non-sequiturs

Last night I had a dream. At the end of it, one of the relatives that I was arguing with about taboos in science was sitting across from me at big table and said something like, "You haven't gotten back to me about what I said about your logo. I said, "I can't comment on something I haven't seen yet." Just moments after that it occurred to me that I don't have a logo.

At first I thought that the dream had to do with how I felt about dealing with hard-core materialists. So I spent the day thinking about how how I could deal with them more effectively. Not so. Now I think it's really about how they waste your time with non-sequiturs. They want you to answer the same questions, over and over again, prove the same things, over and over again, all the while they just keep saying "It's not true."

That's really not what it's about. You can't win on their terms. In fact, you can't "win" at all. Harking back to my High School judo days, I recall that you don't meet force with force, you step aside, you deflect and you choose your battles.

Have a certain amount of compassion for their narrow-mindedness, it must be causing them a lot of grief in other aspects of their lives as well. Have respect for their need for control and to be "right," there are surly suffering about that more than you are. And try to understand the fears that hound them to grip reality so tightly their hands bleed.

I'm still working on my best place to stand on this. First aspect: Let them be. There is no need to convince anyone of anything, so just let have whatever view they want to have. If confronted, it sure would be nice to have a Joda-like comment to respond with, but, lacking that, a neutral, noncommittal statement is the next best. If they want a fight, don't give it to them. To be truly effective, you want this to come from a place of complete indifference. That's not so easy for me, but I try and keep in mind how meaningless the whole discussion is. Facts don't care what you believe, truth is, whether you like it or not. They are on their own path and need to learn whatever lessons they have. Let them go.

Healing Crisis

A while back, I tried a QHHT session on myself. It's probably not the best way to do it, but beggars can't be choosers, and finding someone to work with has been difficult. And I really had something bothering me. So I figured, "Whats the worst that can happen?"

I did it at the end of my daily meditation session. As often happens when I meditate, I relax for a while then I seem to "go away" for a while and when I "come back" I'm very relaxed, in a state where I'm perfectly warm and comfortable, no matter how cold the room. At least until I start to come around.  As long as I stay real deep, I'm fine, but when the trance lightens up I start to cool off and really begin to notice the temperature of the room. Maybe I fall asleep, but then why am I so warm and deeply under when I come back?

This time, when I "came back" but was still under, I invoked my subconscious with the same words I would use with a client. Spoken out loud. And I found myself answering with a different voice. Yay. So I asked a bunch of questions, but the answers were often difficult to understand.

I get very physical when I do this stuff: My body jerks and my face gets all screwed up, which makes it difficult to speak. So some of my questions were about all that: "Why do I do ___." Answer, "Your blocked." No news there. "Can the block be removed?" I asked. "Yes," came the reply. "Please do," I said. "Are you sure you want me to?" Hm, I though the HS knew everything, why was it asking me? I had the definite feeling that removing the blocks would have consequences, but I said "Please, go ahead."

A few hours later I had a scratchy throat and my nose felt funny. I have been told that was caused by an imbalance due to the removal of some blocks. I was sick with a cold for two weeks and I really didn't get my voice back for three. Now I know what the SC was warning me about. Though, all in all, it's a fair trade. I like what opened up since then and the cold didn't bother me all that much.

Transitions

Today I have been examining my beliefs. Using my own technique, developed from combination of ThetaHealing, Reference Point Therapy (I think) and who knows what else, I have been uncovering and pulling beliefs about how "they" have been limiting me and holding me down. I am a bit surprised at how many of them I have already uncovered. I expect that there are more. For some reason, listening to recordings of the Seth books are bringing them to my attention.

In the section I was listening to today, Seth talked about the nature of personal reality. That you perceive and experience only what you believe is possible, that all limitations are self-imposed. These books have been around for a while, so none of this is new, but, for some reason, these words dig deeper into me than any others on this subject that I have heard before. They are causing me to delve into these areas in ways I have never considered before.

Since there are no accidents, and things show up when you are ready for them, clearly this material has reappeared in my life right at the time when it would do the most good. Right when I am able to appreciate how my beliefs about how "they" are limiting my life, "they" are not allowing me to... (you name it), how "they" are responsible for all the misery in the world, are the limits of my existence, the walls I live behind and cannot see beyond.

