Malcolm Stern: 0:46

Welcome to my podcast Slay your Dragons with Compassion, done in conjunction with my friends at online events and today very happy to welcome a very old friend Well, he's very old actually, but he's not that old but a lovely guy, William Bloom. I've known him a long, long time and we worked together at one point running alternatives at St James's, Piccadilly. And, William, thanks for coming on the show, Good to see you. And so we're looking at the theme of the show, which is how adversity has shaped us and how we've become what we've become as a result of the little tricks and trials of our lives and whatever else. So tell us a bit about yourself and what you've become over the years.

William Bloom: 1:34

Oh, within the framework of these are the Don't worry about the framework too much.

Malcolm Stern: 1:38

We'll get the framework.

William Bloom: 1:39

Okay, well, okay, potted biography Born in London to a father and mother who had just come out of Japanese prisoner of war camps Wow and were carrying their own trauma from that, and anybody who knows people of that generation will know that they didn't do anything to process it, they just lived with it. Because there were hundreds of thousands of folk that came out of World War II carrying a frozen disposition and not able to talk about it because there wasn't the space to safely talk about it. So that was an atmosphere that was in my very loving and understanding home. It was, and both of them came from families of refugees in the first place. So there was a family ancestry of um trauma, I suppose, and but I was brought up very lovingly and it's only in much later years that I look back and I go. Maybe I should have been a lot more sensitive and compassionate to the space they were in, which is quite, quite difficult at the time, of course, isn't it?

William Bloom: 2:54

I was little. I was little. I was very rambunctious, full of energy. My school reports all report basically that I was too clever for my own good. And why didn't I just shut up and get on with it? Sounds like nothing changes.

Malcolm Stern: 3:08

William.

William Bloom: 3:09

No, I know it's awful, isn't it? I failed my a levels.

Malcolm Stern: 3:13

I joked that I took my a levels in joint rolling um, I was always in the craft corner of a party helping joints anyway, um let's, just before we move on from there, just want to say that I've done quite a lot of work with with um thomas hoogle on intergenerational trauma and whether whether we like it or not, uh, that we are carrying some of the wounds of our parents. So I'm I'm sure, although that that would have had a great impact on them, despite the fact there was a loving home, you still would carry some of those wounds as well I'm sure that's true, but and this is, we can talk about this later.

William Bloom: 3:51

I'm a little bit bored with people turning that into a drama okay because I, I my, my understanding and my experience, my philosophy of life is that, by its very nature, it's unsafe. By its very nature, to be a human being, a human creature, on this planet with several billion other folk, all of whom are competing for space, competing for sexual favors, competing for food safe and one of the exercises I've done in workshops and trainings over the years, I've asked people how many of you were brought up in a family where everybody, without exception, of open hearts, just welcomed you right?

William Bloom: 4:42

and then I then I ask how many of you when you went to your school? As you walk through the school gates, all the staff and all the other students are going. Oh, it's lovely to see you, welcome. So in my worldview, human life, by its very nature, is full of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and that's just the way it is. That said, there are people who suffer extreme abuse, extreme torture, situations of warfare, and they are obviously profoundly affected, scarred by those effects. But at the other end of the spectrum, those of us who live comfortable, safe lives, which it has been for our generation, malcolm, it's been comfortable and safe. It's been comfortable and safe.

William Bloom: 5:57

I can't get deeply sympathetic towards the little squeaks about trauma there. You know, I spent 10 years working with special needs in a community college where I worked with refugees. I worked with victims of torture. I worked with 18-year year old single parents who had three children and were of color and had no support and the the cold face of people who've actually been hurt. And when I left working in that particular domain to work in spiritual development, psychotherapeutic development, I found that my heart was not wisely comfortable with middle-class people squeaking about their trauma and I felt quite often that the therapists they were working with were colluding in a loop of oh it's bad, isn't it? Some hesitations. There I don't want to sound cold, because I kind of think from a wise, loving and compassionate perspective. There are certain points where you go to someone, hold on hold on.

Malcolm Stern: 7:25

I think it's a really interesting point you're making, and I'm just reminded of the book soph, sophie's Choice, which is where Sophie is forced to choose which of her children is going to go to the, into the gas chambers in the concentration camp, and she comes to America at the end of the war. She survives the war and she talks about all the unearned trauma that people are working with, and I think there's something about what you're saying that we can easily make a whole big deal of things, and I mean this show is about trauma and how we've dealt with it. And for me, I thought, I think I got off pretty lightly until my daughter died, but after that I had to deal with the genuine thing of losing a child. But I think there's something that you're saying that we can become neurotic about our suffering as well, isn't it really? Is that what you're saying?

