1970s
In my early twenties, I was on stage as a keyboard player with my rock band. For a long time, music was my only way to tell stories through sound, atmosphere, emotion, and above all – without words.
And for me, music was about far more than mere entertainment. It was about impact and creating inner images.
1980s
In my mid-thirties, I moved behind the camera. As a director, cameraman and actor, I began telling stories no longer through sound, but through images, light and atmosphere.
It was here that I learned how tension is created and how worlds can be made to feel real. That experience continues to shape my books, films and visual projects to this day.
1990s
In my mid-forties, my life became calmer and clearer. My dog became my most loyal companion and friend. During this time, I discovered the power of looking inward. The greatest stories usually originate there – in silence.
For decades, ideas had been simmering within me, playing out like little films before my mind’s eye every day – over and over again. When would they finally dare to break free?
2000s
At the age of 54, I began writing at night. Alone, outdoors, under the open sky, accompanied only by the light of a lamp and my thoughts. In this environment, the world of Shadow Powers was born:
A story that intertwines historical reality, mythology, and hidden connections. What began as an idea quickly grew into an entire universe.
I wrote my first novella in 1968. I was fourteen years old. After my father tore it to pieces, I did not write a single creative line again for the next forty years.
INNER WORLDS
In retrospect, a pattern becomes visible: my youth had shaped a distorted understanding of power, dependency and emotional control. Later in life, I repeatedly became involved with women struggling with severe psychological or emotional problems: compulsive spending, violence, depression and emotional instability.
Three wrong decisions and thirty-six lost years of my life.
INNER WORLDS
INNER WORLDS
Most people accept social structures as though they were immutable laws of nature. I, however, have always been interested in who created these structures — and whom they ultimately serve:
CUI BONO?
Power is not confined to states and institutions; it embeds itself in the most intimate spheres – in families, in relationships. Its ugliest face often reveals itself first in the children’s room. But wherever it originates, power never stays there. It eats its way outward — into social structures, into political systems, into economic decision-making bodies. It is there that power truly finds its home. And it is there that it becomes most dangerous: because it cowardly hides behind the mask of normality.
The decisive question, therefore, is not who holds power, but what makes people feel entitled to exercise power over others. It is these forms of self-empowerment that lie at the core of my work – in my novels as much as in my political essays. For SHADOW POWERS, despite all its elements of fantasy, is ultimately a story about reality. And that is where the circle closes.
SHADOW POWERS — MORE THAN A BOOK
Since corrupt people unite amongst themselves to constitute
a force, then honest people must do the same.
© 2026 Ray Adam · All rights reserved
