Clara’s Verdict
Dolores Cannon occupies a unique and genuinely strange position in metaphysical literature: a hypnotherapist who spent decades conducting deep-trance sessions with clients who, she argued, accessed memories and knowledge extending far beyond ordinary personal biography. She published the resulting material across an ongoing series of books that have attracted a fiercely loyal readership. The Convoluted Universe: Book Three is the third instalment in this series, running to 22 hours and 27 minutes and narrated by Bethany Elam. It carries a rating of 4.8 out of 5 from its listeners – a niche but deeply committed audience.
I approach this material as a sceptic – not a dismissive one, but a careful one. What is unquestionable is that Cannon was a remarkable practitioner who treated her clients with genuine compassion and took their experiences with absolute seriousness. Whether the cosmological structures they described under trance represent literal metaphysical reality or something else entirely is a question the listener must answer for themselves.
About the audiobook
The Convoluted Universe series is drawn from Cannon’s hypnotic regression sessions, in which clients appear to access states of awareness that produce consistent, detailed, and – she argues – mutually corroborating descriptions of cosmological and spiritual reality. Book Three continues this exploration into territory that genuinely pushes against the boundaries of available frameworks.
The subjects covered in this volume include: other incarnations experienced as animals, plants, and non-humanoid beings in radically different bodies; the proposition that all matter, at every scale, possesses some form of consciousness; the concept of three waves of volunteer souls choosing to incarnate at this particular moment in Earth’s history to assist with a period of planetary transition; the nature of God or the Source from which, according to Cannon’s subjects, all consciousness emerges and to which it returns; lifetimes spent as creators of universes and solar systems; the laws of physics and creation in dimensions where different rules apply; the “new Earth” and the physiological effects of moving into a higher vibrational state; and a new framework for understanding walk-in experiences.
The consistency between clients – people who, Cannon emphasises, have no knowledge of each other and no access to each other’s session content – arriving at strikingly similar descriptions of these cosmological structures is what she presents as the most compelling evidence for the reality of what they are accessing. M.L. Shannon’s review expresses this: “All of her claims are backed up by multiple people who have no way of knowing each other, yet all the knowledge is exactly the same.”
Whether one accepts that framing or reads the consistency as evidence of shared cultural mythology accessed through trance, the material is extraordinary and the questions it raises are genuinely interesting ones about the nature of consciousness, memory, and experience.
The narration
Bethany Elam narrates the 22-hour-plus runtime with steady, contemplative commitment. The source material requires a narrator who can hold both the clinical register of Cannon’s gentle questioning and the vast, almost incomprehensible scale of what her subjects describe – universes created, dimensions traversed, the nature of God explained from inside a trance. Elam achieves this with appropriate gravitas throughout, never undermining the sincerity of the material with sceptical inflection.
What readers say
M.L. Shannon dived straight from Book Two and found herself “breathless,” calling Cannon “a genius” and noting that every page is “jammed packed full of mind candy – she stretches and bends your mind and back again.” Mariana praises the series for “complete acceptance, honesty, clarity and spirituality,” describing it as emphatically not a religious book but one of genuine spiritual intelligence. Ms K. Kavanagh is excited by the section on the Bermuda Triangle – declining to spoil the content – and notes that the channelings “cast much needed light on the whole process.” Deborah Hamilton calls it “fascinating exploration into our simultaneous existences” and emphasises the importance of reading the series in order. Amazon Customer offers two words: “Totally fascinating.”
Who should listen?
This is absolutely not entry-level metaphysical content. This is Book Three of a series, and Cannon’s concepts build cumulatively. New readers should begin with The Convoluted Universe: Book One for the foundational context. The series rewards those who are genuinely curious about consciousness, the nature of time and identity, and the possibility of experiences that extend beyond ordinary biographical memory.
If you have found value in books by Michael Newton, Brian Weiss, or other authors working in past-life regression and consciousness research, Cannon’s work represents the outer edge of that territory – where the questions become larger and the frameworks for answering them become stranger and more expansive. For many readers, that is precisely where they want to be.
It is also worth noting that Cannon’s approach to her subjects is consistently characterised by warmth and clinical rigour in equal measure. Whatever one makes of the metaphysical content, her treatment of the people in her sessions is exemplary – she was clearly a compassionate and skilled practitioner. That quality comes through in the recordings and contributes to the profound sense of trust that characterises the relationships between Cannon and her clients throughout the series.
Listen to The Convoluted Universe: Book Three on Audible UK and follow Dolores Cannon into some of the strangest and most thought-provoking territory in the audiobook catalogue.