William Bloom: 8:15

yeah, and I I think to be fair to understand where I'm coming from, um, yes, I have a doctorate in social psychology. Yes, I did three years psychoanalysis. Yes, my father was a psychiatrist. Yes, I deeply honor therapy, especially talk therapy is profoundly useful. But that's not all I am. I'm also and forgive me if this takes us into a realm that is not normally traveled, but maybe it is go whatever.

Malcolm Stern: 8:50

Whatever realm, do you like what it's fine, I'm a miss.

William Bloom: 8:52

I'm a mystic, you know, and from the age of four, five, six, I was looking at the blue sky and I was looking at nature and I was just going, oh, this is just beautiful, this is just wonderful.

William Bloom: 9:07

And my mysticism has developed into a kind of buddhist, shamanic, gnostic perspective.

William Bloom: 9:16

We had, we had arguments about this historically at malcolm, because you know that I'm I'm into the rhythm of reincarnation, and you went not maybe really, you know, but at the very minimum, even if my sense of reincarnation is completely wrong, just a made up notion, for me it's a metaphor for the fact that as souls, as beings, we're on journeys and those journeys are basically to do with becoming more loving, more compassionate, more conscious, more compassionate, more conscious.

William Bloom: 9:49

And our wider context is a very beautiful, wonderful, benevolent cosmos. And the profound and awful suffering that happens on planet Earth, which is real and horrible and sociopathic and traumatizing, is nevertheless in this much wider context. And I think, when we work as therapists, as carers for people who are in trauma, I think a lot of the time we're actually ambassadors for diplomats on behalf of the greater reality, because we are there in that person's traumatized situation, bringing a vibe of love and acceptance and the fact that there's a meaning in it which will eventually as you said at the beginning of this block will turn into something that's full of growth yeah um.

William Bloom: 10:48

So my hopefulness and my optimism is not just a kind of humanistic wishful thinking. It's a deeply mystic, experiential knowing about the universe, spiritual bypassers who call themselves mystics?

Malcolm Stern: 11:08

I know you are not that, so I'm very clear about that, william. But I think that in some ways, mysticism can become quite flaky. But what you're talking about is something quite different, isn't it? It's actually seeing the larger picture of the universe, so I'm going to talk about that.

William Bloom: 11:24

It's awful. You and I were part of what was called the New Age movement, which was basically the birthing of the spiritual, not religious, community. And we have seen, I have seen to my dismay, it's commercialization. Capital has managed to absorb it. There are a huge number of flakes, snake oil salesmen and, worst of all, you call the bypassing. It's the folk who say there are shortcuts and there are no shortcuts and in that context it's almost a kind of Christian perspective. It's also a Buddhist perspective.

William Bloom: 12:18

Suffering is it just? It just is. And the birth of consciousness inside the suffering is what we're looking for. You know, I wake up inside the suffering. I either wake up or I'm just going to carry on being a victim, carry on moaning about it. And so I'm not a therapist and I'm a teacher, and we talk a lot about this with friends of mine who are therapists. You know, and you know probably better than me, that there's the humanistic, person-centered therapist who just sits, holds space and waits for the person to emerge on their journey. There are other therapists who intervene and then, beyond that, there are coaches and teachers. And what coaches and what teachers do? We have a kind of impatience about people's growth. We see the potential and our job as a teacher is to say hey, come on, grow into that potential, learn this, learn this. So I'm up the kind of hopefully kind end of the give people a little kick and nudge to wake up, because I think that's the real solution to suffering that you wake up in the midst of it. I think you're right.

Malcolm Stern: 13:23

I think that it's not what happens to us, it's how we deal with what happens to us. And I know, when I looked at Melissa dying, which is obviously my main springboard for suffering I realised after a while that I had developed certain techniques. It's probably the wrong word, but I developed certain means of managing struggle and difficulty that I was able to apply in that scenario. And so when I in 2021, I had a heart attack and I was in the ambulance on my way to hospital serious heart attack and I thought I might die, and in that moment there was a moment of bliss, there was a moment of ah. So this is it. If this is the moment, this is the moment.

Malcolm Stern: 14:04

And I've had a bonus three years since then, which is great, but all of those things educated me, but I had to be able to go through the process in the time it took to go through the process With Melissa's death. It was the years I was all over the show but gradually piecing it together, and I think there is something about that. We can get caught up in our neurotic suffering or we can get caught up in in what life has to educate us with is their meaning, is their purpose to life, for example. I don't know what your thought is on that yeah, I've got three little stories.

