One of our teachers, David, a shaman, began showing a need for psychiatric help, and we supported him as much as we could, though he was unhelpable. The love people felt for him could not equal the deep despair and resistance to change he was evidently experiencing within himself. A nurse who came quiet as a mouse left having made a powwow speech of great poignance. A woman who came visibly bearing a dark shadow and heavy burden broke through while at the Healing camp, and later she returned to run the camp shop and become an OakDragon director. A senior civil servant pronounced us 'the Greenpeace of humanity', and a video documentary was made. Objects were carved on rustic pole-lathes, stories were told, truths shared, chorals sung and a distant dying person was supported in a large healing circle.

The power-games were not over. The couple who had worked hard to straighten out our finances were inconspicuously engineering a take-over, and it became clear they wished to get rid of me. The chattering-network was being fed with cynical impressions of me and doubt in the principles I had laid down. Ros was being pragmatic, and I was sticking to principles, and we were growing distanced. The season went quite well, but by now I was seriously burned-out. I did not have the bottle to pull off a looming battle.

One anecdote from this season is worth recounting. We held two camps at Alton Barnes, near Avebury in Wiltshire, and two more in 1989. During these camps there was a lot of 'circle-working', both powwows, and circle-dancing. There was even a session invoking UFOs at one point – perhaps tongue-in-cheek. Nevertheless, next summer, 1990, at Alton Barnes, near the camp site, there appeared what was then the greatest of the crop-formations, hitting the world's headlines and attracting thousands of visitors. I cannot help wondering whether our camps and our 'circle-working' had helped the arrival of this phenomenon. The crop formations, still tabooed and ridiculed by the media, remain a mighty mystery which is likely to be very important for humanity. A connection is now accepted amongst cereologists between crop formations and both UFO phenomena and human thoughts and actions. We'll never know if OakDragon had a causative influence, but a connection was visible. Especially since the farmer on whose farm both the camps and the formations occurred had been the first farmer to invite us to hold our camps on his land – all others had had to be persuaded and suitably bribed! Was this his reward?

Parting ways

At the end of the 1988 season, I wrote to Ros from Cornwall to say that I had to take a year off. I was letting go. It turned out to be four years of absence. The money-managers soon left, and the OakDragon rested on Ros' shoulders. From 1986 I had planned to give it seven years until 1992, but reality turned out to differ from plans. Leaving was both a relief – an end to the power-games – and an immense disappointment. I lived for some years with the feeling that I had somehow failed in my mission.

This later proved to be excessive self-judgement – which was a great learning-experience in itself. In 1991, I was engaged by a psychic to compile a book of channelled communications, The Only Planet of Choice, for some non-earthly advanced beings called the Council of Nine. I was interviewed for the job by the channeller and the convener of the project – and then, uncannily, I was interviewed by these intelligences themselves, in a channelling session. The Nine welcomed me and said, to my astonishment, that I was welcome – they said I was the first to come to them who needed no preparation. Gulp! Perhaps I wasn't such a no-good after all.

This experience helped me look in hindsight at the rush of profound events in the 1980s, to reassess things in a more balanced way. The Nine taught me a lot. I wondered whether they might have been behind this whole operation. Further, I came to understand how collectives of people create symbolic heroes and villains who embody collectively-unconscious archetypes and projections – I came to understand that if I were to continue in such work, I would need to be willing to undergo more of the same without getting so hurt or disempowered.

Humanity needs time to evolve and mature – this was coming clear. Social transformation takes decades and there's no quick fix. Group evolution is far more complex than personal growth – and societies move as fast as their slowest members. Each individual must learn for themselves at their own pace. Meanwhile, it rests on innovators to force the pace and to open doorways – and sometimes to precipitate difficulties and crises in order to catalyse valuable social shifts. Two steps forward, one step back. Light and dark constitute truth – I had embodied both.

I attended further camps in 1990, though my need now was to attend to personal matters. I had become a father once again in late 1989, to Marieka – though I confess I did not do well in my relationship with her mother. Marieka, born underwater at Ferngrove Farm in the heated time of the East European revolutions, was my third child, and she came as a healer and teacher to all who mix with her.

