The Radiant Self is my 'Major Work' and - it is a real 'work-out' - for your imagination and awareness on many levels. After creating the first six ambient new age albums - The Great Great Silence in 1983 and Once Around the Sun in 1984, then working with Nevill Drury on The Mystic Pathways series of three double albums in 1985, then the much-loved Visions of Paradise in 1986 - I was ready to put it all together. At that time I wrote in my Journals that I thought this next album was the 'final one'!

The Radiant Self was first 'visioned' in 1987 after completing Visions of Paradise and represents the pinnacle, the centre, of the Visionary Journeys catalogue and holds all the intention of every album before it and it also seeded all the albums that came after it.

In fact, on The Radiant Self there are excerpts from the album that came after it, Infinity later, in 1988! Before The Radiant Self could be completed in March 1989, the 'parameters' of 'infinity' had to be explored and set in sound and image, so that the inward, Radiant Self journey could be 'nestled' into just the right 'space' - inside my being as well.

The Radiant Self is a two-part journey and the first part - The Journey Through - is an important and essential section - because if you can't 'get in' then you can't 'be in' the 'inner space' to experience the second part - The Realisations - of which there are five. 'The Journey Through' is an important soundspace that guides, prepares and trains the novice and the adept for 'inner space' where they can then undertake their own explorations and realisations within their mind and imagination.

Below you can see an annotated scan of the original hand-drawn graphic from my Journal #26 (which was titled 'Germination') in January 1988. It clearly shows in simple detail the landscape and topography for that first part of the journey. It is: 'The Way - in'!

If you click and enlarge the picture you can see all the different correlations between seasons and musical keys and months and elements relative to each minute (on the original 22 minute recording).

Click on picture to view a close-up in a new window.

Here is the text transcribed exactly as written from the two pages in my journal that preceded the graphic above:

"Mind is radiant. Mind and imagination are the jeweled silver screen in the theatre of your life. Back-projected on the screen are the diverse pictures of life and possibility and growth. Causes and seeds.

And you sit within and gather the fruit from life.

So, what shines on the outside through the thought-forms; what is the projector?

It is your own Radiant Self of course. However, to raise yourself up to truly perceive the highest truth, you also 'grow into the light' - you become: 'enlightened'.

Thus you can equate the search for the highest self as: a pathway to overall enlightenment.

What you discover though, is that the light that has been shining on you is simply a pin prick hole in the fabric of time - the doorway into something even greater - the animating energy of awareness and consciousness.

The pathway through self is to all. The pathway to all is through self.

Jesus said "I am the way and the light". What he actually said was "(The) 'I' is the way and the light (is the way)."

So, the radiant self is the key hole to infinite awareness. It is the 'bridge across forever'. Imagine... if you could journey up through the gateway into the perception corridor, see through the screen, enter the inner sphere and gaze open-eyed into the light of your own perfect self.

Floating in abyss - straight in - instant relaxation - no questions - no exceptions - Infinity.

Gradually manifest an intensity and have it blossom, after building, then fruit to a glorious climax." Japetus - Mid-January 1988.

In my actual dreams, around that time, I was climbing through layers of a jungle-gym scaffolding - that I realised later were layers of mind and archetypal imagery. It was that sense of dimensionality that I captured in all the different layers throughout The Radiant Self.

Author's Note: Researching this page provided an interesting discovery for me. In my memory, I believed that The Radiant Self was created in 1987, a year after Visions of Paradise (1986) but there is an interesting story about that time frame. I remembered that the second part of The Radiant Self album, called The Realisations, begins and ends with a one minute excerpt of the album that followed it - Infinity (1988). So Infinity had to be completed first!!

After going through the initiation of creating the music for Nevill Drury's Mystic Pathways series in 1985...

