It all started with the Germans. With the film having done very well in Germany, our distributor there — Udo Grube hooked up with organizers Heiko and Beatrix Rittweger to put on the BLEEP Kongress. They invited me and Fred Alan Wolf to Berlin to give presentations, Q&A's and all the BLEEP conference-type things.

So I got the ticket for Berlin.

Meanwhile I'd been emailing Dr. Ervin Laszlo back and forth for years and hoping to meet him sometime at his villa in Tuscany. (Ervin was not in the films only because I met him afterwards. His writings are amazing — check them out sometime.) It turned out that about the time I was to be in Europe he would be in Italy, and a filmmaker, who I'd been in e-contact with, who was making a film about Dr. L's work was going to be there too. OK — Italy is on.

Meanwhile I was thinking this would be a long lonely trip, so I invited/begged webmaster/bodyguard extraordinaire, Katie Elliott to come along on the adventure.

We were set to go when, at the last minute, an email flies in. The film is opening in Paris one week after the Kongress. Can you come to open it? This came from our French distributor, who was really the Spanish distributor. BLEEP had done so well in Spain that they were willing to back Idoia ("the energizer bunny") Serrano to open a branch in France to distribute the movie. Why that complicated arrangement? — More on that later.

So now its Italy, Germany, France — with a little Switzerland and Austria thrown in - and off we went.

Katie in Switzerland

Italy

When I later told Dr. Joe Dispenza about going to Italy he said: "Oh not even finished with lunch and you're thinking about where you'll go for dinner". I gained 10 pounds in Italy. Katie began referring to me as "The Dumpling".

Arriving at Dr. Laszlo's house for lunch (what else!) we were introduced to a number of guests.

Ervin had just written the forward to Adi Da's new book "Not Two Is Peace" -- (For those not familiar with Adi Da, he is an extraordinary spiritual teacher who for decades has been teaching, writing, painting and enlightening.) It turned out that one of three people connected with Adi Da had sat behind me two years previous when I went to Adi Da's retreat in California for Darshan! The world just shrank.

Ervin Laszlo and Will

Then I was introduced to a charming woman from Paris — who turned out to be Laurence — one of the filmmakers. (I figured Laurence was a he.) I told her we would be in Paris for the opening and we arranged to meet there. Ervin then jumped in and offered to hook us up with the local Parisian branch of his Club of Budapest. An organization he founded with the goal of making the world better for everyone. Every ONE. Not TWO is Peace. Hmm...

Lunch was great, the conversation wonderful and the Dumpling was growing... Two weeks later we waddled up to Berlin for the Kongress.

Germany

Will and Katie in Germany

What would Germany be like? Think about the last 100 years in Berlin. The height of power — launching World War One. A humiliating defeat, rising from the ash, being led by one of the great villains of all time, about to conquer the world, then defeated. The seat of power bombed and occupied. Then split in half and becoming the front line of the Cold War. Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall. Then, a city/country divided becomes ONE (that word again) though now half speak English and half speak Russian.

If a person had gone through all that they'd be way deep in therapy. What about Berlin?

I walked into the BLEEP Kongress (held in the former East Berlin). Inside — "Oh my God — I'm back at a BLEEP Conference". We had done six of them in the US, and if I WILL AND UDO PIC didn't hear snatches of German, I'd think this was number seven. The people, the smiles, the vendors, the excitement was all the same. I meet Udo and we're instant bro's. Up on the stage and as I look out it seems like old home week. Am I really 5000 miles from home? Is it really ALL home in reality???

So I talk, we laugh (German's have a great sense of humor), people thank me, I thank them, sign books... Fred Alan Wolf gets up, he talks, they laugh, standing ovation,... Click here for a quick youtube video of the event.

France — the land of Surprises

We take an overnight train and arrive in Paris at 8AM. Idoia is at the station to meet us. That was the last bit of orderly movement in France. We had entered the world of Chaos.

First off — many Americans think the French are: rude and open minded. The first surprise is the rude bit. I'd been told to try speaking some, any, French, when you meet someone. Not bad advice, and when you think about it — to bluster into someone's country and just assume they speak your language is in itself rude.

Jen neh say pah Fran-say, Par lay voo Englaye? Smiles, a chuckle from the listener and it's all good. Even that litmus test of rudeness — cab drivers — were as nice as nice could be. Waiters were as nice, and once more it was great food, wine for lunch, and more wine for dinner. And oh by the way, you must have desert... Dumpling was happy and deep into its expansionist program.

Open minded?

The first clue should have been at the Q&A sessions. We had taken the high speed train down to Marseilles to open the film there. Like Berlin, when I looked out at the audience, it looked the same as the US and Germany. But the questions started off like: "first I like to thank you for your courage in making this movie. It was very brave of you to make it, and show such corăgousness. So I would first like to honor your fearlessness and courage in..."

Uhh — I guess its good there's a bodyguard with me, but...

We went next to Nantes. "Such courage in showing this movie means a lot to us. Such bravery..." And finally Paris (to sold-out audiences, on the Champs D' Elysees — one block from the Arc D' Triumph no less) "I want to commend you on your courage to..." (Click here for a PDF of the French advertising packet to see the bravery and courage.)

That day the review in a leading Paris newspaper: Headline: What the BLEEP - Faux (fake) Film, Real Sect (cult). It seems the Inquisition lives on in France. (By the way — the reviewer never watched the movie.) All the theaters which had booked the film dropped it after the article. So — the power structure of France — the Media, Government (they issue proclamations on which Cults are dangerous — basically all of them) — denounce, trash and ridicule anything of a spiritual/metaphysical nature. I was shocked.

And yet the folks in the audience were the same as everywhere else. Aside from a feeling of being a suppressed group, it was the same feeling as Germany, America, Australia...

You may wonder — did this response from the authorities dampen the opening or the reception from people? Not in the least. Changes always brings resistance. And opportunity. A man came up to me at the book signing in Paris. He was involved with the Israeli peace effort. He said What the BLEEP was well known in the peace movement. We got talking and now are figuring away to get 1000 copies in the hands of the Palestinian Peace movement. We all do what we can.

It was getting time to fly home. The last day we met the Laurences at The Occident, a famous Parisian Café where Picasso and Hemingway used to congregate, then off to the Louvre.

Back Home

Around the world this underground movement is emerging. It reminds me of the 60's, when those counter-culture folks could always recognize each other. Like the 60's this world-wide-web is forming. People are not very different. We're mostly the same. It's all family.

In his book Adi Da says the world must be founded on "cooperation and tolerance". I remember Ramtha once answered the question about the most direct path towards Enlightenment. He said "I have three words Allow, Allow, Allow."