Today I acknowledged those areas of science and spirituality where I was uncomfortable in going. Ideas I can not accept and are even difficult to read about, both describe and proscribe the limits of my reality. Though I have been watching my limits slowly expand over the years, it is still a bit of an uncomfortable shock when I realize just how far I've come and how many people in my everyday life have never heard of the issues I deal with on a daily basis, let along understand or accept them.

Today I am in the midst of a transition. My perceptions are morphing on an almost daily basis from what I was to what I will be, and, if what I'm getting glimpses of is really where I'm going, it's going to blow my mind.

Bad Sessions

Today I am getting over two poor QHHT sessions. Most of my sessions have not be textbook, but these were the worst. The first client was on her third session but could not relax, kept tapping her feet and wiggling. She insisted she couldn't see anything. She said "I don't know" to almost every questions at first, then things got a little better and she said that words were coming to her, but they seemed like a foreign language that she didn't know and couldn't understand. She was getting really frustrated and wanted to quit. I tried to reassure her that this was not unusual, but it didn't seem to make much difference.

I told her to say whatever popped into her head, and she started saying a long stream of words, clearly mostly random. But we both could tell that some of the words were more significant than others. Out of them I was able to piece together bits of a past life. But she didn't think much of what we found and pretty much kicked herself out because she felt wasn't "seeing" enough, and that it was too much work. She ended angry and even more frustrated.

At that point I learned that she was very hungry, I hadn't thought to ask, and she also needed to go to the bathroom. Another oops.

In the after talk I shared how I had had exactly the same complaints and problems, and, in time, things get better. All in all, she's moving much faster than I did, but she doesn't think it's nearly fast enough.

The next client I had ended the session and asked to leave, in the middle of the first past life. Actually, I think it was his present life. We had worked for a while and he was having trouble seeing things. Then his right shoulder started hurting, a lot. (Pain on the right side usually signifies some problem you're not dealing with in the present life/at the present time.) Then he told me that he needed to stop and go and deal with a problem that he had been trying to stuff down and ignore. So I counted him out and let him go.

I have been told I need to trust the process. But the messages I keep getting is that I need to trust in general. I hear that a lot, and read it a lot, but living it every day is another matter. It's a daily struggle to walk the walk and not muck it up by trying to play it safe, or do a "just in case." I'm sure I'm like everyone else in wishing my direction was more clear. I'm as sure as I can be, at the point, that really cool things are going to happen, I just don't know when and the suspense is killing me!

Close Your Eyes and See

Today I was listening to some readings from Seth Speaks while I meditated. Well, maybe half listened. I started thinking about the part in the beginning where he talked about there being many realities but our senses and training are designed to block all but one. I wanted to see these other realities. I want to know what's really there. Other people can, at least they say they can, so why can't I? Then I had a thought: What if I pretended that I could see without my eyes, what would I see? Next I thought, why not, I'll just lie here with my eyes closed and imagine what might be there, and what it would look like.

So I did, I "looked" around me. I could see through the walls of the house, with the studs and wiring. I could see out into the back yard and the street behind me. I could see some white, people-shapes, that I took to be entities of some kind, one next to my bed and some outside, in the back yard.

The fruit trees were very beautiful, filled with streams of purple and magenta swirling up the trunks. Each like a babbling brook, with eddies and backwaters and specked with flashes of yellows and greens. The streams spread out and diffused into the branches and leaves. The tops of the trees were surrounded by sparkles, brighter and denser on the parts in direct sunlight. I took those to have something to do with photosynthesis and the conversion of sunlight into food.

The dead posts of the arbor were dull, transparent, and lifeless. The metal furniture and fittings were dark gray to black. I think the color depended on the kind of metal and how thick it was. The lemon tree was like the fruit trees except the colors were lighter, more yellow. Go figure.

The pomegranates were deep red inside, the lemons were much a much lighter red, just around the seeds. I think that represents the amount of energy stored in the fruit.

