Faced with stories of magical bears that transform into wisps of smoke that make fascinating patterns on the walls of a wigwam, or talking fish that grant any wish we want, who'd want to go beyond that magical world to look at the patterns, or structures, of the stories in which these magical and mysterious characters appear?

Beyond that magical world, there's a brand-new world full of new information about story that awaits us!

This is the world of the Unknown Storyteller

There are so many new things we can learn about story - even though we've been telling stories for literally thousands of years. Most importantly, we can discover new things about story structures that will prove useful to writers, narrative therapists, creative writing teachers, storytellers, story lovers and inquisitive, curious human beings. These things will inspire us, help us engage more authentically in what we love doing, and have the story we want to see unfold in our lives manifest itself through the way we live our lives.

My research centres on using George Spencer-Brown's Calculus of Indications (CoI), as outlined in his book, Laws of Form, to analyse story structure. It's a powerful tool which reveals a surprising amount of new information about story and how it works.

I was fortunate enough to become George Spencer-Brown's last student. I got to know him in the last three years of his life. At first, he mentored me weekly, taking me through Laws of Form, following which we developed a meaningful friendship which lasted until his death.

Find out more in the introductory video below.

Since its first publication in 1969, the book has become something of a cult classic. It outlines a powerful content-free calculus based on a single act of making a distinction. From there, Spencer-Brown traces the path the universe takes to come into being, in and of itself, in order (as he argues) to know itself.