cycles occupies is unique. It is best described as simply a brand new way to analyse your life. But of course it is a lot more than that.

Life Cycles states that we live our lives in symbolically repeatable 12 year cycles. There are two years out of the 12 where we are more "out of control" of events and fate can more readily take its course. These are known as the "Significant Years". Life Cycles is evidence-based, so it relies on examining the life history of the subject and interpreting the biographical data. It is a positive philosophy that encourages you to examine your own life and look for clues from the past to help guide your understanding of the present and the near future. It will introduce a whole range of new terms and icons never seen before. It is a brand new branch of esoteric knowledge.

However let me also start by qualifying what Life Cycles is not. Firstly, it has nothing to do with astrology and the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter around the sun. It equally has nothing whatsoever to do with Chinese astrology and the fact that there are 12 animals, that govern the supposed personalities of natives born in that year. Chinese astrology also has five elements:- wood, water, metal, fire and earth; that taken together constitute a 60 year cycle of recurrence.

It does not purport to be a religion. It contains none of the typical features, such as a named God or a code of moral behaviour, although it does acknowledge that there is often both commission of and reckoning for anti-social behaviour according to certain years. It does not promise salvation. It does however, offer the potential of a profound level of insight into the purpose of your life, whether you are religious or not. I do not ask you to believe in it before you have studied it. After that the decision is yours.

Neither is it science. There may be the testing of hypothesis and an attempt to allow measurement of results, but it is in the final analysis too subjective. I am very interested in what science may make of it, but I expect to suffer from allegations of lack of rigour and use of bias. It will on the other hand, put some other well known esoteric approaches in the shade, when it comes to verification of evidence.

It is not sociology either, even though I was initially much drawn to the excellent work of Gail Sheehy in Passages. The cycles apply to all and have nothing to say about which decade you were born in, or social demographics, or other life circumstances.

It does share some elements in common with psychology and as this is my background, some may see it in the vein of the work of Carl Jung and the use of the collective unconscious and of totems and symbols. It does use individual casework and analysis and ultimately report writing based on interpretative data. But it is not yet another theory about behaviour. It is very proscriptive and has no concern about personality and motives. It has some outlandish views on time. No, it is not exactly psychology.

It is, of course, an esoteric theory. By esoteric, I mean it contains secret and hidden information, which is part of a private revelation I am sharing with you. It contains new symbols and new terminology and is a totally different approach to living your life. It does talk of casting into the near future, but not in the way psychics and fortune tellers do.

But then again it is much more mundane and factual than your typical occult group. It is inclusive and evidence-based and so universal, that all I do to summon up the magic is read the paper and watch the T.V. If other groups say they get special knowledge by divining the meaning of objects and natural occurrences; like fire and cards and dreams and eggs and tea leaves and body parts and pebbles and water and weather and wild animals and mice (yes believe it or not mice!), then I get my special knowledge from lives.

So I hope you are ready for a journey we will take together. It will take you through the lives of many others and help you to understand your own life from a brand new context. Armed with this information you will be able to analyse your life's symbolic purpose and look at the future in a different way. These insights will guide you and make you wiser. I guarantee you will start using this method on all your friends and family, not to mention your favourite stars and personalities.

I can hear the rumble of engines turning over and the announcer coming over the loud speaker:- “Time to get aboard!”. “Time to get aboard!”. There’s a train you have to catch and it's standing at a far platform, all shiny and new. You hurry towards it, when all of a sudden it hits you. Where are the other passengers? Surely they must have heard? And then as you get closer, your pace begins to slacken and you get an eerie feeling you are all alone. What on earth is this? You are not at all sure about hurrying beforehand. And there you are in the middle of the platform all alone and the doors to a well appointed carriage slide noiselessly open… view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. What conclusions can you make regarding this entirely new system of knowledge?

2. Does Life Cycles apply to your own life or others you know well?

3. What do you think of the claim that the statistical evidence is the strongest for any esoteric theory?

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