I didn't think to look at the apple tree, I'm thinking now that it and the apples would be greener. At least that's how it seems now.

I didn't really look at the other people in the house, but I did notice them in passing as multicolored blobs, noticeably brighter, rounder and more active than the plants. I briefly looked into the street, behind me and, even though there no cars or people moving, there seemed to be a lot of activity. Like everything was alive and shimmering, vibrating, and giggling. I know, but it just seems like the best word to describe how it looked.

Maybe perception is a matter of what you expect and what you look for. Maybe all those other channels are there, ready and waiting, and all we have to do to find them is to close our eyes and look.

Silly Bird

As I write this, there is a silly bird that keeps attacking our window. I think it's because we have heat-reflective mirror film on the glass and he keeps seeing his reflection as another bird and attacking it. This has been going on on-and-off for a couple of months now. Is there a message there about how much time we waste attacking illusions?

I had an insight about what I was talking about yesterday. The Deniers, they are everywhere. You know the type, always saying something is crap, pseudoscience, against God, against nature, against the Constitution, you name it. They generally don't have any clue about what they are talking about, they are just "against." When you try and pin them down on precise facts, they squirm, evade, misdirect, and, if backed against the wall, simply deny any evidence in front of them.

If their objections are religious, they usually turn out to have a poor to laughably ignorant understanding of the theology they are purporting to defend. Westboro Baptist Church is a good example of taking the bible and twisting it into a pretzel to preach a message of hate, exactly the opposite of what Jesus explicitly said. In this paper: Finding Or Imagining Flawed Research? you can see an analysis of an example of scientists trying to distort and mislead in a effort to prove their preconceived notions

My insight is that these deniers are not important. They make a lot of noise, sound and fury, but in the end they signify nothing (with apologies to Shakespeare). I see them as people with no convictions at all that act as the enforcers for whatever ideology they happen to follow. By that I mean that they are so desperate to be part some "in crowd" that they adopt an idealistic, and often simplistic, version of what that crowd appears to stand for and wear it like a badge. They proudly tout their adopted ideology to let everyone know they are one of the "cool kids," and come down hard on anyone who doesn't toe the party line in order to prove their ideological purity. Enforcers. But these people are not important.

Why not? Well, they have no ideology of their own, so that can't be persuaded. They are simply the mouthpiece for some group's position. They can't think for themselves, for that might cause them to question. When the winds change, they must either change with it, adopting the latest fashion, or they get forgotten. Either way, the joke's on them, for those in the know, on both sides, know and treat them as the buffoons they are.

Battling them is a waste of time, they are merely a reflection. Like the surf on the seashore, they are neither sea nor land, but exist only as a function of the difference between the two. The smaller and less defined the difference, the more strongly they assert it. The last thing enforcers want is for the differences to disappear and put them out of a job. Let's not be a silly bird. Let's ignore the squawking loudmouths that only want to draw attention to themselves, and focus on solving the world's problems and eliminating imaginary differences.

Trust

Today was an interesting day. I spent the entire day in the Lyric Theater warehouse working on the Utopia Limited sets. We open at the end of September. The show takes place on a tropical island and there's lots of palm trees and jungle foliage everywhere. I volunteered to paint foliage because I wanted to learn, and this particular set designer allows you to do interesting stuff. Most designers don't allow you to use anything more precise than a eight inch roller, but this guy is willing to teach. At one point last week he asked if I was interested in copying some design from one flat to another, today I spent most of my time drawing palm trees and plants. If you think drawing a six foot palm tree on a ladder ten feet from the floor, is easy, think again.

It's so cool because I have been terrified of doing any such thing all of my life. I always wanted to, and thought I could, but whenever any opportunity appeared I hesitated until it was too late. I also took the opportunity to pass out some of my new business cards to many of the people who showed up. My QHHT business cards. I still have some reservations about letting people know what I'm doing. Are they going to look at me weird, make fun of me, I don't know what. But the taboo against begin publicly connected with anything like reincarnation is strong enough to give me pause. Even after what I've seen and know.

But I did it anyway. And nothing has happened. Yet. At least that's what it feels like. At some point I'm pretty sure that I'm going to have to deal with some crap from the narrow minded, but not yet. So far, the reactions have been mostly positive, or neutral, and the ones that weren't, well, I don't think I have worry about them.

