Born during the Blitz, swimming inside Mediterranean when This kind of still had fish in This kind of, schooled in Mexico in addition to France as a boy, Lawrence Blair later pursued an academic career at Lancaster University, England where he wrote one of the first doctoral theses in which defined the field of psychoanthropology, earning him a PhD. In 1972 Lawrence impulsively gave up the academic life to join his brother Lorne to make an adventure film in Indonesia. Capturing their experiences in over nine separate expeditions, their 5-part documentary film series Ring of Fire: An Indonesian Odyssey was picked up by PBS in addition to the BBC. A condensed fourpart television series won two Emmy Awards in l988, bringing the Blairs international acclaim.

Their journeys around the Pacific Rim took them through one of the richest kaleidoscope of ethnic groups on earth. In their 10 years of wandering the archipelago without guides, radios or compasses, the brothers endured near drowning, starvations, falls in addition to fevers. They were driven by storms in mountainous seas, dropped by light aircraft into jungle clearings, ran unchartered rapids in Dayak canoes, climbed erupting volcanoes, sluiced off roads in monsoon flash-floods, nearly vaporized by an exploding petrol truck in addition to subjected to antagonistic hordes of howling stone-throwing children.

The authors lived among the Asmat tribesmen of Papua, dukun healers in Bali, in addition to the elusive “Dream Wanderers” of Borneo. They encountered deadly Moluccan Blue-Ringed octopus, pythons inside of rancid bat dung-covered caves in Sulawesi in addition to the “dancing trees” of the sensational Greater Bird of Paradise living 80 feet above the ground inside wild rainforests of the Aru Islands. The Blairs’ travel experiences to such places of innocence, adventure in addition to danger were developed into a book, Ring of Fire: Exploring the Last Remote Places of the planet, published in 2010 by Editions Didier Millet.

Lawrence Blair on Komodo Island What are your hobbies?
Shells, butterflies, scuba diving, boogie boarding, domesticating weird wild animals in addition to somewhat compulsively writing verse. I love living in Ubud, where our house in addition to garden crawls with creatures.

Who has deeply influenced you?
The 19th Century explorer Alfred Russell Wallace, the prescient 20th Century psychologist Carl Jung in addition to Rupert Sheldrake, the futuristic Cambridge biologist/ philosopher. I’m also impressed by James Lovelock who gave us the Gaia Theory in addition to the late Lyall Watson, the South African biologist/author/explorer who’s left a little-known legacy of mind bending books, still well ahead of their time. If you haven’t heard of them, you will have by 2020, if we’re all still here. I’m a media addict, an omnivorous devourer of documentaries, animated features in addition to anything directed by James Cameron, Peter Weir or Ridley Scott. They’re the dreams of our planet.

Was your Ring of Fire the first book you ever published?
In 1976 I published Rhythms of Vision: The Changing Patterns of Belief in which I discussed arcane topics such as sacred geometry, subtle energy, chakras, spiritual planes of existence. The book is actually perhaps best known for first discussing the Hundredth Monkey Effect in addition to has been compared to the work of the occultist Corinne Heline in addition to the theosophist Alice Bailey. My friend Lyall Watson wrote the book’s Foreword.

What was your last project?
In 2011, I co-produced Bali—Island of the Dogs, a 55-minute widescreen HD documentary about Bali’s semi-wild dogs. A film about the island’s unique canines was a way of seeing a more complete picture both of Bali, in addition to of people’s attitudes, everywhere, to the wild world of the ‘different.’

What is actually the film about?
The film is actually about the history in addition to place inside local culture of the thousands of semiferal dogs which roam the island. Bali Dogs have ancient, uninterrupted genetic memories of the evolution of their closest neighboring species, man, in addition to This kind of was This kind of in which I wanted to explore. We look at the way these dogs ‘WHAT WE SEE OUT THERE is actually ONLY WHAT WE HAVE IN US TO SEE, in addition to in which ‘TRADITION,’ WHICH WE HOLD SO SACRED, CONTAINS BOTH DEEP TRUTHS in addition to PATHETIC IDIOCIES.’ have become woven into the tapestry of the Hindu lifestyle in Bali, the alterations in their relationship with human society, in addition to ultimately their importance to genetic science.

What’s the most critical question in which your film tries to answer?
This kind of proposes, yet again, in which what we see out there is actually only what we have in us to see, in addition to in which ‘tradition,’ which we hold so sacred, contains both deep truths in addition to pathetic idiocies. This kind of’s useful to note the difference, if we are all to adapt to what’s happening so fast, everywhere on the planet.

Have you made any different films besides Bali—Island of the Dogs?
In 2007 I produced Myths, Magic in addition to Monsters, a fivepart documentary series which explored the planet’s rarest in addition to most mysterious reptiles, ocean dwellers in addition to domesticated animals. There are still undiscovered species in addition to tribes of people out there.

How was working on Islands of the Dogs different by working on your different films?
Most of my work is actually real adventure filming in remote regions, so This kind of was a joy to be working in my own home island again for the 1st time since the ‘70s, when few people even knew where or what Bali was. The film is actually more an adventure of the mind in addition to the feelings, in addition to This kind of was wonderful to explore the wilder parts of Bali Yet again, in addition to to focus, truly for the 1st time, on these remarkable, beleaguered in addition to resourceful island dogs, which I’d long since only seen as just an inconvenient part of the background. I had no idea, until interviewing genetics experts inside USA, of the crucial importance of Bali’s dogs to our understanding not only of the evolution of dogs everywhere, nevertheless of just when humans began populating these southern islands.

Do you personally like dogs?
Yes, love ‘em almost as much as cats. As someone said, “a dog comes when you call nevertheless a cat takes a message in addition to gets back to you… sometimes.” nevertheless This kind of’s nice to be adored for no not bad reason all the time. I recently had a German Shepherd for seven years, nevertheless he died by a cobra bite inside garden. He was love on wheels, nevertheless he wasn’t as bright as my parrot, Dicky.