I had had two children in Sweden in the 1970s. The breakup of our marriage and family – much to do with the pressures of the home-birth campaign we were running – had brought me deep sorrow. Yet, the pain arising from this loss was a major motivating force in moving me to start the camps in the 1980s. Perhaps I sought to redeem my pain by bringing healing to others through the camps. Maya and Gwynedd, now young women, played a vicarious part in bringing joy to thousands, yet they never attended a camp.

In the early 1990s I restored my humanness and reconstructed a personal life. Meanwhile, OakDragon carried on. People reported that it had lost its vital spark, but at least it survived – much as a result of Ros' perseverance. The special thing about camps is their not-quite-perfection: each camp has its glitches, bad weather or button-pressing crisis, yet people rise to the occasion, using it as a beneficial inner growth-enzyme. Were camps angelically mega-spiritual and light-filled, they would omit to teach certain basic lessons.

Human endeavour seems to boil down to three decisive things: money, power and sex (greed, envy and lust). Many spiritual communities and growth groups aspire to be exempt of shadows, yet landing up with a carcinogenic shadow of unacknowledged, covered-up agendas which sooner or later weaken their human fabric, landing on scapegoats or detonating eventual devastation. People often expect squeaky-clean, risk-free spirituality without realising that, if this were so, much would be missed – cosmetic appearances could override genuine realities. One of the things I've always liked about the camps is that there is no such pretence.

OakDragon has its fair share of painful shadow-play. Yet working with imperfection has brought me and many others immense uplift and growing strength. OakDragon people have experientially tasted both social triumph over obstacles and collective collapse, together with the empowerment or bleakness arising. We have tasted the reality of miracles and the congruence or contradictoriness of differing reality-levels. We have experienced much of what world change or ascension really implies.

Return, return...

It brought me joy to re-enter the OakDragon in 1993-4. I was welcomed back. Everyone had grown and matured. Much of this was due to the determined resilience of Ros and many others, who had stayed on the case even when the going was rough. Ros has now moved to the side too – she's done her stint. Others now hold the wheel. The past has been much forgiven or forgotten, people have come and gone and accumulated experience has grown. They're a formidable team. With everyone working voluntarily, in service, there are few thanks and few rewards – except what we become by doing it, carriers of an inner wealth which moth and rust cannot eat and thieves cannot steal.

In the 1980s, I had ambitiously presented many possibilities all at once – yet, over time, much has been assimilated and digested. The OakDragon as an inner entity has been doing its work. The leadership has changed towards a collective fusion – people know what to do, and new campers pick it up easily. Debts incurred earlier are under control. Quality and atmosphere have risen after the late-80s lurch, and the earlier downturn of fortunes now proves to be a blessing in disguise – it has protected OakDragon from the designs of advantage-takers. People have been involved not for gain, neither for clout nor glory, but out of dedication and choice. I honour OakDragon folk for that. It has all been worth it. Also, there is the future...

So many spin-offs have arisen from the camps that it is impossible to chronicle them. Many camps organisations now exist – in Slovakia, New Zealand, USA and Lithuania too. The OakDragon is still profoundly unfolding. Having been under threat of extinction, it has built solid human and organisational foundations. Some have left OakDragon, feeling that there must be something more, yet they return, having found little else of substance.

Yet there is room for improvement, and I feel the Great Work for which OakDragon was forged is probably yet to come. It has been preparing individuals for larger social change, and it has consolidated an assemblage of people and a B energy-field which opens up whenever a camp starts, palpably closing down when it ends. A week-long camp becomes an aeon, and closing it down and packing it up is like the end of a civilisation – a profound heart-wrench like leaving home, to re-enter the madness of roads, cities and false appearances. Such a juxtaposition of realities strengthens the soul, preparing people to welcome a new world. This, to members of the public who have not tasted such a new world, feels threatening, even though it is probably their heart's actual desire. When the chips are finally down, and Truth stares the world's peoples in the face – what some would call Apocalypse – it is important that at least some people are accustomed to such a truth-facing process, accustomed to swimming adeptly out of their depth, in the sagacious knowing that humanity can rise safely to its full potential even in the deepest of crises.