Here's the part where the trust has to kick in. If I'm on the right path, the path I need to follow, then I need to trust that the right things will fall into place. I don't know what those things will be or when they will happen, but without that trust I might as well crawl into bed and pull the pillow over my head. So I choose to trust that what I need will show up when I need it.

Do I Believe It?

I have been thinking about what I have written. I've noticed that no one is reading it. Yeah, that's a little sad, but I'm not all that surprised. I've wanted to write about things that would be interesting but it seems I spend a lot of time in anger, of one kind or another. I apologize for that. In the future I will focus on being thankful for what I have and discover. No more whining.

I came across this video interview with Hazel Courteney and it restarted an internal debate. Hazel Courteney tells an interesting story about an amazing psychic awaking. My problem is that I have a difficult time accepting what she says as accurate. I hesitate to say "believe" because that, somehow implies something that I'm uncomfortable with, but I can't quite put my finger on why. Perhaps I'm afraid of being taken in by a fake or nut, and looking looking like a fool to the world a large.

On a basic level, I am very jealous of anyone who has these kind of experiences. I want that too. It would seem reasonable to assume that anyone who wants something must believe that it exists. Well, that's not always one hundred percent true, for I'm not at all sure what I believe. No matter what happens to me, on some level I'm still waiting for proof. Something spectacular enough that I can't possibly deny. Something obvious enough that no one can deny it. Or maybe what I really want is some kind of psychic power on-demand that I can use to put any disbelievers in their place. Wouldn't anyone like that?

That's my fantasy. I don't really expect it to happen. But here's the thing: Do I not expect it because it's impossible, or because I know it would be a really bad idea? I really want it to be possible. But I know that it would be a bad idea because I know myself and I don't like to think about what I might do if I had any real power. I'm not a bad person, I have just seen what I'm capable of when I get a little too arrogant, a little too full of my self, a little too sure I have the right answer. I don't want to go there. Fantasy is fun, but facing it in reality gives me pause.

One thing that has always puzzled me is why are we scared of ghosts? I am sure there are a boatload of scholarship on the subject, but I'm not interested in the abstract. There are times on the past when I felt something, otherworldly, and my pulse went up, and I thought "why?" Though that was a long time ago, and the last time I felt a presence in a historical house I just thought that it was kinda cool, and continued on with the tour. It wasn't until later I thought that I should have spent a little more time there. Go figure.

A lot of unusual things happen to me. Most of them just odd, and seem of no real use, and all of them unprovable to anyone else. Maybe that's just my lot this time around. On the other hand, I have evidence that I am facing massive blocks of different kinds. Some of which deal with forgiving those who have persecuted me in various ways. Even though it's hard, and I don't really want to. should I do it for the promise of kind of reward? A bargain with the Universe: I do what you want, you give me what I want?

In a way it's like begin sick. You can do what will make you better or you can continue being sick. Your choice. Hum, now I just need to get how to give up my and anger and hurt about these subjects. You know, sometimes this spiritual growth stuff is just no fun at all.

The Peaceful Entry

I had a peaceful entry into the world this morning. I was wondering around in a dreamworld while I was awake, sort of. I remember at one point that I was just watching a couple of trees with bright green leaves. The leaves were shimmering with the wind in bright sunlight on a clear blue sky. I was just there for a long while, not thinking, not anything, just being. Just watching, quiet and happy.

My mind was completely quiet. No thoughts of any kind. Just a small portion was awareness of being in that state. It was alike a balancing act that you have practiced for so long that you can now stand on the head of a pin almost without trying. It took the tinniest effort, almost indescribably small, to stay in that state and hold the image.

Compared with the inner turmoil of the past couple of days, this was bliss. And compared with how difficult is has always been to hold on to my "inner movies," this was blessed with a certain inner grace. I was there for as long as I needed to be there, in a graceful, breathless, arc. Like when a dancer leaps into the air and seems to float, for a timeless moment, before acknowledging gravity again.

