Taoism and became his apprentice. When I returned to the UK in 1983 it was with the mission to turn the world on one way or another to the Tao and here I am 21 years later.
A barefoot doctor is actually a chinese metaphor for ‘humble healer’ who tramps about the place making people feel better in any way she or he can and that's pretty much what i spend my time doing one way or another.
What did you do at Whirly gig and how has it been significant for you?
I assisted people having bad trips or on dodgy pills that may have had ketamine in the mix – basically helping people who were scared they were dying or who were in danger of actually doing just that – provided music for the parachute set – deep ambient stuff that came out on Polygram in the mid to late 80s, occasionally leading a drum-off from the stage where everyone had drums – that was fucking wikid and chatting away on the mike in hopefully such a way as to enhance rather than disturb people's trips – it was mostly significant to me because it was there I first realised that what was really going on in the chemically-induced nirvana of the scene at the time, was people unwittingly practicing taoism. It was from that I came up with the urban warrior metaphor, it was there I realised that there were thousands of people who were into this stuff but just needed a bit of extra guidance to really make their trips sing.
How did 'Twisted fables for twisted minds' materialise and what’s it all about?
Kary Stewart, the Inca public relations diva, with whom I was working in the late 90s, thought it would be nice if I sent out an email message every fortnight as a circular to cheer people up and as she and I were into pushing boundaries wherever possible – in as tasteful a fashion as possible, of course – it inspired me to go a bit right brain. So, I started making up stories, which we sent out, once a fortnight, based on snippets of things that had happened along the road – the kind of mad stories that you only hear about or live through when you're travelling through South America or South-east Asia. I slammed them together randomly as my unconscious threw them up and they, of themselves, took on the form of fables, full of crazy characters and this being, maybe an angel, maybe a barefoot doctor who would pop up at moments of crisis and somehow sort them out, just as I do in real life, except I'm no angel. They wrote themselves into a full-blown story comprising all the separate fables, which begged to be put into a book. I was working on it as a multimedia concept, when out of the blue, Harper Collins, who'd been sent the manuscript a year before gave me an offer to publish them.
How in particular would you say people of a psychedelic nature could use the fables?
Simply read them on the loo or as and when you feel and take them as the metaphor they are or as the homeopathic remedy they provide to inure you to the horrors of change and suffering that inevitably come with every life at certain times – to laugh if you get the gag and generally be nourished by

Following on from that there seems to be a lot of advice for those unsure about which path to follow, how would you recommend they choose?
You have to let your fascination guide you. if you have some fascination towards yoga for instance, ask around for a friendly teacher and take a class to see if you like it – likewise with Tai Chi or whatever. The paths I most favour are the ones that involve your body as well as your mind as these engage the entire person and make you physically healthy, supple and strong as well as connect you to your spiritual source within, whence derives the power you need to progress in your life

What advice would you give to anyone who thinks they need some healing?
The only way I know is to ask everyone you know who they know who's a good healer – it doesn’t really matter initially which discipline you choose – whether it's Reiki, Chi gung healing, acupuncture, craniosacral therapy, psychotherapy, rolfing, homeopathy – what matters is the practitioner themselves and whether you like their smell, their vibe, their energy, whether you feel safe with them, whether you feel confident to let yourself go with them.
How would you say a spiritual life can be best combined with the demands of living
in a material world?
The key is to take some time every morning before you start engaging with the world and preferably but not essentially again when you've done for the day, to practise some form of psychospiritual physical discipline, whereby you touch base with your tao and get replenished and reinforced and spiritually empowered internally. If practiced every day without fail, within only 90 days you'll start to be in the empowered (tripping) state all the time, no matter what and on the odd occasions you fall out of it due to succumbing to an extra large wave of the illusion of the daily dance, you simply have to breathe, relax, sink into yourself momentarily and you're back on the board surfing again.

When Dallalia Wilkins – petite one-time New Age con artiste turned ex-healer, fleeced of all of her money and possessions by young Brandell Willard, one-time suicidal depressive turned drug-mule then con man – found an attache case containing six million Swiss francs and a fish paste sandwich under a parked car in New Mexico, she immediately threw the sandwich away and invested the money in a live multi-media comedy show in Barcelona. This did so well she wasted no time investing in a high-risk off-Broadway show that went on to Broadway in no time at all and broke all box-office records that month.
Dallalia was up with the New York City interior design craze for ex-Russian fighter plane ejector seats. She had one in her Chelsea office high above Eighth Avenue.
Why she tampered with the don't-press-this button, nobody knows, but as she went crashing through the sealed glass window into empty space beyond and was on the verge of a major coronary, a being appeared out of nowhere (maybe an angel, maybe just a barefoot doctor), who shouted, 'Never lose your faith, it's always worked out fine up until now', and then vanished to wherever he came from. How stupid, she thought, and prepared for the worst, but a strong gust of westerly wind altered her trajectory and sent her hurtling onto Brandell Willard, who was tugging his earlobe, lost in thought, counting the piles of rubber stock he kept on the roof of his Seventh Avenue light industrial unit where, unbeknownst to her, he'd been producing mass-market rubber and fetish wear, thereby breaking both his legs.
Next time you're in a mild or strong panic, don't think of ejecting – instead slow down your breath, press the centre of your palm quite hard for 59 seconds and repeat 'I can do it' till you mean it. Things will either work out (or they won't). Why panic?

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