In 1993, Sheila my partner, Marieka and I joined the OakDragon Sacred Space camp in the hills above Dunster, Somerset, near Exmoor. It was like a homecoming. On this site, in 1990, January Jane and Ivan Macbeth had run an excellent Healing camp for OakDragon, in which the symbiotic teamwork of OakDragon people had truly showed its worth. At the beginning of each camp there is an introductory session for campers new and old, in which facilities and programme are described, and the circle is 'opened'. That introductory evening, it worked like magic, even though unrehearsed. The setup was described to campers by representatives from each department of the camp, and then a chant was started. Through the darkness of the evening, a child came bearing a flaming torch, which she applied to the pre-laid fire, and... whoosh! The fire grew, spirits rose, music started and, unannounced, unbeknown even to the organisers, hot tea for a hundred people was carried into the assembled throng. It was as tight as an army corps, yet organically spontaneous. That's the special quality which group soul-bonding can produce! New campers were duly amazed. The crescendo of the camp – a magical journey through the woods – was scuppered by a howling gale, but the camp was so uplifting that it mattered little. The medicine had already worked.

My enduring memory of that Sacred Space camp was a quiet, dark evening when a fire labyrinth was lit. It was Sig again: he demonstrates the use of the classical Cretan labyrinth as an inner problem-solving device. You weave into the centre of the labyrinth – quite a walk – pondering on an issue, and then you weave out again, and by the end of this process, things become clear. This night, however, was very special – a fire labyrinth, made by laying paraffin-soaked sawdust along the boundaries of the path of the labyrinth and setting it alight. I had been busy doing other things, and heard chanting downfield. I looked out, and there, in the darkness, people were threading the labyrinth, looking as if they were walking through the flames, weaving round and back, treading the path of the Mystery, chanting. It was one of those moving snapshots of enchantment, unforgettable, haunting and timeless, watched over by the stars. Utter magic.

In 1994, at the Myth and Magic camp near Shepton Mallet, we planned a magic heist, for the climax day of the camp. The idea was that the nine teachers would dress up and station themselves at different points along a pathway through a limestone gorge some miles away, presenting to unsuspecting campers a series of choices and situations representing stages along the spiritual path. Luckily, we worked out a 'plan B', in case of inclement weather. Inclement weather indeed came, so we staged it at the camp site. Each teacher occupied a dome, dressed up. Campers were released in ones and twos at five-minute intervals, to follow a trail from dome to dome, meeting an archetypal encounter at each stage.

So there I was, the last stage in the line. By the time they reached me, people had already met a fairy, a sky-god, a druid, a goddess, an oracle or two – and I was a wizard or an ancient – Merlin to some, a Mongolian or a space-being to others – dressed in my Hungarian pointed hat and Chinese dragon robes, and meditatively transmogrified into an archetypal state of being. On announcing themselves at the door and being invited in, they encountered me in my arcane state, addressing them: "The road is long, and you have already travelled far. The journey through your many lives has seemed like an infinity. There have been many turns of the way, and there are many more turns to come. I am going to ask you a question, and the question is this: when you have completed your life, and you are preparing to pass on and are looking back over your life at all you have seen and all you have done, what is it that you most would like to have done before your days are over?" For youngsters, I asked them what they would like to do when they were adults.

The pauses were sometimes long. One boy wanted to be a sky-diver, and another a goodly father. A girl wished to be a famous film-star and another wished to plant lots of trees. One grown-up wanted to resolve things with his father, and another wished to travel the world. Some wished to prove that they could truly be a good person, and others sought peace of mind. Another wished for a child. They then, to their surprise, received a florid and fulsome blessing through me, giving them full permission to entertain and achieve their wish. "...And when you are there, and you have attained what you seek, just remember that you asked – and you received." Already bowled over by their previous encounters, this one finished them off!

This kind of special fairy-tale occasion, a journey into Dreamtime, changes the patterning of people's lives. Even if, back in Manchester, Massachusetts or Milton Keynes, they bury the occasion in busy amnesia, the experience is there, lodged beneficently in depth-consciousness, acting as a seed of future growth and awakening. It makes a difference. Nowadays we are rarely genuinely blessed or initiated into new realities. We often make do with the lives we get and struggle on without encouragement to rise to our true greatness. Through experiences such as these people are deeply healed of woe, of fear and self-limitation. And a splendid time is had by all – kids and adults, women and men, under the sun and moon, watched by trees.