I got yesterday that my brain is being rewired for new levels of awareness, and it's happing fast. The thing is, I'm always pushing, pushing, wanting more, needing get there faster. And the result is what could have been a slow process with gradual adjustments, is, instead, a physically demanding and, sometimes, very confusing process. But I'm ok with that. Well, for the most part. It's just that I have this strong sense of urgency that's been with me all of my life. Like everybody else is way ahead of me and I need to constantly push and push to catch up. It's not clear to me what it is I need to do, but, whatever it is, I need to be prepared!

Morning Relief!

What a relief! This morning I'm feeling much better, about 90% of what was going on yesterday has passed. The pressure in my head has receded to something reasonable and I slept much better. Yes!

During my meditation session yesterday I stumbled upon interviews by Jannecke Øinæs, her Wisdom from North series, and they seemed to be exactly what I needed to pull me out of my funk and refocus on what's real. I had gotten myself too hung up on what other people were saying and their negativity. Last night it started to become clear to me that the whole episode was teaching me something: I can see that I was getting way too self-important and convinced that I could force (trick?) people to my point of view. Then reality came a whacked me upside the head! Everything I see in them that I need to change is also in me. I do the same thing to people in my consulting business! Yikes! I needs to own that and be upfront with my clients.

The first two interviews I happened upon were exactly what I needed to inspire me and re-aquaint me with the notion that there is much more to spirituality than trying to wake up some narrow-minded materialists. That there are grand vistas of possibility that I had managed to forget about while wading, hip deep, through the mud of other people's issues. It is really not my mission to try and force other people into some kind have spiritual "Ah Ha!" moment. I can only give help to people who want it, the rest are simply not ready for it. They will open up in their own time. I can think of one person in particular that, if there was a spiritual awakening of some kind, would find his life completely turned upside down, inside out, and shredded. If he ever comes around, it will not be on my schedule. I need to definitely let that go.

One thing I ponder is what might happen the next time we see each other. Of course, nothing may happen, we may just have the same empty conversations as always. But if not, I find myself inventing different scenarios about how I might respond. Then I look at my responses and acknowledge that they are mostly self-serving ego-speak, then see the humor in that and move on. I haven't yet found my best place to stand when I'm confronted about my beliefs and my reality, But I'm working on it, using as a model the teaching of Adyashanti and Gangaji. I'm sure that there must be a thoughtful way of acknowledging the confrontational and dismissive attitudes while remaining true to my core. Meanwhile, relax.

Quick Post

This post is going to be short. I am so tired, I haven't slept in two days. There's this pressure at the back of my head that won't let go, it seems connected to stress. My stress in "coming out" to some of my relatives. Coming out spiritually, no, I'm not gay. It is interesting to have a debate via Facebook. One, it's essentially public and the entire transcript is always there. I'm not sure if that is the main source of the stress, but it's a big part of it. Right now I'm going through something that leaves me light-headed most of the time, I have trouble wanting to eat, and I seem wired and hot all the time. That's what makes sleeping so hard. I seem to function well enough, though.

I want to have some rest today, but I either make this post or I lie down. I tried lying down but I couldn't relax, it's like I have something I need to do. You know, it is like I have something I need to do, I just have no idea what it is. Today I went to help paint sets for a show I'm in, but it was hard to leave home because I have this feeling that I need to stay home for some reason.

If anybody has any idea what's going on,  I sure would like to know. My metabolism is so high that I wear as little as possible and still my family complains that I keep the rooms too cold. It's not like a hot flash, it's 24x7 under all conditions. The pressures in my head fluctuate and move around and make it very hard to concentrate on anything internal. Focusing on the external world, working with my hands, works pretty well. But the moment I try to relax, turn inward, it all flares up and drives me to seek distraction.

Hey subconscious, if there's something I need to do or know, tell me already! Please give me a break.

A Million Shades of Gray

I'm reading Five Lives Remembered by Deloras Cannon. Apparently I was supposed to read it before I took the QHHT course, but it was one of two books on the recommended reading list and I read the second one first, without realizing that it was the second one, and figured that was enough. This book really is a different take on reincarnation and the afterlife.

The book was written in the seventies, before almost all reincarnation stuff we see today existed, and it shows a naive and simplistic afterlife with no big messages, schools, hell, saints or teachers, and all described from the point of view of the deceased, with their level of education and world view. Later books contain much more detail. Deloras has said that she believes that she was shown only what she could understand and handle at the time.

My journey to acceptance of past lives was convoluted, I was regressed as a teenager, but I forgot what it was, for decades. I'm not sure why. I seemed to go through a patch where I didn't want to have anything to do with anything outside of the main stream. For some reason I didn't want to seem different or rock that boat is any way. I was studying computer science after all. I was busy working, going to school all year round, and then working and raising a family. Perhaps I was just too focused on being the husband, father, brother-in-law, son-in-law, fitting in and doing the right thing to take the chance I might be seen as different or someone wouldn't like me. For decades. Until the emptiness in my life and the pointless of it all could no longer be ignored. Everyone old enough has confronted the "mid life crisis" where you realize you are no longer on your way up, and all you see in the future is more of the same until you decline into death. You no longer can keep fooling yourself that there's a "it" waiting down the road where everything is going to fantastic.

You know how it is. Watching TV every night, the same shows, same job, same problems, same people, staleness and boredom insinuating themselves into every nook and cranny, turning everything gray and pointless. Looking back on that time, I understand why there are so many angry people, so quick to take offense and argue about the most trivial things. Of course they are, for what else IS there?

When you deny everything spiritual, you cut the heart out of life. I went along with the materialist program, though I liked a good bit of science fiction or fantasy. But I reached a point where weren't any good books or movies left. I just couldn't lose myself in them any more. I had no escape.

I tried focusing on religion for some years, but that also led nowhere. To me it just seems like materialism, except the goal is not getting rich but getting into heaven. The methods are the same: do the right actions, follow the right rules, hang with the right people and, boom, your in. Unless you're not, for there's no way to tell and the rules are really confusing and contradictory. Even if you win the prize and get to heaven, what do you get? Do you sit around all eternity doing nothing, or partying? Is the entire point of existence to struggle and suffer through an earthly life to then, if you somehow managed to measure up, make it to heaven where you spend the rest of eternity worshiping God and being an utterly useless slave!? My gut doesn't buy it, though I can concede that it may be all that people at a certain spiritual level can handle. I don't like it much because I want to believe that everyone has a chance to "reach for the stars" as it were. But perhaps it just takes time.

The Disappearance of the Universe  by Gary Renard is what, I think, pushed me over the line. Somehow the ideas here seemed just possible. Maybe it really happened, maybe the ideas actually make sense and maybe I could accept enough of them to give some meaning to my life. I'm still asking that question, how much can I accept as "real?" Reality is not so black and white as I used to think, more like a million shades of gray.

I've made my choice

I've been thinking about my post yesterday. I was trying to say something and I just couldn't find the right words. In fact, I'm not really sure I'm clear on what I wanted to say. Hum, I guess there's a reason that philosophers have been arguing for centuries, some subjects are just plain hard. Well, this blog is a work in progress, as am I. You will see false starts and blind alleys and a certain amount of confusion. Surprise, that's me. If you want polish, look elsewhere. Here the record may be a mess, but it will all be honest and a open as I can be.

Thinking back on the conversation I had with that relative I mentioned yesterday, it's clear that it turned out as it was supposed to. It did achieve the goal of putting who I am, and where I stand, out there in front of my most skeptical audience. All in all, I handled it well enough, better than I would have expected, knowing me as I do.

The subject, by the way, was taboos in science. My respected opposition's viewpoint is that there ain't no such thing. Yup. And there ain't no racial discrimination in the South. Blacks just choose to live in ghettos and work in menial jobs. There's no taboo, or any social pressure of any kind against them living in the upscale, all white neighborhoods, the simply choose not to. That was one of the views expressed, that there is no taboo against psychic research, and no social or academic pressure to ignore the subject or report only negative results, it's simply a matter every researcher making their own free choice to go along with the program. Yes, sir, you betcha!

