Lance Morcan's Blog, page 82
July 22, 2014
A thought provoking, nail biting, wrinkled brow, and chilling after-thought realization book, according to Amazon reviewer
In the latest Amazon review for our non-fiction book THE ORPHAN CONSPIRACIES: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy, reviewer Joyce Metzger describes it as “A thought provoking, nail biting, wrinkled brow, and chilling after-thought realization book.”
Here’s Ms Metzger’s (unabridged) review:
★★★★★ New Day for Polymath, Polyglots, and Hypnopaedia?
Clandestine activities, brain washing, CIA, FBI, global elites modus operandi, false flag propaganda, global financial crisis, corporation manipulation, banks, MK-Ultra, Project Monarch, the Bilderberg Group, world administration founder’s manipulation, and CEO’ s gone berserk are presented, and discussed in this thought provoking, nail biting, wrinkled brow, and chilling after-thought realization book.
“Bilderberg pulls the strings of every government and intelligence agency in the western world.” Is this true? Are they, are we, at the mercy of puppet masters who are cruel, manipulative, sadistic and sinister? Candidates presented for office have already been carefully hand picked, scrutinized, and sanitized. Voters have a tiny voice. If we tip the scales, the electoral vote decides the “right” way.
” The Fed is an institution that acts independently of the US congress, has zero transparency, or accountability, and it even determines its own monetary policy. ” Thomas Jefferson said that ” a central bank would lead to a monopoly.”
Two failures, then along comes the US Federal Reserve System. The entire monetary system seems to be a gigantic Ponzi scheme. The Fed controls interest rates, inflation, and the money printing. “Creating money out of air.” Better known perhaps, as vapor air, nothing solid to back it. Hot air balloons. Corruption feeding upon the road kill.
Check out this book. Visions are rare, or maybe, they are effectively stifled forever. Put on your Zap-cap. Have the hands of those puppets in power been tied by a Splinter Civilization? It’s true, we all need a light at the end of the tunnel.
For more reviews on The Orphan Conspiracies go to: http://www.amazon.com/The-Orphan-Conspiracies-Conspiracy-Theories-ebook/dp/B00J4MPFT6/
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India meets Australia in new movies
Our soon to be released Indian-Australian feature film MY CORNERSTONE - which will screen in cinemas in Australia, Fiji, New Zealand and Singapore in the coming months - recently featured in the Inside Film (IF) Magazine, the Down Under film industry chronicle.
The article, by IF Magazine columnist Don Groves, follows (unabridged):
Producer-director Stanley Joseph is aiming to bridge the cultural gap between India and Australia by making mainstream films shot in both countries.
The Indian-born founder of World Pictures Australia is preparing to launch My Cornerstone, a romantic comedy which explores multiculturalism and spiritual faith, in Australia in late September.
It stars 24 year-old Indian-Australian Zenia Starr as an Indian nurse who moves to Sydney where she’s hired to care for the ailing matriarch of a wealthy Indian-Australian family.
New Zealand-born, Sydney-based writer-actor James Morcan, who wrote the screenplay based on Joseph’s story, plays an enigmatic neighbour named Chris who enters her life. The film was shot in Mumbai and Sydney, with 90% of the dialogue in English, the rest in Hindi.
Reel to Deal Pictures, a newly-formed New Zealand-based distributor, will launch the film on 16-18 screens in Australia, Joseph tells IF.
Via sales agents the film will be released theatrically in Fiji and Singapore but Joseph, who migrated to Australia 17 year ago, plans to bypass cinemas in India and go straight to DVD, due to piracy and traffic logjams which make getting to cinemas a challenge in the big cities.
Seeking distribution in the US, he’s had talks with a US cinema chain and an online company.
Morcan says, “My Cornerstone is the first Australian-Indian crossover film. Our storyline reflects many of Stanley’s own experiences as an Indian migrant in Australia.”
Joseph’s follow-up is Love You Krishna, a romantic comedy drama now in post-production. Scripted by Morcan, again based on Joseph’s story, the plot follows the Chopras, a wealthy Indian-Australian family who are subtly influenced by a mysterious stranger’s visits to their Sydney mansion.
Starr, who also appeared in Mark Grentell’s Backyard Ashes, and Morcan are among the cast, and there is a similar split between English and Hindi.
Both films were financed by an Indian investor and were shot back-to-back in an economical 37 days. Joseph envisions a mid-2015 release for Love You Krishna.
His first film, actioner Newton’s 3rd Law, was released in 2011.
Full article is available here: http://if.com.au/2014/07/17/article/India-meets-Australia-in-new-films/LAKNKMDZOS.html
James Morcan with Stanley Joseph on the set of My Cornerstone
July 21, 2014
Advanced (hidden) learning techniques: Part 4
Brain gland activation and other advanced learning methods
Activating dormant brain glands is another learning method used inside the Pedemont Orphanage, the fictional Chicago orphanage that serves as home and school for the orphans in our thriller series The Orphan Trilogy.
We highlight this and other advanced learning techniques in our non-fiction book THE ORPHAN CONSPIRACIES: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy.
Here’s an excerpt from the book:
All individuals have a certain amount of dormant or underutilized brain areas. Every human brain ever mapped scientifically has shown at least some inactive cells and neurons. This area of neuroscience, especially concerning little known brain glands, may hold the answer as to why we only use such a small percentage of our brains.
As we wrote in The Orphan Factory: “Rare earth magnets were embedded inside each helmet for the purpose of activating certain brain glands. Glands that were dormant in the average person.”
Neuromagnetic helmets and similar brain stimulation technologies are not just confined to the realms of fiction.
Transcranial direct current stimulation, or TDCS, is a brain stimulation technique. It’s carried out by applying a helmet or cap to the individual’s head. TDCS targets specific parts of the brain with low voltage electrical currents. This allows for the alteration of electrical states of neurons in targeted areas of the brain.
TDCS is in its infancy, but early studies have shown it enhances motor skills, memory recall and concentration. As a result, the US military now employs TDCS to assist fighter pilots, snipers and other personnel.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, is a similar non-invasive brain enhancement technology except it uses magnets instead of electricity. TMS’s magnetic fields are capable of altering neurons in targeted areas of the brain.
Neuromagnetic helmets and similar devices have been nicknamed ‘zap caps’ and preliminary studies show they have the potential to improve brain function in numerous ways.
Polyglotting in the Pedemont Orphanage
The Pedemont orphans all speak a large number of languages and are therefore polyglots. Although we never actually specify how many, it’s implied in our trilogy that each orphan can speak dozens of languages. They also have the ability to learn new ones quickly, and more than once we show our orphans, or orphan-operatives, mastering languages in the days leading up to a new mission.
While this may seem far-fetched, there have been persistent reports of CIA agents mastering languages within one week. If true, this is most likely a direct result of classified learning techniques or brain technologies not available to the general public.
In 2004, British autistic savant Daniel Tammet shocked Icelandic peoples when he appeared on live television to demonstrate his overnight mastery of their notoriously complex language.
Daniel Tammet…autism no barrier.
Tammet spoke fluent Icelandic, having only studied the language for seven days.
Virtual reality training
Virtual reality is another advanced learning technology utilized within the walls of the orphanage. However, we specify it’s not virtual reality as most of us know it.
This excerpt from The Orphan Factory explains what we are getting at: “Like most Omega technologies, it was a technology that was decades ahead of official science, and although virtual reality was widely known and available to the public, this military version had been suppressed from the masses because of its incredible power.”
Although a suppressed form of the technology lies very much in government cover-up theories, learning with virtual reality is proven to be effective in a wide variety of diverse fields. Learning via this technology’s computer-simulated environment is currently used the world over in the military, medical, aviation and architectural sectors to name but a few.
Virtual reality…like the real thing.
Virtual reality allows users to practice as if they are actually engaging in activities in the real world. The difference between reality and virtual reality can sometimes be so small it’s indistinguishable to the human brain.
Or to put it another way, as we state in The Orphan Factory: “Carrying out assignments under the influence of this particular software was no different to performing them in real life – at least not as far as the mind was concerned.”
Read more in The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy – available now via Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Orphan-Conspiracies-Conspiracy-Theories-ebook/dp/B00J4MPFT6/
A book that’s for the common people...the 99%
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July 20, 2014
TV series based on new book planned
Positive reader reviews and public response have prompted us to bring forward plans to develop our controversial new book about conspiracy theories into a television documentary series.
TV series in early development.
Such has been reader response to THE ORPHAN CONSPIRACIES: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy, our eighth book title and first non-fiction book, we have put it into early development as a TV documentary series with our film production company Morcan Motion Pictures.
New Zealand media including Scoop NZ have been quick to publicize this new development announced earlier today.
An excerpt from Scoop’s article follows:
Sydney-based James Morcan says he and his father are delighted by readers’ enthusiasm for the book and by the early reviews.
“We never intended to progress the TV doco series so soon after the book’s publication,” he says, “but reader response has encouraged us to fast-forward our plans.”
James Morcan…delighted.
James, who has a long-time interest in conspiracy theories, says the book lends itself to a TV series. “ It fully explores the real-world suppositions, assumptions and theories we included in our fictional series and provides answers to the questions our readers have been asking.”
Conspiracy theories explored range from false flag operations, international banksters, genius techniques of the elite and suppressed science to the Queen’s invisible riches, the Medical Industrial Complex and real-life Manchurian Candidates.
James says the next step for Morcan Motion Pictures is to secure the services of an experienced documentary-maker to produce The Orphan Conspiracies. He says enquiries from interested producers are welcomed.
F ormer senior research scientist at the Technical Research and Development Institute of Japan’s Ministry of Defense, Dr. Takaaki Musha, was so impressed by The Orphan Conspiracies that he wrote the book’s foreword. In it, he describes the book as “A history of the 20th and early 21st Centuries.”
Dr. Musha, who was employed for many years developing naval underwater weapon systems, says he expects readers of the book will be surprised by the level of knowledge imparted in its pages, especially with its revelations of exotic technologies, financial injustices, political deceptions and suppressed scientific discoveries.
To read the Scoop NZ article in full go to: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1407/S00308/tv-series-based-on-controversial-new-book-planned.htm
The Amazon link to The Orphan Conspiracies is: http://www.amazon.com/The-Orphan-Conspiracies-Conspiracy-Theories-ebook/dp/B00J4MPFT6/
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Historian’s Afterword provides thought-provoking conclusion to controversial book
Reader response to the Afterword in our book THE ORPHAN CONSPIRACIES: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy has prompted us to run it here, in full, in the hope it will prompt further enlightened thought and debate.
Penned by American author and Professor of History at the University of Idaho, Dr. Richard (Rick) Spence, the Afterword provides a thought-provoking conclusion to our book.
Historian Dr. Richard Spence
Dr. Spence is well qualified to comment on conspiracy theories. At the University of Idaho, where he has taught since 1986, he specializes in Russian, intelligence and military history, and his course offerings include Modern Espionage, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, History of Secret Societies and the Occult in History.
Here’s Dr. Spence’s Afterword (unabridged):
Someone, I honestly can’t recall who, once told me an apocryphal anecdote which is a kind of epilogue to the biblical tale of the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man. According to this, upon seeing Adam and Eve driven from paradise, the agent of their ruin, the Serpent, aka the Devil, was moved to pity. Or so he claimed. He asked God if he might bestow upon these pitiful creatures a gift which would make their mortal suffering and that of their descendants a little easier to bear. The Lord consented, and so the Serpent granted humankind the “blessing” of self-delusion: the inability to see themselves, the world or their state as they really were. The trick, of course, is that neither would they be able to see God or the Devil for what they really were either.
The Eden saga is also relevant because, if taken literally, it can be interpreted as the Ur-Conspiracy against the human race. Basically, Adam and Eve got the boot because they dared to acquire forbidden knowledge and, if not stopped, might have achieved the ultimate prize of eternal life. It was that which prompted God—or Gods since the divine conversation is always in terms of “we”—to nip things in the bud lest the upstart creations become “like us.” It’s enough to make one wonder just whose side the Serpent was on. Or could it be that the Serpent was just God in disguise? Maybe we’ve been in the dark from the beginning.
Mythology, heresy or whatever, I’ve often thought the “Devil’s Gift” story explained the human condition pretty well. Whether the Serpent is to be blamed or thanked, the simple fact is that we do possess a tremendous capacity for deluding ourselves—and others. A prime example is the multitude of “conspiracy theories” James and Lance Morcan have presented in this book, theories that range, arguably, from the patently absurd to the disturbingly plausible. Notice that I’m not making a distinction as to which are which or who is deluding who. That’s up to you.
For some years now I’ve offered a course at my university titled “Conspiracies and Secret Societies in History.” Its basic goal, much like this book, is neither to advocate nor debunk, but to make people aware of what ideas and groups exist (or have existed) and what facts there may be to support or refute them. I’ve sometimes described it as a course in modern heresy or even in the nature of reality. A key theme is that human history, behavior and reality are governed not by what we know but by what we believe. Here’s a simple example: we all have fathers and most of us know who our fathers are. Or we believe we do. Ultimately both we and our fathers are taking our mother’s word for it, which doesn’t exclude the possibility that even she is mistaken. Ah, you say, but what about DNA tests? That supposes such tests actually prove what they claim which is yet another thing you must take on faith. I’m going to guess that you’ve not had a DNA test, nor do you see any reason why you should. That’s doubtless a sound belief, but nevertheless a belief that in a small number of cases is dead wrong. Paternity is almost always an assumption, not a fact. That’s an unsettling thing to consider, so maybe it is best ignored. Just like so many bigger, unsettling possibilities mentioned in The Orphan Conspiracies.
The authors make frequent reference to the “Tinfoil Hat Network,” which is a convenient name for those folks who believe in things that presumably more rational minds find, well, nutty. However intrinsically loony an idea may be, when people believe it, and act on that belief, it attains a power that can shape reality around it. A simple case in point is Nazi anti-Semitism. The fringe and utterly bogus notion that Jews represented a kind of biological contamination that had to be eradicated root and branch became the operative philosophy of a political regime and as a result millions of people died. Maybe the most dangerous thing about the “Illuminati” isn’t that such a master cabal has ever existed, but that some people believe it should and wreak havoc under the delusion they run the world. Likewise, something discussed extensively in this book, Jim Jones and Jonestown, was, at the very least, a case of people believing so much in a crackpot messiah that they were willing to kill themselves, and often their children, on his command. And, remember, that’s the least of the horror stories that can be built around the Jonestown massacre. The alternatives are even more disturbing.
So how can we determine what’s real and what’s not? We can’t. We can just pick and choose what we want to believe and rationalize it as best we can. Reality, after all, is basically a movie projected inside our heads. It’s based on the colors our senses permit us to see, the sounds they permit us to hear and whatever else our brains let slip through the gates. But outside our limited senses, surrounding us, there is, unquestionably, a much greater reality, a universe we live in but cannot see. Well, most of us, anyway. Out there, in the dark, All Things Are Possible.
An author in his own right, Dr. Spence’s published works include Boris Savinkov: Renegade on the Left (East European Monographs/Columbia Univ. Press, 1991), Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly (Feral House, 2002) and Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult (Feral House, 2008).
Some of the books by Dr. Richard Spence.
Dr. Spence is also the author of numerous articles in Revolutionary Russia, Intelligence and National Security, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, The Historian, New Dawn and other publications. He has served as a commentator/consultant for the History Channel and the International Spy Museum and was a key consultant-interviewee for the Russian Cultural Foundation’s 2007 documentary film, “Leon Trotsky: The Secret of World Revolution,” and its subsequent “Trap for the Tsar.”
Read more in The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy – available now via Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Orphan-Conspiracies-Conspiracy-Theories-ebook/dp/B00J4MPFT6/
Out there in the dark, all things are possible!
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July 19, 2014
Advanced (hidden) learning techniques: Part 3
Brainwave entrainment and sleep-learning
With the help of virtual reality and biofeedback technologies, the orphans were taught how to guide their minds to reach certain brain frequencies – like Alpha, Theta and Delta – at will. The purpose of slipping into these particular frequencies was to allow the right brain to take over, as opposed to the left-brained consciousness dominant in most people. Whenever the orphans needed to access their higher intelligences, they would enter a daydream and simply intuit the answers. That way, they could bypass thinking, and just know. Within the Omega family, intuition was favored over logical thought patterns…
That’s an excerpt from our conspiracy thriller The Ninth Orphan, book one in The Orphan Trilogy. The “orphans” we refer to are 23 genetically enhanced operatives who were raised at the Pedemont Orphanage on Chicago’s seedy southside.
In The Orphan Factory, book two in the trilogy and the prequel to book one, we describe the superior learning methods our orphans received to turn them into elite spies. This entailed considerable research on our part before the writing process even began.
The results of that research are included in our new (non-fiction) book THE ORPHAN CONSPIRACIES: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy.
Here’s an excerpt from the book:
As mentioned, brainwaves are a crucial part of accelerated learning techniques. It’s proven that when individuals move out of normal waking brainwaves (beta) into other brainwaves (alpha, theta, delta and gamma) they enter the ideal state in which to absorb new information. Whether the learning is analyzing complex equations, or memorizing facts, or becoming an expert in martial arts, it makes no difference.
Our children at the Pedemont Orphanage use brainwave generators and biofeedback machines to reach optimal frequency for study. This method of altering the mind is known as brainwave entrainment.
Gamma brainwaves, which are the highest frequency brainwave, are held in high regard at the orphanage. As we wrote in The Orphan Factory:
“The children performed mind photography in uncommon brainwaves for regular wakeful consciousness. In this case it was predominantly gamma waves, and it allowed them to tap into the genius of their subconscious minds.”
Besides being present while learning languages or forming new ideas, Gamma waves are also vital for recalling memories. And the faster the gamma brainwave, the faster the memory recall is – yet another advantage in doing things at speed.
Even at night, the Pedemont orphans’ education continues through hypnopædia, or sleep-learning. Audio courses play through headphones they wear while asleep and our orphans are able to learn new subjects like high finance or foreign languages.
Hypnopædia comes from the Greek hypnos, meaning ‘sleep’, and paideia, meaning ‘education’. Although still not conclusive, some research has shown the subconscious mind is very receptive to absorbing knowledge whilst we sleep.
There are numerous references to hypnopædia in Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World. Thirty years later, this unusual learning method was also mentioned in A Clockwork Orange, another dystopian novel, by Anthony Burgess. The popularity of these bestselling novels coincided with the release of positive results of preliminary studies into sleep-learning, ensuring that hypnopædia became relatively well known around the world and interest in it blossomed.
However, from the early 1960’s onwards, more in-depth scientific studies were conducted in laboratories in the US and the UK, disproving the theory that humans could learn during sleep.
Even though many students in numerous countries kept claiming they achieved better exam results after listening to audio recordings on subjects whilst asleep, official studies simply did not confirm this. As a result, hypnopædia was discredited for about 50 years and slipped into obscurity in scientific and education circles.
Only in the last few years has the potential learning method resurfaced. Recent studies are beginning to contradict earlier experiments and it may not be long before hypnopædia is proven to be a reality.
For example, on August 29, 2012, The Huffington Post ran a news article under the headline Sleep Learning May Be Possible: Study. The article mentioned a new study by researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science, which demonstrated test subjects learnt new information while asleep.
In an interrelated experiment, scientists at Illinois’ Northwestern University discovered that taking a 90-minute nap immediately after studying helps solidify knowledge in the brain. They taught new things – both physical and mental – to people and then tested them on how well they remembered and applied the knowledge taught. There were two groups involved – one whose members slept after learning and one whose members stayed awake the whole time. Those who slept in the lab after studying showed significantly better mastery of the subject matter when tested.
So hypnopædia is once again on the scientific radar and it will be interesting to see the results of future studies.
Read more in The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy – available now via Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Orphan-Conspiracies-Conspiracy-Theories-ebook/dp/B00J4MPFT6/
A book that’s for the common people...the 99%
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July 18, 2014
SILENT FEAR feature film to be helmed by Aussie director Antony J. Bowman
Our British thriller movie SILENT FEAR, to be shot in London in 2015 , features this week in IF Magazine, the Down Under film industry chronicle. It highlights the recent attachment of Australian director Antony J. Bowman to helm the production.
Director Antony J. Bowman
The article, by IF Magazine columnist Don Groves, follows (unabridged):
Aussie director attached to London-set thriller
[Fri 18/07/2014 4:32 PM]
By Don Groves
Antony J. Bowman is attached to direct Silent Fear, a London-set thriller which will star Kevin Sorbo.
It’s the first feature from New Zealand producers Ronel Schodt, managing director of Shotz Productions, and Brent Macpherson of Stretch Productions, through their Stretch Motion Pictures.
In an unusual twist, the female protagonist is fluent in sign language, and Macpherson is a Deaf director.
The plot revolves around Valerie Crowther (yet to be cast), a Scotland Yard detective whose mother was Deaf. Valerie is assigned to investigate the murder of a student at London’s Wandsworth University, a learning institution for the Deaf.
Sorbo will play Detective Chief Superintendent Mark Bennett, who is her ex-husband, meaning they have a difficult working relationship. Valerie’s arrival at Wandsworth University coincides with the death of a student from a deadly flu virus as the government closes the borders to prevent the entry of the virus which has caused tens of thousands of deaths elsewhere.
The screenplay is by Kiwi-born, Sydney-based writer/actor James Morcan and his father Lance Morcan. James Morcan suggested the producers hire Bowman, who directed Paperback Hero and now works in the US and UK.
His most recent feature was Almost Broadway, a drama about a group of struggling actors in New York who capitalise on their friend’s unexpected possession of an incriminating sex tape, which starred Cameron Daddo, Ella Bowman, Bernard Curry, Taryn Manning, Dov Davidoff and Currie Graham.
“Brent and I have been working together now for over a year producing promotional and commercials for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing communities,” said Schodt, who has two short films, Dog on Duty and Pigeons, screening at the New Zealand Festival.
“I believe that with the insight of having a Deaf director working with Ant Bowman in creating our claustrophobic world when the University for the Deaf is cut off from the rest of the world through the killer virus, we will have a unique film.
“I read up about Ant, had a couple of Skype calls and really made a connection. Brent went over to LA to meet him and also connected, hence his attachment.”
Script editor Tanya Wheeler is giving the screenplay a polish, and the producers hope to put the finance package together in the next six months.
“We would like to be filming end of 2015 in London. However there is always a possibility to shoot the film in New Zealand, now that we have our own attractive tax incentives,” she says.
“Once our script is finalised then we are 100% in search of Valerie, which will have to be an experienced lead actress to fill Valerie’s shoes, as well as learning sign language.”
Sorbo has worked steadily since his breakthrough in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. One of his recent films, low-budget, faith-based drama God’s Not Dead, has grossed more than $60 million in the US.
The SILENT FEAR screenplay was inspired by the murders of two deaf students at America’s prestigious Gallaudet University for the Deaf, in Washington. A report on the original crimes is detailed in our earlier blog at: http://morcanbooksandfilms.com/2013/08/27/silent-fear-feature-film-inspired-by-murders-at-gallaudet-university-for-the-deaf/
Gallaudet University (above). Gallaudet students sign in class (below).
And here’s our teaser trailer for SILENT FEAR: http://youtu.be/Ll9O9dedd44
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July 17, 2014
New cover unveiled for book three in THE ORPHAN TRILOGY thriller series
We are pleased to announce the new cover launch for our thriller THE ORPHAN UPRISING (The Orphan Trilogy, #3).
THE ORPHAN UPRISING is the sequel to THE NINTH ORPHAN, book one in this international thriller series.
The storyline:
In this explosive conclusion to The Orphan Trilogy, the ninth-born orphan’s dramatic story resumes five years after book one, The Ninth Orphan, ends.
Having eluded his former masters at the Omega Agency and escaped his past life as an operative, Nine has married his soul mate, Isabelle. They’ve carved out a new life for themselves, off the grid, in the remote islands of French Polynesia.
The contented couple have a five-year-old son, Francis, who is a chip off the old block and who has inherited his father’s unique DNA. Francis will soon have a sister as Isabelle is about to give birth to a baby girl.
Their idyllic lifestyle is shattered when Francis is abducted by operatives in the employ of the Omega Agency, the shadowy organization that brought Nine into the world and once controlled every aspect of his life. The terrified boy with the unique DNA is dispatched to one of Omega’s underground medical laboratories for scientific testing and experimentation.
Nine is desperate to find Francis before Omega can harm him. He soon finds he’s up against his fellow orphans – all elite operatives as he once was – who are under orders to kill him on sight. To overcome them, he must call on all his former training and skills. His search takes him around the world – from Tahiti to America, Germany, Greenland and the Congo.
To add to Nine’s worries, he has a serious heart condition that requires immediate surgery. The clock is ticking and he knows he’s on borrowed time. It’s a race against the clock to find his son before Omega can harm the boy – and before his heart gives out.
THE ORPHAN UPRISING is available via Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BFC66DM/
Happy reading! - Lance & James
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Advanced (hidden) learning techniques: Part 2
Speed reading
In book one in our thriller series THE ORPHAN TRILOGY, our lead character Nine, the ninth-born orphan, is a pure genius who exhibits a level of intelligence rarely if ever seen in any character in literature. He and his fellow orphans have photographic memories, can read entire books in five minutes flat and speak dozens of languages. Plus they learn new skills extremely fast and are highly adaptable.
How Nine and the other orphans at Chicago’s (fictitious) Pedemont Orphanage reached that level of intelligence, though, is merely implied or hinted at.
In book two, the prequel – THE ORPHAN FACTORY – we had to design an education system that would reveal exactly how the Pedemont orphans grew up to become that smart. This was quite a challenge; we had to do a lot of research into radical types of learning. Highlights from that research are covered in our book THE ORPHAN CONSPIRACIES: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy.
Here’s an excerpt from the book:
Having both gone through the traditional education system and finding it laborious and uninspiring, we found it fun to write about an alternative and more accelerated form of learning in our trilogy. Even so, it took several years of study before we felt confident enough to write about what it would take to create youngsters with intellects as advanced as those of our Pedemont orphans.
One of the most important skills our orphans possess is the ability to speed read. Having vast amounts of knowledge, or being walking encyclopedias, is a common trait in geniuses, and even more so in polymaths.
Probably the simplest way to gain this amount of knowledge is to learn to read very, very fast.
Speed-reading is therefore at the core of the radical education program we designed in our conspiracy thriller series. However, our orphans’ technique is much more advanced than the majority of speed-reading programs currently available to the public. Many such programs simply offer complementary reading skills rather than allowing for a whole new way to absorb the written word.
As we say in The Ninth Orphan, “It wasn’t so much speed-reading as mind photography – a technique where the practitioner taps into the brain’s innate photographic memory. The orphans were taught how to use their eyes and open their peripheral vision to mentally photograph the page of a book, magazine or newspaper at the rate of a page per second. Then they’d consciously recall every detail as if they’d read the material at normal, everyday reading speed. Tens of thousands of books, on all manner of subjects, were sent to the Pedemont Orphanage to keep up with the children’s prolific reading habits.”
The technique we wrote about was inspired by the most sophisticated speed-reading methods in the real world, as well as analysis of renowned speed-readers. It’s also based on the brain’s scientifically proven ability to pick up things subliminally and rapidly. By incorporating peripheral vision and photographic memory, it’s possible to pick up or photograph entire pages at a time rather than one word at a time.
This method enables the Pedemont orphans to read at the rate of about 20,000 words per minute. That’s many times faster than most readers can manage. In fact, the average reading speed is only 300 words per minute, or about one page per minute.
Although some skeptics – along with one or two book critics who reviewed our series – have expressed doubt over whether the human brain can absorb such vast quantities of data all at once, speed-reading is not fiction. And it has some famous devotees.
Various US Presidents were confirmed or rumored speed-readers. They include Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter.
Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, a self-taught speed-reader, is reported to have read a book before breakfast every single day while serving as president. Teddy’s recall was said to be perfect and he could often quote from the books he read.
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Evelyn Wood…coined the phrase ‘speed reading’.
Kennedy studied under American speed-reading expert Evelyn Wood who could read at an impressive 6000 words a minute. JFK claimed he could read at around 2000 words per minute with a very high comprehension rate.
Carter, who also studied speed-reading during his time in the White House, took courses with his wife Rosalynn.
The fact that Dwight D. Eisenhower said “Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book” may well allude to the fact he was yet another US president who could speed read. Who else but a speed-reader would have the time or ability to read every book in their local library?
Bestselling author, life coach and motivational speaker Anthony Robbins practices speed-reading and recommends it to audiences, personal clients and his readers.
In 2007, when J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published, six-time world champion speed-reader Anne Jones was the first to read it. Jones finished the 200,000-word, 759-page hardcover book in 47 minutes flat. Immediately afterwards, she completed a book review and sent it out to media outlets to prove her total comprehension of the story.