William Bloom: 14:44

Um, there was a professor of nursing in the United States called Margaret Newman and she used to say to her nurses look, your patients are born and they die. And in between being born and dying, they will have good health and they will have illness. And they will have good health and they will have illness. They will have good health and they will have illness. And your real job, my nurses, is, yes, of course, to care for their suffering, but your real job is to midwife the awakening of their consciousness lovely, that was one teacher.

William Bloom: 15:19

Now, when I was 25, I collapsed with very, very severe hepatitis and the medics thought I was going to die. And in that process there were clear moments for me. When I went, I can either complain basically about what's going on with me or, hello, there's something in me that's waking up and I, in my own way, neurotic way, I I woke up. It doesn't make, didn't make me perfect, but it made me aware in a different way. But then I've got a third story, which is about my mum, and this is a slightly tragic story.

William Bloom: 16:06

In her 60s, late 60s, she was involved in a car crash where the car she was in went off the road and went down into a bliss state and she had an hour of bliss, ecstasy as the endorphins kicked in, her consciousness expanded. Then she was rescued and a couple of months later I was talking with her about it and she basically poo-pooed the whole event and all she was interested in was the insurance company and getting some money out of it. So you could have your wake up and ignore it completely. Yes, and I'm filled with admiration for the human spirit that it can completely ignore the obvious sometimes.

Malcolm Stern: 17:18

I think that you know, when we have peak experiences like that, I think they are genuinely invitations from the universe to look at the larger picture, but we also have the choice not to look at the larger picture as well.

William Bloom: 17:29

Well, she certainly decided not to. Did she ever look at the larger picture? But we also have the choice not to look at the larger picture as well. Well, she certainly decided not to. Did she ever look at the larger picture? Not really. I remember in her last years a part of her mind went because of her three years in camp. In the Prisoner of War camp, where she was tortured. She had a profound cellular distrust of human beings generally. In the prison of Orkamp, where she was tortured, she had a profound cellular distrust of human beings generally but loved animals. She loved animals and she could envisage an afterlife in which she just lived with animals and was cared for with animals. And we know in hospice situations how important it is, if you can get rid of the nats regulations, to to bring in animals for folk who are approaching end of life.

Malcolm Stern: 18:24

Um, there's a safety in that connection that's very interesting because there's also a statistic that says that people have pets and pet them dogs. Usually their blood pressure is lowered by actually connecting with the animal.

William Bloom: 18:38

Yeah, I remember at St James's where you and I both worked for a long time, one of the clergy people there thought himself to be a psychotherapist and I remember somebody coming out from a session with him just going bloody priest, bloody priest. He just told me to get a dog. Why don't you get a dog? And he was probably right.

Malcolm Stern: 18:58

Yes, yes, he probably was right, you know. Yeah, and it's interesting, you know, because I see that people who are unkind to animals I tend not to trust them. There's something about if you can't actually allow yourself to welcome all life. I'm not about a mosquito or something along those those lines, but I think there's something about unkindness to animals that actually sets up a sort of a thought that there's unkindness that hasn't been dealt, dealt with, something hasn't been dealt with and there's a cruelty that can be there yes, I'm also suspicious of folk who are anti-pathetic to animals, but somebody taught me once if you're going to kill a mosquito, as as you kill it, say welcome to another reality yes, I don't care.

Malcolm Stern: 19:44

Welcome to another reality.

William Bloom: 19:46

Welcome to another reality.

Malcolm Stern: 19:48

That's lovely. Yes, there's a lovely story actually about a Buddhist monk who was teaching and this is not a sort of particular teaching story but an insect lands on him and he very gently, as he's speaking, lifts the insect off and lets it go to the ground. And there's something about having the spaciousness to not just react to what's happening around us. And ultimately, what we're looking at, what you and I are both looking at in somewhat different but also in somewhat similar ways, is the awakening of consciousness, which is the awakening of evolution of the human being. And I know that, for me as a psychotherapist, I'm not interested in just moving the furniture around. I'm interested in seeing what the potential that can be released is and who that person is. I know, as you, as a teacher, will have a perspective on that as well, and I wonder if you can tell us something about that, your your thoughts about consciousness and where that goes.

William Bloom: 20:45

Yeah, I start with the definition of consciousness and then I'll give my. There's a definition of consciousness that I like, which is it's so simple Consciousness is the innate ability of anything to respond to a stimulus ability of anything to respond to a stimulus. So the consciousness of a rock can respond to heat and pressure and time. And that's the consciousness of a rock. But it comes to human beings, we are extraordinarily complex with shakespearean and in the kaleidoscope of stuff that's in the kaleidoscope of stuff that's going on in our psyche, in our emotions, in our body.

William Bloom: 21:38

And so when we talk, when I am looking at my or your or anybody's journey of development, what I'm looking for is that out of that huge kaleidoscope, that huge constellation of dynamics that are going on in the person's mind and emotions and feelings, I'm waiting for a witnessing consciousness to arise. I'm waiting for a part of them to emerge out of it and go oh, look where I am Now. We know with mental illness that the first real sign of healing is that the person can pause in the middle of their illness and go whoops, I can see that something is awry here, and what I'm looking for in spiritual development is that there's an awakening of this witnessing consciousness, but go as the old saying goes the more I know, the less I know, and there's a mystery about the universe. Nevertheless, I can witness myself. And in witnessing myself, there's a different person in the driving seat.

Malcolm Stern: 23:05

And in fact, that's in all the religious traditions. There's still small voice within, isn't it so that's in all the religious traditions. There's still small voice within, isn't it so? That's there. And there's two things I wanted to say to that. One is that when you and I were running alternatives and we used to put on speakers and we had some of the greatest speakers in the world and through alternatives, and what I saw is that the people who knew didn't know. So this is just in response to your and for the people who are still in inquiry.

Malcolm Stern: 23:32

There's something else, and the other thing I want to speak about is is something that I've been fascinated with as I become older. I'm now 74 years old. I know that you're you're similar, slightly older possibly, I think, but um, but there's something about the aging process that is not the, the curse that many people see it to be, with the inevitability of old age, disease and death, as the Buddhists put it, but there's something about the growth of. There's more space for the growth of wisdom in our aging process, as I understand it, and I wonder if you've got some reflection on that.

William Bloom: 24:12

I'm a little bit cynical here, because one of the things I notice is that unpleasant young people become unpleasant old people.

William Bloom: 24:16

Yes yes, and greedy middle-aged people become greedy old people, and relatives who had a nasty vibe are just as nasty vibes as they go into their 70s and 80s. Relatives who had a nasty vibe have just as nasty vibes as they go into their 70s and 80s. However, I'll just speak for myself. As I get older, I just don't have the energy to run my old shit. You know, I just don't have the energy to run the negative feelings and emotions and thoughts that I used to run. And if I do start to run the negative feelings and emotions and thoughts that I used to run, and if I do start to run them, I can almost immediately feel a kind of an acidic effect running through my neuroendocrinal system. It's bad for my health. So yeah, I agree with you, there's more space to be watchful and wise and engaged in a way that's more mature, and I think that's partly due to the fact that everything else is slowed down. I mean, libido softens, which is such a blessing for a lot of people.

Malcolm Stern: 25:28

Hard to get it, but you're true, you're right.

William Bloom: 25:30

You know, I remember George Melly, the jazz journalist, saying in his 70s whatever, shortly before he died, he said when my libido stopped rolling, it felt like being unchained from a maniac.

Malcolm Stern: 25:47

Ah, yes, yeah, that's very good.

William Bloom: 25:49

Yeah, Anyway. So I'm just saying there's more space to move into that more watchful attitude. But I also absolutely agree with you that one of the crucial keys here is that you stay curious and inquiring.

Malcolm Stern: 26:10

Yes.

William Bloom: 26:11

That's why you know, yes, I'm a mystic, yes, I say reincarnation, but at the same time you'll find me also going. You know, I'm not really sure I'm sniffing around at something that feels right and I'm curious about it. I'm curious about it. I'm curious about it, Paradoxically or not paradoxically. That makes me much more comfortable with death as well, Because my curiosity extends through that gateway.

Malcolm Stern: 26:48

And have you had actually mystic experiences of seeing what goes beyond death?

William Bloom: 26:53

Have I.

Malcolm Stern: 26:54

Yes.

William Bloom: 26:55

Yes, I have. I mean, yes, I have. I mean, when I was 25, 26 and had the hepatitis, I had a whole series of out-of-the-body experiences and, because I'd already done a lot of psychotherapy, I was even able, inside the experience, to pause and go okay, is this just my body and brain chemistry drugging me so that I feel all right about it and I'm therefore just creating a scenario that makes okay, or is it real? So I was able to be that reflective inside it and it was real. It was. For me, it was very real and there's, I just know, too many stories, but like thousands of stories of folk who have experiences of the other side. So for me it's a an experiential reality and I understand. So for me it's an experiential reality and I understand that for many people it's an absurd thought for which there's no evidence.

Malcolm Stern: 27:57

Yeah, and of course there is no evidence. But we have to sort of trust our own experience. For me that's evidential when we've had an experience yeah, but.

