William Bloom - Biography
Short Blurb • Personal Note • Long Blurb/Press Biography - Media Experience • All Published Books
This is the short blurb that appears on leaflets and conference programmes
William Bloom is Britain’s leading author and educator in the mind-body-spirit field with over thirty years of practical experience, research and teaching in modern spirituality.
He is founder and co-director of The Foundation for Holistic Spirituality and the Spiritual Companions project.
His mainstream career includes a doctorate in political psychology from the LSE, ten years working with adults and adolescents with special needs, and delivering hundreds of trainings, many in the NHS. He was also a successful novelist and publisher.
His holistic background includes a two-year spiritual retreat living amongst the Saharan Berbers in the High Atlas Mountains, twenty-five years on the faculty of the Findhorn Foundation, and co-founder and director for 10 years of the St. James’s Church Alternatives Programme in London.
He is also a meditation master and his books include the seminal The Endorphin Effect, Feeling Safe and Psychic Protection – and most recently Soulution: The Holistic Manifesto. His latest book The Power of Modern Spirituality was recently published. His books are translated into sixteen languages.
The essence of my life is simple: In my early childhood I had several powerful experiences or instincts that have remained with me and inspired me. The first was a very powerful sense of the beauty and wonder of life; just looking at the blue of the sky was enough to make me experience and know that there was a power and goodness behind everything.
The second was that I kept noticing that there was more to me than just the child, the personality, I presented to the world. Within me there was another identity— watchful, strong, loving.
The third was an instinctive outrage at and sense of compassion towards injustice and suffering.
My life has been about developing and integrating those three influences. I teach what I too am learning and deepening.
For all my book writing, teaching and intellectual pursuits, I love rough and tumbling with children, motorbikes, dogs and friendly adults. I am happiest meditating, being in landscape and participating in group situations where there is a creative, vital and educational process. I also love movement and dance (all sorts), work out at the gym regularly, and practice chi gung and yoga. I like watching movies and am grateful for the stimulation, challenges and love of my family.
William Bloom Ph.D., B.Sc. (Econ), Cert. Ed.
Born in 1948, William Bloom grew up in central London. His mother was a New York journalist who spent the war years in the notorious Changi Gaol; after the war she founded the National deaf Childrens Society and was one of the first people to have her life done on This Is Your Life. His father was a psychiatrist specialising in psycho-sexual problems.
William Bloom attended St. Pauls School, London, but dropped out to become a full-time participant in swinging London, flower power and counter-culture. At the age of 22 he became the youngest ever commissioning editor in publishing at Macmillans where he founded the Open Gate imprint to promote counter-culture books. He was the first person in the UK to publish Lenny Bruce and gave Macmillans their first number one bestseller in many years with a biography of Elvis Presley.
He also co-founded Advise, the first 24-hour immigrant advisory service in the UK and published International Times for a short period. He rode with and was an honorary member of the All England Chapter of the Hells Angels.
His writing in the early 70s included three novels, one novella (all published before he was 25) and four thrillers (under a pseudonym.) His novels received lead reviews and he was considered an important writer of his generation. At the same time, he was in psychoanalysis with Dr Edward Glover, one of the founders of psychoanalysis, for three years.
He then undertook a two year retreat living amid the Saharan Berbers in the High Atlas Mountains of southern Morocco, a spiritual quest which changed his life. His diary of this period was published as The Sacred Magician and is considered a classic work of its kind. In 1976 he founded a small community and meditation group in Glastonbury and brought up his first child, James, with his first wife, Frances Howard-Gordon.
William then studied International Relations as a mature student at the London School of Economics, where he also taught and gained a doctorate in political psychology. This was published by Cambridge University Press as Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations. (1989, 1992.) He lectured at the LSE on Psychological Problems in International Politics.
During the same period he gained a Certificate in Education at Garnet College, specialising in communication skills, counselling and special needs. He turned away from an academic career to work as a tutor with special needs adolescents and adults for ten years in an inner city community college, Southwark College; he also helped pioneer a certificated course in community group management.
Since the late 1970s Williams writing and teaching have reflected his interest in new approaches to exploring consciousness and spirituality. In 1988, with his wife Sabrina Dearborn and friend Malcolm Stern, he co-founded and directed the popular Alternatives Programme at St. Jamess Church, Piccadilly. This is Londons major platform for new age and holistic perspectives and includes weekly lectures, workshops and classes covering a wide range of alternative perspectives including tribal religions, new psychology, new science, spiritual ecology, meditation, metaphysics and chanting. The programme is deliberately accessible and attracts over fifteen thousand people every year.
He has also been on the faculty of the Findhorn Foundation, considered by many people to be the home of holistic education and the major New Age community in Europe, for over twenty years. He teaches and runs workshops internationally and has regular bases in Denmark, Norway, Bulgaria and Slovenia. He has featured in many radio and television programmes including The Moral Maze, The Soul of Britain and as a judge on The God List.
He had the honour of addressing the UN Oslo Conference on Religion and Belief (August 1998) where the New Age and Holistic approach to spirituality was given equal status alongside the traditional faiths.
In 2007 he co-founded the Foundation for Holistic Spirituality and the Spiritual Companions project.
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Consultant to Channel 4 4-part series The New Age and editor of the Ch 4 anthology.
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Contributor to The Future of Religion, The Moral Maze, The Sunday Programme, The Soul of Britain and The God List.
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Anchor for US Learning Channels 30-minute documentary on Irish mythology.
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Consultant and concluding contributor to Ch 4s Desperately Seeking Something with Pete McCarthy.
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Contributor to several US documentaries on future of culture, religion and economics.
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Many TV/radio interviews.
Non-Fiction
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The Power of Modern Spirituality, Piatkus, 2011
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Soulution: The Holistic Manifesto, Hay House, 2004.
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Feeling Safe, Piatkus, 2002.
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The Endorphin Effect, Piatkus, 2001.
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The Penguin Book of New Age and Holistic Writing, (ed), Penguin, 2001.
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The Holistic Revolution (ed), Penguin, 2000,
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Working With Angels, Fairies and Nature Spirits, Piatkus, 1999.
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Money, Heart and Mind: Financial Well-Being for People and Planet, Penguin, 1996.
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Psychic Protection, Piatkus, 1996.
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Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations, Cambridge University Press, 1989; paperback 1993.
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Meditation in a Changing World, Gothic Image,1987; revised editon 1993.
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Ley Lines & Ecology with Marko Pogacnik, Gothic Image,1978.
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Devas, Fairies & Angels , Gothic Image,1988
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Sacred TimesA New Approach to Festivals, Findhorn Press, 1989
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The New Age, (ed), Channel 4 TV/Random House, 1991.
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The Seekers Guide, (ed with John Button), HarperCollins, 1993.
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First Steps - An Introduction to Spiritual Practice, Findhorn Press, 1993
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The Sacred Magician, Gothic Image, 1993.
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The Christ Sparks, Findhorn Press, 1995.
Fiction
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William stopped writing fiction when he was twenty-six. His published books were three novels:
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Softly Children Im Coming, A Canterbury Tale and Getting There. A novella: The Philosophers Stone.
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And four thrillers under the pseudonym of W.W.: The Taming Power, The Riches, White Fire and The Prophets of Evil.