...I went on to create my best-loved work - Visions of Paradise in 1986... where I visioned.... what could be next? What do you find when you 'vision'? Visions of Paradise was my vehicle to reach up through the swirling miasma of delusion (see whirlpool in the bottom of the cover below) and look out above the inner ocean (of emotion). In the distance, through a waterfall of illusion, I visioned an 'island of Self'. It was my inner self, individualised consciouness manifesting out through into the physical world 'below'. I was looking across to the distant horizon where my island-self seemed to be floating. Above it was a vibrant glow. That was glare from my inner Radiant Self.

In my visulaisation I was surfing the inner wind of consciousness on 'the surfboard of my mind', steering with my will, and as I approached the Is-land I could see that the gigantic spherical glow surrounding the top of the volcano actually contained a giant luminescent pentagram that was spinning, as slow as a galaxy, over a central volcanic core. The pentagram had large opaque coloured spheres on each point.

But the question immediately arose: where IS the radiant self? Where does it 'live'. And straight away the answer: in the Infinity of consciousness! So if I created The Radiant Self then the deeper realisations that you have in that inner space would need to be 'seated' and 'enthroned' by infinite awareness. And so I immediately knew what the follow-up album to The Radiant Self must be. It would be called Infinity and contain all the 'Space sounds' that I had created for my existing work to describe the 'colour' of the 'infinite'.

So, before I could finish The Radiant Self I had to stop work on The Radiant Self and fully focus on creating Infinity - in order that I may know where to 'put it' (The Journey Through) - what was the 'frame' and 'bed' of the radiant self - and also what are the parameters for 'measuring' The Radiant Self. It is only from the perspective of infinity that you can truly appreciate the completeness and depth and complexity of that Self; its relationship and references; its context!

Realising that, I decided to leave the second half of The Radiant Self recording and moved on to create the album Infinity. When Infinity was finished after 3 months, I went back to The Radiant Self and started the recording process for the second section - The Realisations - knowing the complete context of the journey.

In the weeks before starting the recording I had dreams about The Radiant Self journey... climbing 'through' the graph... from level to level... looking forward and looking back. It was all laid out in the graph, so before I started I already knew all the parameters for each section and how they related to the other sections. The second part - The Realisations - developed spontaneously, directly based on my experiences once I had created The Journey Through and penetrated the inner sphere of awareness.

The Radiant Self disc artwork - the view looking down on the Is-land.

In my imagination I was visualising: floating on my back immersed in my 'erupting' Source at the top of the volcanic centre of my being, I could project my awareness up into each of the spheres hovering overhead attached to the giant spinning pentagram. Then I visioned my mind's focus being absorbed by each sphere and experienced five different realisations.

Between each realisation, my mind would travel along the silver tubes of the pentagram, delivering me into the next realisation-sphere - in sequence. The final sphere was the most unexpected - the realisation of the whole... of the entire journey - as one- complete - form.

The Radiant Self inside CD rear tray artwork

It was amazing, some 12 years later in 2000, to 'distill' the original music track down through my mind into words and now add the guided visualisation to the package. This visualisation brought a whole new perspective and gave in-depth guidance to the journey. Even though the journey is fully encoded into the music soundspaces anyhow - the visualisation brought clarity to the process. I literally played the music back to myself and then re-experienced the journey, and wrote down what I believed was the clearest interpretation of what I experienced. The words literally decoded themselves while I listened to the music soundspace and they condensed onto the paper as I listened - fifteen seconds at a time - and I described the story of the journey as it proceeded.

The Radiant Self - back cover CD

One of the unique things about The Radiant Self journey was that after Part 1 - The Journey Through, the listener is actually asked to sit (in their imagination!) visualising yourself as a now transformed, glowing radiant being and meditate on the pentagram and see themselves back up at the top of the volcano (still within the visualisation!) and project their consciousness up into each of the spheres. Then afterwards, coming back from the spheres to the base of the volcano, you awaken from that 'internal visualisation' so you can continue the original visualisation and exit the golden sphere of 'inner space' by retracing your original steps out, back to waking consciousness and the mundane world.

That is quite a unique workout!

Hopefully this in-depth story and explanation can help you gain a deeper understanding of The Radiant Self and the journeys and levels involved. Please ask any questions or share any experiences you have.

More to come...

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