Ben Emlyn-Jones is a writer, broadcaster and researcher.
From the moment I first encountered the work of Ellis Taylor I knew that the world was not the place I previously thought it was. For many years now he has been compassionately and courageously sharing his remarkable life story in his books and articles and Dogged Days is the most recent instalment in that epic tale. Ellis is an Australian-born paranormal researcher, author, lecturer, hypnotherapist and numerologist. He lives in Perth, Australia and Oxford and you can usually see him at conferences and study events all over the world. This is how I first met him: he’s a Probe Buddy. You can read my report on his latest Probe lecture here: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/10/uk-probe-conference-october-08.html
Ellis describes himself as an “otherworld traveller” and throughout his life he has spent time experiencing a world that is normally hidden from view behind the screen that demarcates the universe that we know as “Reality”. Modern Conformist Western Logical Materialism constantly tells us (sometimes with a twinge of desperation!) that “Reality” is all that exists and there is nothing beyond it, but this is not true. I too have had first-hand experience of phenomena beyond the veil, but not as extreme as Ellis’. Ellis says on the blurb of the book: “We’re informed that humans who come forward to recount their contact with other worlds and beings are merely chasing glory or making… money. Well let me tell you that there is little or no money in the field and there is certainly no glory.” And I’d go as far as to say that it’s worse than merely “no glory”. Anyone who speaks out about encounters like Ellis’ is made a laughing-stock and few people are willing to brave that. Ellis should therefore be congratulated for this reason alone. I wonder how many other people have had similar experiences to Ellis but dare not talk about them.
I live in Oxford too and, although I’d never originally met Ellis in my hometown, his work has made me look at the city in a different light and encouraged me to do my own research and make my own discoveries; see here: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/08/illuminati-architecture-in-oxford.html . The history of this ancient and fascinating city, like all history, exists on two levels: the official and the folk. It is in the folk history that the true revelations can be found and a surprising amount of it has been discovered through otherworld journeys like Ellis’. Hauntings, ghosts, intuitive revelation, secret chambers and passageways and underhand plots.
Ellis has been having these experiences his whole life. As a small baby he remembers seeing “the men” in his bedroom, “men” who are not human and in fact not any creature of our world. He’s discovered marks on his body that cannot be explained and severe pain that has no obvious cause. He’s suffered from missing time on many occasions in his life. In the book he explains how this happened when he was driving near the town of North Walsham in Norfolk. He decided to break his journey to make a phone call, pulled up in a layby and saw a lorry parked in front of him. On the side of the vehicle was the word “REPCO”, and that came back to him later when he saw a TV documentary on the Moors Murderers which featured a vehicle with the same word on it. After a while he continued his journey, went down a road and came to a no-entry sign that he’d not seen before. He slammed on his brakes and almost collided with the cars behind him. Eventually when he arrived at his destination he had a few hours missing time! Clearly something strange happened to him in that lay-by and it wouldn’t be the first time. To this day he can’t recall what it was; although this might be possible one day with hypnosis. Oddly enough the place where Ellis’ experience took place was very near the base of the old Sandringham Company of the Norfolk Regiment, an entire army unit that mysteriously vanished while fighting at Gallipoli in 1915. The fact that he was reminded of this “REPCO” van on such a TV programme has a special poignancy for Ellis. Part of the awareness of being an otherworld traveller concerns the true motive for some of the most terrible crimes humans ever commit: the kidnap, abuse and murder of children. They are often far more than random killings by deranged perverts. Some are highly organized and done for evil occult reasons. Dogged Days, like Ellis last book In These Signs Conquer, is at times disturbing reading, but as Ellis says: “Despite all the brickbats that come with Contact you realize that you have been privileged to catch an awesome glimpse at creation.”
One of things I like most about Ellis’ stories is that because so many occur in Oxford I can easily visit the places where they took place. Ellis cut his adult teeth in the same place I did: The Minchery Farm Country Club. It was near here where he saw a spectral figure in white. There’s a Roman road that runs through that area and it’s a hotbed of paranormal activity. I’m familiar with this district and live just round the corner from it, but the area has changed. The old Minchery Farm club has been bulldozed down and a massive sports and leisure complex has been built over the top of it centred on Oxford United’s new horseshoe-shaped stadium. Ellis points out how the fortunes of the team have declined since they moved to their new home. The former Division One (Premiership) leaders and Milk Cup winners are now skipping in and out of the bottom of the league. (In Ellis’ previous books and articles he goes into detail about the symbolism and numerology of structures like the Kassam Stadium)
Dogged Days had an effect on me that no other book has in that it triggered a forgotten, and possibly suppressed, memory of something very significant that happened to me at Green College, Oxford when I was 10 years old. Ellis says that there is a portal to the underworld beneath the college’s famous observatory tower. If you’ve got similar lacunae in your memory then the book might help you too. This could be pleasant or unpleasant, but either way it can only be enlightening.
Ellis recounts many things that have happened to him since his last book was published. He’s taken trips to the UFO conference in Nevada (See the Probe lecture report), been on TV in Ireland with Paola Harris and took a trip to a Cornish hotel where the staff appeared otherworldly and he and his companion were met by a strange art dealer. He gives his own impressions of the death of Dean Warwick at the Autumn 2006 Probe Conference, a very controversial incident that has split the Conference circuit down the middle. (Here’s what I wrote about it myself: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/08/dean-warwick.html ) The world Ellis has investigated is far from safe and sheltered. He has uncovered horrors on an abyssal level, but also great joys. One of the most moving incidents reported in the book was where he is contacted by the spirit of his recently-deceased 9-year-old niece.
Dogged Days is a book written on a human level in a simple style. It tells the story of a man like any other, someone you can identify with and sympathise with, but one who walks a tightrope suspended between this universe and others unseen that burst our lives out of the illusion that we’ve been told is the One Sole Reality. What he has experienced is real. Other people around him have witnessed some of the strangeness that he is involved in, including myself. His experiences made me laugh, they made me cry, and above all they made me wonder! Hopefully they will make you wonder too.
Ben Emlyn-Jones
http://hpanwo.blogspot.com
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