The author was a newspaper editor aged in his 50s when he started to take an interest in the New Age movement. This came as a surprise to family, friends and readers of his weekly opinion column. But he had been keeping a secret. Although for most of the time he was a rational person, for years he had had the occasional psychic experience, including lucid dreams. In his youth he had been exposed to the rigid belief system of a strict Christian denomination, and he was wary about becoming involved in alternative spirituality. But the time came when he could not resist reading a selection of New Age books, and he found that a bright new world opened up for him. After he had acquired his first two crystals there was no holding him back. He became passionate about dowsing and was soon using a pendulum for a wide variety of purposes, ranging from tracking lines of mysterious earth energies to deciding which bottles of wine to buy in the supermarket. He found that New Age is an umbrella term for hundreds of different interests, of which he has sampled quite a few over the past 20 years. They include meditation, ghost hunting, numerology, clearing emotional blockages, finding out about past lives and spoon bending. Personal development is another important aspect of the New Age movement. And the author has widened his horizons by walking on fire six times. He has also tried walking on broken glass and breaking a piece of wood with a bare hand. But, he says, the most important part of his journey has been the spiritual insights he has received.