"The Divine Spark"

November 25, 2020

Could psychedelics be the saviour of humanity? Is our evolution - at least in part - a result of our ancestors’ exposure to the mind-expanding compounds contained in “magic” mushrooms? And, if so, how does all of that square with the so-called “War on Drugs” that we’ve been fighting these last few decades?

My latest audiobook has just been published by Dreamscape Media, and its authors have some very interesting theories and arguments on all of the above.

An anthology of essays, curated by Graham Hancock (author of international bestsellers “The Sign and the Seal” and , “Fingerprints of the Gods”) “The Divine Spark” asks some very thought-provoking questions, and offers some very plausible answers in return.

The “Difficult” Third Book

You’ll probably be familiar with the concept of the “difficult second album”. Well, for me, this was the “difficult third book”…

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great book: 27 essays on hallucinogens and their relationship with mankind, written by no fewer than 24 authors. I learned a huge amount from narrating it, although I don’t mind admitting it was by far the most challenging piece of narration - audiobook or otherwise - I’ve done to date.

The challenge for the narrator is the 24 authors. If you read often, you’ll know that it takes somewhere from a few pages, to a chapter or two, before you begin to effortlessly follow the writer’s pattern of speech, their word order and so on: in other words, to get used to their “voice”. With a book like “The Divine Spark”, that voice changes every dozen or so pages, whereupon you have to “reset” everything you just got comfortable with and start again.

If I tell you that some of the writers are academics (writing in language that wouldn’t be out of place in a thesis); some are journalists; some are experienced “psychonauts” writing about their experiences; and some are Russell Brand, then you can begin to imagine the variety of writing styles and approaches the book contains. My hope is that a single “narrator voice” will lend a sense of coherence to the collection for the listener.

I found myself bringing in a researcher for a couple of the chapters (the wonderful Ken Schmidt, whom I’d highly recommend!) and also tracking down their author, somewhere in the depths of the Brazilian interior, to help with context and pronunciation issues. In short, this was quite a project!

A New Dawn for Psychedelics?

Since the backlash against psychedelics in the late 1960s and early 1970s, interest in them has never really gone away. Experimentation and research have continued - largely underground and in secret until fairly recently - and we’re now at a point where the medical community and science in general seem prepared to consider them seriously, separating out both the hype and the fear-mongering in order to do so.

With more than half of the United States now some way to decriminalising the use of substances like marijuana and THC, and Washington D.C.’s vote - during the 2020 Election - to legalise psilocybin, I think it’s a great time to revisit these fascinating compounds and their potential for humanity.

“The Divine Spark” is published by Dreamscape Media, and is available now from the usual audiobook outlets, including:

"The Magician's Way"

November 5, 2020

This well-thumbed tome has just become my latest completed audiobook!⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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William Whitecloud's "The Magician's Way" has been helping people find their treasure and teaching them how to live from an intuitive/magical orientation for over fifteen years. I first read it about eight years ago, before William and I met and became friends.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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I'm delighted to be the voice that's bringing this well-loved story to audio. It should be available on all the usual platforms shortly… hopefully, just in time for Christmas!

Find it on:

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William Whitecloud's "Secrets of Natural Success"

November 5, 2020

Here’s the background on how I came to narrate my first audiobook. You can click the play button below to listen to this content as a Podcast!

Delta flight 31 (LHR-ATL)

As the plane cruised homeward, westbound over the North Atlantic, Mike sipped his airline-cold red wine and turned the final pages of his friend’s latest book: a “how to” introduction manual for William’s life’s work of over thirty years.
How to discover what you really wanted, and then create it intuitively. That was the essence of the thing: William Whitecloud’s “Secrets of Natural Success”. One of its central themes was that of listening to your quiet, inner voice, and then - rather than forcing anything - taking the obvious creative actions as and when the opportunities presented themselves. As long as you took those “Bridges”, they’d being you closer and closer to your End Result.
”I wonder if William has a narrator lined up for this”, Mike pondered. Probably. William had a great circle of LA production people to call on at this point, after all. Why would he not have that covered? It seemed almost silly to ask, and Mike was worried about looking foolish.
Then again, as a graduate of William’s work, Mike also knew a Joseph Campbell-style “Threshold Guardian” when he saw one. He recognised that his ego’s doubt - its fear of rejection - might be the one thing standing between him and what he’d just realised he’d love to create moments before. Derailing your dreams - just moments after deciding what it was you wanted - was a familiar trap for the uninitiated, if ever there was one!
Besides, they’d known each other for years. William had taken Mike and his husband Marc to Africa on one of his “Soul Safaris”. And William had stayed at their house in London on many occasions. They were friends. No harm in asking…
This was Mike’s first flight on a plane that offered complimentary in-flight messaging via the internet, so he fired off a quick message, and imagined it (via the marvels of finally living in the future he’d always knew he belonged in) arriving seconds later in Santa Monica. Some pleasantries, and then straight to that obvious action…
“Forgive me if this sounds presumptions, but I thought, at various points while I was reading it, that I’d love to narrate the audiobook, if there isn’t one already, of course.”
The reply came back less than a minute later:
“You know what, I’d love you to. Why didn’t I think of it before??? I’ve been looking for someone and there you are in plain sight!!!”

The Fourth Step of Natural Success: Following Through

A few weeks later, following exactly the principles outlined in the book - and with the obvious actions consistently taken - the End Result was the audio version, ready for publication: my first full-length audiobook!

Although I'd narrated short stories, long-form audiobook narration was always something I'd been prepared to leave for other voice actors with longer attention spans.

This was a great learning experience for me. I learned that I have more patience for long narration projects than I'd given myself credit for, and that I enjoyed the structure of having a long job that I could break down into milestones. And as someone who loses track of what eventually happens to most of their work the moment I hit "send", it was great to see the End Result of this as a lasting and tangible piece of work, ready for download, for everyone to enjoy.

I also learned a lot about the craft of audiobook narration and production: narrating, producing and editing the entire thing, and mastering it for distribution. It’s fair to say I developed a newfound respect for my audiobook colleagues, whose ranks I’m honoured to join. (I’ve since learned to leave the later parts to a valued team member, to improve quality control and further streamline the process.)

Truth, love and wisdom

The book is also timely: it deals with how to shift your focus from your current reality to what you’d love to create, and then move forward on that path. At time of writing, in 2020 of all years, I think a lot of us could use some of that right now.

— Mike Cooper, November 2020