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Harry Potter…read cover to cover in 47 minutes!
Jacques Bergier, French Resistance fighter, spy, journalist, chemical engineer and author of the bestselling book The Morning of the Magicians, was a born speed-reader. He started reading magazines and newspapers as a toddler, and by the age of four was fluent in three languages. By the time he reached adulthood, Bergier was reading 10 books a day.
New Yorker and State University graduate Howard Berg was listed in the 1990 Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s fastest reader. His reading speed was clocked at a remarkable 25,000 words per minute. Berg says his skill was developed out of boredom. He spent his childhood in the library, which was apparently the only place in the world that interested him.
Autistic savant Kim Peek is one of the world’s foremost speed-readers. The real-life inspiration for Dustin Hoffman’s character in the 1988 movie Rain Man, Peek reads at between 10,000 and 20,000 words per minute and has a 98% comprehension rate. His method is to read two pages simultaneously, one with each eye. Spending most of his days in the public library in Salt Lake City, Utah, Peek has read many thousands of books.
Kim Peek…the original Rain Man.
Of all the examples of speed-readers, living or deceased, Peek’s methods are closest to those described in The Orphan Trilogy. We sincerely hope in years to come scientists will figure out exactly how Peek so readily absorbs information from books so that children can be taught the technique the world over.
Since the term speed-reading was coined by Evelyn Wood more than 50 years ago, the skill has featured in various TV series and Hollywood movies. In the 1996 feature film Phenomenon, lead character George Malley, played by John Travolta, exhibits extraordinary speed-reading skills. Dr. Spencer Reid, one of the main characters on the hit TV series Criminal Minds, is also a speed-reader.
There’s a speed-reading scene in the 2004 spy film The Bourne Supremacy, starring Matt Damon, in which CIA agent Pamela Landy, played by Joan Allen, is seen reading agency files at rapid speeds. Landy uses her finger to run up and down over text on each page. This finger pointing method is a real speed-reading technique known as Meta Guiding. In Good Will Hunting – another Matt Damon movie – Damon, who plays natural-born genius Will Hunting, is seen alone in his apartment flipping through page after page of a book without pause. Whether these two films on the actor’s resume are just a coincidence or whether he’s a speed-reader himself, is anyone’s guess.
Read more in The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy – available now via Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Orphan-Conspiracies-Conspiracy-Theories-ebook/dp/B00J4MPFT6/
A book that’s for the common people...the 99%
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July 16, 2014
Hebrew translation rights available for fiction & non-fiction books
The Hebrew translation rights to all our published books (fiction and non-fiction) are now available.
We are represented for these rights by Israeli literary agent Adamit Pereh, of the Adamit Pereh Agency.
Any publishers interested in acquiring the Hebrew translation rights to any of our books should contact Adamit at: adamit10@gmail.com – She and a number of our agents will be at the upcoming Frankfurt Book Fair.
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Worldwide, we are now represented for the translation rights of our books by the following literary agents:
Japan: Mari Koga, of Motovun Co. Ltd., Tokyo – koga_motovun@mbd.ocn.ne.jp
Turkey: Atilla Izgi Turgut, of Akcali Ajans, Instanbul – atilla@akcalicopyright.com
China: Mina Liu, of Chengdu Rightol Media, Chengdu – mina@rightol.cn
Russia: Sergei Cheredov, of Nova Littera Ltd., Moscow – pravaru@gmail.com
Korea: Joseph Lee, of KL Management/Korean Literary Management, Seoul – josephlee705@gmail.com
India: Vidula Tokekar, of TranslationPanacea, Pune – translation@panaceabpo.co.in
Israel: Adamit Pereh, of Adamit Pereh Agency – adamit10@gmail.com
Rest of world including Europe: Maria Pinto-Peuckmann, Munich area - maria@pinto-peuckmann.de
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Our eight titles (published between 2011 and 2014) are listed below :
Fiji: A Novel (The World Duology)
The Ninth Orphan (The Orphan Trilogy)
The Orphan Trilogy (The Ninth Orphan / The Orphan Factory / The Orphan Uprising)
The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy
World Odyssey (The World Duology)
The Orphan Uprising (The Orphan Trilogy)
The Orphan Factory (The Orphan Trilogy)
The World Duology (World Odyssey / Fiji: A Novel)
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