LISTENING TO THE SILENCES
PEDRO FLORES’ DOCUMENTARY IS BASED
ON THIS BOOK
ROY VINCENT,
THE AUTHOR OF THE BOOK,
GAVE IT A SUB-TITLE –
"HEARING VOICES – SCHIZOPHRENIA
FIND HELP AND HOPE HERE"
And from the date of its publication on the Internet in
2003, the book has done just that – it has given help and hope to a large number of
individuals and in many lands.
My initial contact with Pedro came in a letter in which he
described the documentary that he proposed to make.
He wrote…
“I have just finished reading your book, and I am very
much impressed by your testimony….
My goal is to explore a different approach from the
psychiatric tradition, to show how people can live with their voices…
As I said before, I was very much impressed by your
book. I believe both your life and
literature are a truthful account of human experience and should be rapidly
shared with a wider public.”
I am pleased that Pedro’s documentary has proved to be
successful and has been well received at a number of film festivals.
However, as it lasts for just 11 minutes, it only touches
very lightly the ‘surface’ of a life that has already lasted for 88 years, and it
barely enters the covers of my book, which runs to 700 pages in the paperback
version.
Ah yes! THE BOOK!
First I lived it, then I wrote it –
all 160,000 words.
And now?
Yes, now I urge you to read it
Entitled Listening to the Silences in a World of Hearing Voices the book
is available free at www.royvincent.org Part autobiography, it is chiefly a DIY
Manual and textbook for those who hear voices and experience physical presence,
and for their carers.
“Hearing Voices” usually implies ‘schizophrenia’ and
mental ill-health. My book also
describes the many other and positive consequences of this widely misunderstood
phenomenon.
Having read it,
perhaps you will join with the others who write –
“First of all, a warm ‘thank you’ for making your
remarkable book available free on the Internet,” – Carer.
“Beautifully written.”
TV Producer.
“He writes clearly in a way that will probably save
someone’s life.” StumbleUpon.
“My son is in hospital on anti-psychotic drugs. He describes it word for word like Roy
“Undoubtedly, many have gone to Ashrams and got
better.” Indian Mother.
Having been invaded by malign voices and ‘presences’ while
flying high over the Mediterranean , one lady
wrote, “I want to thank you for writing on the Internet about your
experiences. I found it to be the only
true version of what I feel happened to myself last year. I had been looking for books to read on the
subject, but found nothing useful until I came across your account.”
“My name is James Douglas A… (ID 32----) on Georgia, US, Death Row. I hear voices and get physically
“abused”/manipulated by unseen, but very real entities I’ll call spirits of
good and/or bad intent.”
“My name is Al -----, from the Philippines
Having been clear of voices for some time, Al went to sea,
but in mid voyage – “…unluckily voices strike again, so I decide to disembark
and go home with shattered dreams… and suffering a disease which is still taboo
in the Philippines
All I now care is, though I have an abnormal life, I want
to be a father to my daughter and a husband to my wife. Now you inspired me a lot.”
Steve…, 45 years old, wrote from his home in Leyland , UK
“Now, at last, I can actually show my parents exactly what
I have been trying to tell them all my life.”
“You have saved my life by drawing me back from suicide… “
“You have saved my sanity…”
Some people are reluctant to begin reading the book
because it is so long – although, the people who need it, do read it – and re-read it.
They re-read it because they realise that every word that is written is
there because it comes from actual personal and ’spiritual’ experience and not
just from psychiatric ‘theory’.
Recognising this reluctance to read the book, prompted me
to provide two ‘samples’ of the text to help you make up your mind. I have placed them in my second Blog – www.roycvincent2@blogspot.com
Each one in its own way is a human horror story.
The first post, entitled “We had to destroy it to save
it”, is actually the first chapter of the book, and describes how my life,
home, family and career were virtually destroyed as the result of a medical
mis-diagnosis and what is now regarded as criminally inept psychiatry.
The next four chapters of the book describe how I was able
to recover and begin a new life – a vastly different life, as you will find if
you read the second post on the Blog, which is entitled “Oh what a world of
unseen visions and heard silences…”.
Forming the sixth chapter of the book, this post describes
exactly how I first began to hear voices and how I began to experience physical
presences within my body.
Even though I described it as a horror story, in reality
all that happened formed a prelude to a new life, and I am so very glad that I
have lived through it. So very glad,
because in this new life I received unshakable evidence of the existence of a
spiritual state of being.
My experiences confirmed what every culture that has ever
existed has found, and has then recorded.
They confirmed the existence of this spiritual state that
parallels and interweaves with our own.
I experienced ‘voices’ in my mind, and I experienced
physical presences within my body and senses.
I experienced the absolutely malign, and the absolutely benign.
And I still do, to this very day.
And yet, I have never become ill.
If you are curious, and want to know how my life developed
subsequently, why then, you must read chapter seven, which has the title – “If
you have a thousand reasons for living…”
I have found my thousand reasons, and many more in the 35
years that have since passed, and I continue to write about them. I write on this Blog and I am published in a
variety of outlets, and even though I am now eighty-eight, I will continue to
write for as long as I am able.
THIS IS ME IN MY GARDEN JUST A FEW YEARS AGO
AND THESE ARE TWO 'FRIENDS' WHO SOMETIMES KEEP ME COMPANY....
