An interview with Nicholas Hagger 

Nicholas Hagger is a poet, cultural historian and philosopher and is the author of more than 35 books including his two latest just released: ‘My Double life 1 - This Dark Wood’ and ‘My Double Life 2  - A Rainbow Over the Hills.’ 

In this interview with Iain McNay, Hagger will talk about his life, his spiritual awakenings and how they have changed the way he sees reality.

In Hagger's words:

"I asked Japanese poet Junzabuto Nishwaki in 1965 for a distillation of the wisdom of the East – he wrote on a business card +A+-A=0. The Great Nothing. He explained that the Universe is a unity that reconciles all contradictions, that the One combines day and night, life or death."

"Libya accelerated my drastic purgation and remaking of myself. I was on the universal mystic way without realising it – I didn’t know that my dark night of the senses would help me back onto the right path of detachments, illumination and transformations – I would have to traverse hell before I could reach inner serenity – I now felt more intensely than ever that I had lost my way in a dark wood and was still searching for my right path."

"This was my first glimpse of the celebrated golden flower, the centre and the source of my being. White light flowing upwards, a spring opened up inside me, visions wobbled inside me, I saw a fountain of light... finally I said to myself , 'I surrender’ and I was drunk with flowing light."

Iain McNay's complete interview with Nicholas Hagger is now available on Conscious TV through this link

An interview with Jah Wobble 

Jah Wobble was the original bass player in the band, Public Image Limited (PIL), which was formed by former Sex-pistols singer John Lydon (Rotten).  Jah was 17 when he joined the band having never been in a band before. He came from a tough and at times violent East London background. When he was young, he developed a taste for short wave radio oscillations, they put him into a state of trance and he could sleep better. In Jah's words, the wave radio oscillations 'felt like listening to infinity.’  

From an early age, he had a strong spiritual bent having discovered the Upanishads and was captivated by ancient teachings. As a result, music, especially the bass guitar and his spiritual life became indelibly intertwined.

‘When you truly accept the bass as an emanation of God, as the ground of existence, you make a friend of impermanence, a state of flux, therefore the fear of losing what you have diminishes…you truly ride the rhythm – you will reside in the residence of ‘OM’, you can ride the sonic boom to heaven.

My bass playing relies first and foremost on intuition – it is necessary to remain innocent – intuition is directed from the solar plexus – the knowing sun in the guts.’

After years on the road with bands, he became an alcoholic ‘Whenever I drank, all the fear disappeared and the tension left my body’ but he couldn’t go on like that and became completely burnt out.  His Marriage broke up and he was left with a crushing sense of failure.

After joining AA and finding a real depth in his spiritual path life, he remembers:

‘I found I was grateful for every drink and drug I had taken because it was because of them I now had a beautiful and stable life which in turn led to a great productivity. I felt really alive and sensitized, I had simply grasped what it is to be human. 

Everything in life was sort of emptying out and becoming simpler. I was now at the stage of developing a meditative mind. There came a point where there was no difference between making music and spirituality – the world might have been getting crazier but I was getting better.’

Iain McNay's complete interview with Jah Wobble is now available through the link here. 

An interview with Jenny Boyd 

Jenny Boyd is the author of ‘It’s Not only Rock ‘n’ Roll’, a book where she presents interviews with 75 musicians about how their creativity functions. Jenny works as a psychologist and addictions consultant in London. In her book, she wanted to understand how the minds and souls of the artists could create such great music.

Her own spiritual awakening first started when she was 18...

‘A tingling sensation rippled through my body, everything appearing crystal clear. I felt like a channel for the deeper parts of myself, as if I was watching myself from above. There was also a feeling of unity. My search for enlightenment had begun, I was now on a path from which I would often swerve but never leave.’

In 1967 she travelled with the Beatles to India to spend time with Maharishi Maheshi Yogi (her sister Pattie was going out with – and later married - George Harrison at the time). Here she learnt to meditate. She became a successful model in London, and later married Mick Fleetwood, the drummer in Fleetwood Mac.

‘After many years of being involved with everything that went along with rock ‘n’ roll, I decided to go to college and study psychology.’

In this interview, Jenny will talk about her own journey as well as the fascinating process she discovered about musicians creativity.

‘Peak experience can happen when the artist is totally in the here and now.  A time of complete concentration that overtakes the mundane  - the experience of eternity right here and now  - by completely concentrating on the music, they are able to open themselves up – the result can be songs that come from nowhere.’

Iain McNay's complete interview with Jenny Boyd is now available here.