Recently, my writing group had the opportunity to get pre-release copies of James Twyman’s upcoming book The Barn Dance. (September release date) I have mixed feelings about Twyman’s work. His film Moses Code was a decent next step from The Secret but last years The Proof turned out to be an over-hyped promotion for a course that had nothing to do with its supposed theme, oneness. He was taking turns founding a Franciscan Order, playing psychic and waving a Kabbalah around. Or at least his interpretation of the Kabbalah from 3 days research.
The Barn Dance surprised me. It’s presented and reads like a novel but he says that for him, it’s all true. I ended up reading it in one sitting. He tells the story of his failed marriage, his ex-wifes murder, and being drawn back to a remote cliff-side 3 1/2 years later, where he enters a kind of dream-time in a barn, “somewhere between heaven and earth.”
In a lot of these kinds of works there are glaring misunderstandings that can be quite misleading about the afterlife but this one sounds genuine to me. Certainly he and those he meets are interpreting their experiences in their own way. A few small things I wouldn’t consider the highest understanding but there’s nothing that troubled me.
The story only explores the edge of the immediate afterlife. It doesn’t touch on other lives or deeper background for the story we each tend to run with. But he does face his story head-on in a series of both beautiful and difficult experiences.
He briefly speaks of parallel realities. From my perspective, there is a field of possibilities which collapses to a single time-line once choice is made. Then there is no “alternate choices”. That said, time is relative. The Yog Vasishta, for example, illustrates how lives can occasionally be lived within lives. I suspect this is more the nature of the dream-time he experienced.
It was notable he was faced with a difficult choice but used the dream-time to seemingly choose both options, although he actually had only one choice and it had already been made years prior. What the circumstances really did was allow him to both learn a lesson or two and understand the choices he had made.
The story explains a lot about his life and drivers. And unexpectedly offered some profound insight into my own life. While his circumstances and the motivators were different, I shared some of the all too common conflicts between marriage and career. Not to mention how our purpose may sometimes seem at odds with the consequences of love. It also highlighted the great strength we need to make it all work, a strength that can sometimes fail us.
In some ways, the core of the books lesson explores some of the same things as Debbie Ford’s The Shadow Effect. But it comes to it in quite a different way. A different way of seeing what you’ve been unwilling to see that will ultimately allow you to deeply heal old wounds.
Overall I really enjoyed the book. While it may seem a little out there to some and, at times, heavy, it rings authentic and deeply personal. And I loved some of the lessons he got, like “you just have to let go” and “there is no death” and “love is forever.” The book will be available in about 3 months.
Davidya
Last Updated on April 27, 2016 by
Hi and good morning, Davidya
I quite enjoyed the flow and thoroughness of this review. Hope Twyman gets a chance to read and appreciate it. Would enjoy hearing more about its similarity message wise to The Shadow Effect.
Share
Thanks for the heads up. Sounds right up my alley 🙂
Hi Share
Thanks. We’re having a conference call with him in a couple of weeks but I doubt he’s interested in a discussion. (laughs) The Shadow Effect is about seeing your “dark side”, the parts you’ve been unwilling to look at. The Barn Dance is coming to terms with death and the past, essentially the same thing. Both are a way of healing what has been, releasing us from our past. Both explore the edges of what I call the “shadow story” – the core beliefs that drive us to see the world a certain way and thus respond with resistance.
I would not say either in themselves would be a complete healing but they do take you in there and give the skills to do that inner work. Not only does that make life smoother but it sheds some of what can get in the way of awakening. Cleanses the windows of perception.
Hi Shamballa
You’re welcome. I tend to put stuff like this on a Wish List on Amazon. Then they tell you when its available. I then choose where I want to buy it from 😉
Thanks for this insightful review, Davidya. I had much preferred his earlier work, before he got all famous and hype-y and stuff. This one does sound quite good from your description. Hyperdimensionality is a favorite topic of mine. 🙂
Thanks, Muse. It remains to be seen how hype-y he gets in the summer promotions. His web site is more focused on “Dream Dancing”, a program that is an off-shoot of the book. “Communicate with loved ones who have passed” – “first of it’s kind anywhere” Participate in the “scientific” study and get a free PDF of the book. etc.
Hmm – seems he now thinks the entire book experience was a lucid dream. So teach people to lucid dream and you can connect with the dead. Something like that. Be part of the “study” and get the course for a discount. Oh – and they throw in the book PDF. The study appears to be to gather anecdotal data to support his premise.
The “payment” is not stated until you get all the way into Paypal. It’s $80 US. So it will be over $300 later on for the program. The book is expected to be $10 on Amazon.
Pingback: The Story Tells a Story « In 2 Deep