William Bloom: 28:09

But the thing is, you say there's no evidence, but in other fields, if several thousand people report the same narrative, the qualitative evidence is there actually, and it's. It's thing is, though, it sets up a different paradigm, it's a different worldview, and the intellectual hegemony, the scientists who resist it? My take on it is they resist it because if they accepted it, they would have to take responsibility for their own personal development.

Malcolm Stern: 28:40

Yes.

William Bloom: 28:43

And that's something they're uncertain about, and that's not where their status comes from. Their status comes from being very certain.

Malcolm Stern: 28:50

That's interesting. So which of the great mystics have influenced you, or have they influenced you?

William Bloom: 29:04

Oh, as a child, quite privately, jesus touched my heart, not the church. I could see right through the I hate to say this I was going to say the stupidity of the church, and I still work in a church in a way now. Work in a church in a way now, um. But there's something to me banal about men and a few women now dressed in costumes poncing around um and at the same time I love the eucharist and I really like jesus, so I have ambiguous feelings there. So Jesus, yes. And then later on, there was a vibe inside Sufism, no particular teacher, but there was a vibe inside there that caught my heart.

Malcolm Stern: 30:03

Yes.

William Bloom: 30:04

And intellectually I really liked the teachings of Steiner, blavatsky, ledbetter, alice Bailey, the whole of the Anthroposophy, theosophy, Alice Bailey material. It held stuff that was useful for my intellect, yeah. But I mean I have a. I start every day with sitting for an hour and it takes me 20 minutes or so for everything to calm and clear and then I'm in that zone. So I've got a behavior that reinforces Is that a neurosis to do something that reinforces my mysticism.

Malcolm Stern: 30:45

Well, no, I don't think so. Well, no, I don't think so. I think that actually, when we feed that part of ourselves that is looking beyond the, the mass of flesh and bones that we are, I, I, I love that exploration. I love whatever I can do to empower that exploration. For me it's like if I, if I listen to beautiful music and I'm uplifted some suddenly, I'm free of the earthliness of me and I wish I had the discipline to do an hour every day of meditation. But the times where I do do it, it's powerful.

William Bloom: 31:15

It's not everybody's cup of tea. I find a lot of people, my friends. They stay longer in bed, they get up, have a pee, come back to bed and just lie there for half an hour, soaking in an awareness that there's another dimension yes, so we're.

Malcolm Stern: 31:37

It's been. I've really enjoyed the, the dialogue with you, and we're coming towards the end of our our podcast, and the question I always ask um everyone who's on there and some will answer it in whatever way they do, but is is um what? What's the dragon you've had to slay in order to be who you are? What have you? What the obstacles you've had to overcome in order to arrive where you are right now?

William Bloom: 32:16

the internal dynamics that have caused me the most difficulty and pain are two things that sit on this kind of seesaw. At one end. I've got this over-intelligent intellectual engine rolling and I had my first novel published when I was 22. And my brain is over-eager and very, very clever and I see things very fast and that makes me too clever by half.

Malcolm Stern: 32:50

That's interesting, but that's where we came in at the beginning, isn't it as well? So I'm too clever by half.

William Bloom: 32:54

Over there and at the other end of the spectrum, I've got this kind of almost a kind of Christian guilt thing going on. I'm not worthy, I don't fit in. Somebody's going to catch me, it's not, it's not imposter syndrome, it's. It's. It's deep insecurity and this pendulum between deep insecurity and being a clever dick and and fine, and and loving both of them and integrating them and understanding them and finding a centre.

Malcolm Stern: 33:37

So it feels like probably your meditation practice is part of what helps you to integrate those parts of you. Would you say that's accurate or not?

William Bloom: 33:44

No, the meditation practice helps me to notice the fact that I'm fucked up by those two extremes, and what actually solves it is the actual practice of kindness with other people.

Malcolm Stern: 33:59

So that's a lovely, that's a lovely practice. Kindness and gratitude these are the practices that we think of as sort of like, as quite sort of minimal, but actually, if there's a practice of kindness, I think there's something.

William Bloom: 34:14

I could have had a career in academia. I was teaching at the LSE and I just realised that being an academic just stroked my clever dick ego in a way that was just not healthy for me, and I was just in a kind of very Jewish, middle Eastern, mediterranean, aggressive way, arguing with folk and flattening them with logic and I just went. This is not good. This is not good, and instead of doing that, I went to work with special needs adults and teenagers in order to learn some practice.

Malcolm Stern: 34:55

That's lovely, thank you. It's been a very, very rich dialogue and I really always, always enjoy talking to you, but it's been a very sort of lovely exploration. I really appreciate you coming and joining us here as well.

William Bloom: 35:06

It's lovely to connect with you, malcolm, really lovely.