Whatever next?

When I came to that camp, I had been cogitating re-entry into the core of the OakDragon, to help iron out challenges in money, public outreach, presentation and spiritual atmosphere. It took but one day to realise things were progressing well enough without me! Whatever changes were needed, they amounted to 10% adjustments, not drastic transformations, and people already involved were in a position to crack it.

Then, one morning, I awoke with the realisation that I needed to start a new kind of camp – one which was more focused, and which would be set to work with the world's problems. So Sheila and I, with our combined growth-skills, contacts and abilities, decided to run a prototype camp in summer 1995 called Hundredth Monkeying! – designed for people who followed various paths and find themselves seeking a next step. In order not to interfere with OakDragon, we decided to run it independently, to break new ground and experiment with a new equation and a new collection of people.

This proposed camp would brings together what I have learned through OakDragon, through the Nine and in my work on world psychology – as well as Sheila's own contrasting growth-experiences. It's a fusion of inner growth and world work, an application of the fruits of our growth-work in a focused meditative aid project. The Hundredth Monkeying project would have to work with tightened camp standards and agreements, to create a sound framework for more advanced spiritual endeavours. Intentional sparking of the hundredth-monkey effect: if sufficient people envision a positive thought-form Bly enough, it can influence the psyche of humanity to the extent that people the world over, in their own situations, may make positive steps when they reach crucial historic choice-points of find themselves in crises. Sheila and I were aware we would be taking a risk in setting up this project, yet we believed many people would be up to it. So we went forward and did it – and the M100 project now exists and continues in its work.

In most things that a man is supposed to do, I'm pretty useless. The assets I have are unusual – mostly metaphysical – and over time I have learned not to hide them behind a bushel for fear of the consequences. Even though it may help in terms of money, reputation and career, pretence is not what I got born for, neither what makes me happy. I make no apologies for being a way-out visionary, though sometimes I wonder whether my ideas are too far ahead of their time. Yet the challenge is to demonstrate how to turn dreams into reality – and to stay alive while doing it! Watching the world still torturing itself as it approaches the Millennium, a paradoxically patient sense of urgency wells up to bring forward manageable world changes. This M100 project is a prototype run which, if it works, could lead toward a cross-national networked aid effort. I sense that many people are ready for such an endeavour. But, again, that is another story!

Meanwhile, the people of the OakDragon chose to go 'off-line' for a year or two, to rebirth and re-vision themselves. Roughly the same core of people is there. They are clarifying their purpose and methods – this is a good thing. Sig has started a Maple Dragon outfit in Vermont, USA, so the seed is spreading. It might be that OakDragon remains small, yet hones the quality of its work. It might seed further ventures which come in other guises. It might grow. It might be that everyone moves on, and the OakDragon withdraws satisfied to its lair. Who knows? Eitherwhichway, I'll be a keen OakDragon watcher.

Will OakDragon still be alive in ten or twenty years' time? Perhaps it's up to you. The unnamed people who have cooked the food, raised the marquees, fired up the wood-fired showers, taught the workshops, sat through long meetings, done the accounts and entertained the children have kept the OakDragon on its legs over a decade. The OakDragon souls yet to show themselves will carry it forward and guide it on its way.

The funny thing is that most of the public knows nothing of what has been going on in the fields of Britain! They were busy looking the other way! They were staying home, in the real world. Perhaps that was sensible – or perhaps they've missed something priceless – an opportunity to gain real-life experience in handling the wild and pressing issues of the twenty-first century!

See some pictures of the 1987 OakDragon camps

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© Palden Jenkins, 1992-1997. All of these articles are copyright. They may individually be copied and shared with others in a spirit of knowledge-sharing and fair play, but they may not be sold, printed or reproduced in quantity or changed in form without the permission of the copyright holder. Magazine and other editors may e-mail me for permission to reprint. E-mail: