The Timeline

Born and adopted into a difficult childhood in Leith and Portobello. Leaves school after the ninth grade.

Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift (p.83)

Syd moves from Scotland to Canada, and works for seventeen years as a maintenance welder at the MacMillan Bloedel pulp mill in Nanaimo.

Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift (p.83)

Visiting friends after an awareness group, Syd has, in his words, “an enlightening experience and realized the existence of a world that very few people know exists.” Everything on this timeline flows from this morning.

Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift (p.83)

Syd quits the mill and moves to Salt Spring. Linda Quiring answers a notice in The Driftwood and comes off all medication; within months others follow.

Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift (p.83)

The earliest recording of Syd we hold, and as far as the record shows the first of his talks ever put on tape — a public talk given on Mayne Island.

Jack Pransky — the first known tape, Mayne Island, 27 Sept 1975

Syd gives the keynote at the “Gathering of the Ways” conference — his first major public talk.

Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift (p.83)

One of the earliest recordings we hold, from a public talk in Victoria — and the one The Hidden Cause opens its listening on.

Jack Pransky corroborates — 1975 Victoria public talk

A public talk at the Unitarian Church draws nearly 200 people. A small group forms there — the understanding is beginning to travel off the island.

Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift (p.83)

Two talks from a 1976 seminar in Sacramento, an early gathering of the mental-health professionals who were beginning to work from Syd's understanding.

Jack Pransky — Sacramento 1976, "Seminar on Mental Health" (inferred)

A talk taped at Shawnigan Lake in the spring of 1977.

Jack Pransky — a talk taped at Shawnigan Lake, April 1977 (inferred)

Recorded at the Vancouver Marine Museum in April 1977.

Jack Pransky corroborates — April 1977, Vancouver Marine Museum

Keith Blevens, Ph.D. and Valda Monroe meet Sydney Banks on Salt Spring Island. He becomes their friend and mentor until his death in 2009.

Keith Blevens and Valda Monroe, Our Story (Three Principles Paradigm): 'In 1977 we met a man named Sydney Banks.' (Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift p.83, places it in 1976.)

George Pransky and Roger Mills become the first two professionals to work solely from Syd's understanding. “Keith Blevens, Ph.D. soon joins them.”

Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift (p.83): George Pransky and Roger Mills are the first two professionals to work solely from Syd's understanding; "Keith Blevens, Ph.D. soon joins them." Year from Keith and Valda's own Our Story (1977).

Two talks given in San Francisco within a week of each other in January 1978.

Closing dates on the tapes

Given in Berkeley in January 1978, the same month as the talks across the bay in San Francisco.

Closing date on the tape

Roger Mills, George Pransky and Keith Blevens establish New Psychology Consultants — the first organization created to spread the message professionally.

Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift (p.88)

A talk from Salt Spring Island — the island where the whole understanding began.

On the tape

A tape we place, tentatively, to 1979: its subject and title match a taping Pransky records from that year.

Jack Pransky — a 1979 taping titled "Insecurity" (speculative)

Recorded at the Four Seasons in July 1980.

Jack Pransky corroborates — July 1980, "Four Seasons Hotel"

A talk from the Richmond Hotel, September 1982.

Jack Pransky corroborates — Richmond, Sept 1982 "Richmond Hotel"

Syd's first book, published by Med-Psych Publications. A fourth edition follows from Lone Pine in 2010.

The book itself

Two talks recorded in Vancouver in 1985.

On the tapes

An Institute talk given in Minneapolis in the late summer of 1987.

Jack Pransky — Minneapolis, 29 Aug 1987 Institute Talk

Taped in Bradenton, Florida, in September 1987.

Jack Pransky — Bradenton, 13 Sept 1987, "Defining Mental Health" (inferred)

A talk given in June 1988; the place isn't recorded.

Closing date on the tape

From the Honolulu conference of November 1988.

Jack Pransky corroborates — Honolulu, Nov 1988 "Honolulu Conference"

Two talks given on the same day in May 1989; the place isn't recorded.

Closing date on the tapes

At the Women's Faculty Club, U.C. Berkeley, Syd gathers the people he considers pillars of the work and helps them see they are not yet teaching the three Principles of Mind, Consciousness and Thought at the core of it — his first attempt to share the Three Principles as such.

Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift (p.94)

A sequel to Second Chance, published by Duval-Bibb.

The book itself

From the Hawaii conference of April 1990.

Jack Pransky corroborates — Hawaii, April 1990 "Hawaii Conference"

A talk from January 1991 — the same month, that year, that Syd first named the three principles Mind, Consciousness and Thought.

Closing date on the tape

Syd releases a tape, “Discussing the Three Principles” — the first recording on which he speaks of Mind, Consciousness and Thought as three universal Principles. The moment the language becomes explicit.

Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift (p.100)

Taped in Minneapolis in 1995, from a gathering Pransky notes as "Beyond the Word."

