This unusual story documents the physical and spiritual journey of a young man into the vast forests of pagan Anglo-Saxon England - the historical setting of Middle-Earth.

Through his experiences the book reveals the teaching of a remarkable Western path to psychological and spiritual liberation; a way of being in the world that challenges many of our current notions of mind, body and spirit.

Wat Brand is a Christian scribe sent on a mission deep into a pagan kingdom; a landscape full of alien terrors and mysterious forces. His guide, a sorcerer and mystic named Wulf, demonstrates awesome healing powers, and leads Brand through lessons in plant lore and runes, omens, fate and life force, and into direct encounters with the spirit world. Brand becomes an apprentice, seeks the help of a guardian spirit and eventually journeys to the spirit world to encounter the true nature of his own soul.

This story is the outcome of the author's research project into the psychology of shamanism and sorcery. Written as a novel, The Way of Wyrd is based on a collection of Anglo-Saxon magical and medical manuscripts from the British museum. Every event and detail of the teachings has been reconstructed from the Anglo-Saxon evidence. In the preface Dr Bates argues that The Way of Wyrd has implications for our nations of life and death, psychological and paranormal powers, health and healing, ecology and the contemporary search for spiritual meaning in life. The teachings of The Way of Wyrd are as potent and challenging today as they were a thousand years ago.

This book will be republished in 2004 by Hay House