Jack Pransky — Minneapolis 1995, taped "Beyond the Word" (inferred)

We place this, tentatively, to a Honolulu seminar of early 1996 — the gathering around what became the book The Missing Link.

Jack Pransky — Honolulu, Feb 1996 "Missing Link" seminar (speculative)

Reflections on Philosophy and Spirit. This book begins the relationship with Lone Pine — which then starts Lone Pine Media and produces the first videotapes of Syd. Every recording on this timeline traces back to here.

The book itself

An interview. “Truth can never come in from the outside in. It comes from the inside out, because you've already got it.”

Closing card (year only)

The first full-length videos ever made of Syd, filmed by Lone Pine Media at the West Coast Long Beach Hotel over three days.

Closing cards on the recordings; corroborated by Pransky (p.119)

Taped July 2000, released by Lone Pine Media in 2001.

Closing cards (July 17, 2000)

The Institute is founded at the WVU School of Medicine, with Judith Sedgeman as director. Syd gives two presentations on “The Power of Wisdom” at the dedication.

Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift (p.119)

A retreat at the Turtle Bay Hilton — the best-attested date in the collection: a closing card, a DVD sleeve and Pransky's chronology all agree.

Closing cards (Oct 12–13, 2001); sleeve + Pransky (p.126)

A teaching parable, published by Lone Pine. Revisited in a longer 2005 edition.

The book itself

Published by Lone Pine Publishing.

The book itself

Three talks recorded on a single day at the “Exploring the True Meaning of Mind” conference.

Closing cards (April 15, 2005)

A wise old gardener teaches life's Principles of Mind, Consciousness and Thought. Published by Lone Pine.

The book itself

One Vancouver visit, two recordings — the cards give the month only.

Closing cards (October 2006, month only)

A Moment of Syd, filmed at Goodwill Industries-Suncoast — the venue read straight off the building sign in the opening frames.

Venue on film + Pransky (p.138)

One of the latest recordings we hold — filmed in digital widescreen, a year before Syd's death.

Closing card (June 8, 2008)

A companion to the Salt Spring Island interview, filmed the same afternoon. Syd on why the world changes only as consciousness rises — and on never making followers of anyone.

Same sitting as the Salt Spring Island interview (June 8, 2008).

Five months before his death, Syd contacts Keith Blevens and asks him to write a book, giving him his last unpublished writings but insisting it will be Keith's book. The hand-off toward the paradigm work.

Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift (p.138)

Believed to be Syd's last public talk — given to the Three Principles School in Victoria, the school Chip Chipman and Elsie Spittle founded at his request. He died two months later.

Placed from Jack Pransky's chronology (his last public talk, 26–29 March 2009, Victoria) and the recording's own content.

Syd gives his last public talk, at the Three Principles School.

Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift (p.138)

A week earlier he had hosted wounded Israeli veterans in his bedroom; days before that, in hospital, he asked that his books and recordings be brought to the world. He passes away on 25 May 2009.

Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift (p.138)

About 200 people attend a memorial service for Syd.

Jack Pransky, Paradigm Shift (p.138)

Keith and Valda's eight-part, audio-only event sharing their discovery that the Three Principles are a paradigm.

Held, remarkably, in a North London monastery — with Muslims, Jews, and atheists all in the same room.

Brett is invited to support Keith and Valda's online work, and builds their first website, ThreePrinciplesParadigm.com.

Keith and Valda's first four-day seminar, with Brett assisting on the online presentation.

Valda has a stroke and is no longer able to take part in the online calls. She retires from the work.

Keith invites Brett to join him as his partner in sharing the Three Principles.

“There is a dimension of life that few know about… Surprisingly, this hidden dimension isn’t ‘out there,’ it’s within your mind.”

Brett and Keith's first program together.

Brett and Keith's second program together.

A reading version of Syd’s audio talk, “The Great Spirit”.

Brett and Keith's third program together.

Brett and Keith's final program together — a rare, direct look at what a Principle actually is.

Keith dies. He passed his work, and all that he and Valda brought to the world, on to his daughter, Mattie Blevens, and asked Brett to carry on helping people see it.

A slow, thoughtful exploration of Sydney Banks’ final book, looking for what it awakens within us when we begin to see beyond the words.

A new website — The Hidden Cause — launches, taking over from ThreePrinciplesPsychology.com.

Keith's daughter, Mattie Blevens, takes on The Hidden Cause as its owner, with Brett as an equal partner in running it.

The Full Foundations Series brings together four programs across September to March, each exploring a different aspect of the Three Principles and how they show up in ordinary life.

A two-minute Moment of Syd. Its parent recording is not in our collection, so it stays honestly undated.

Closed as undated

A three-and-a-half-minute Moment. “You're as good as anybody on this earth. You're as holy as anybody else on this earth. You always have been, always will be.”

Closed as undated