Anyone who as been bullied or picked on, knows what that feels like. Most people who went through high school know what it feels like to not fit in, to have to spend every day with a bunch of people that make it clear that you're not "in." Even those the "in" crowd know the fear of being "out," and the sinking feeling when you discover that something you said or did has everyone laughing or jeering at you, or you think they are. I know that feeling very well, having been actively bullied, picked on and teased through middle and high school, and that is exactly the feeling you risk getting shoved in your face the moment you come out about any kind of belief or even acceptance of anything that even smells of being related to the paranormal.

(I know that ghosts and ghost hunting is almost mainstream today, which seems to contradict what I just said. But I think that's because ghosts are allowed because their evidence is never good enough or of a type that can never seriously threaten the scientific or religious communities. It's just so easy to dismiss everything the ghost hunters have to say. It's just a little fun for the gullible. Just as long as they don't get too uppity about the reality of all the stuff...)

After that conversation, I did my daily meditation and, Wow! I hit a huge load of fear and dread that I had to work through. That "Oh my God! What have I done?!" feeling is still there. It's been reduced, but it's still there. Where it comes from is a damm good question, but there is no denying its power and it's universal residence in the human psyche. I speculate that this is what makes human populations so easy to control, all you have to do is tell people enough times that the cause of that fear is X, and you can save them from X, and, boom! You've got an army of followers. Making people afraid is really easy because the fear resides in every one of us, all someone has to do is push the right button and out it comes.

The conclusion I draw from this is that the journey to "inner peace," "enlightenment," "nirvana," whatever you want to call it, is a journey through fear. The fear of "I don't know," of "I can't do this," "What will they think of me," "Wait a minute, this stuff is getting to arrry-fairy for me," "What's my church going to think," "I may have to leave my church community unless I deny this," "I'm going to have to leave my meditation group because their approach just isn't working for me," "Can I do this alone?" "None of my family understands what I'm going through," "Can I be friends with those spiritual people?" Perhaps there are some cultures where spiritual advancement is accepted, but here in the west it's only accepted within the bounds of an established church, and even then there are strict, unspoken limits that you must stay within.

Here I am, at the end of my post. It's now clear to me that I've chosen a path that puts me squarely in the crosshairs of all the major social institutions of my culture, sacred and secular. Why would I do that? I appears to me that I have no rational choice. On the one hand, I have a life that is socially acceptable, boring, soul deadening, and would accomplish nothing of any importance. (I don't consider coming out with, say, the next, block-busting replacement for the iPhone, to be of any lasting significance.) On the other hand, I have a path that is socially questionable, nowhere near a lucrative, entails personal sacrifice and struggle, leaves me open to vicious criticism for all sides, has no guarantee of success, but does have the promise of significantly changing peoples' lives and, perhaps, moving the needle a bit on state of world suffering.  My choice is clear, and it's struggle over social security, spiritual exploration over ideological smugness. I'd like to make out that it's all very noble, but, as I said, I really don't see that I have any choice in the matter.

To Be Understood

Yesterday I found myself using my new-found powers and awareness to embarrass a relative in front of other people. I fooled myself, not allowing myself to see what my real motives were until the deed was done. I can take a small comfort in knowing that he has no clue what happened, or that he made a fool of himself, but I know. And I am ashamed. I am quite sure he believes he won and proved me wrong, but I am sad.

Abuse of power could very well be the biggest stumbling blocks on a spiritual journey, at least it is for me. As my awareness and knowledge grows, I find it easier and easier to see thorough the games people play and manipulate them to my own ends. I tell myself that I am educating them, to "wake them up and see the truth." When in reality, I'm just getting even with the closed-minded bastards that I see as the root cause of all the world's misery. If nothing else, to teach-em a lesson!

Ha! It doesn't work does it? "There are none so blind as those who will not see." Don't remember who said that, but it's as true today as ever. Allowing myself to get caught up in these games leads absolutely nowhere. Confrontation is not an answer. Being is part of the answer, as is watching my ethics and telling the truth. I have a job to do: to teach, and to somehow bring some light to those wretches locked in a materialist world behind a wall of fear.

I have no idea of how I am going to do that. So, for now, I will work with anyone who asks or accepts my offer of assistance. But for the rest, though I know from experience that logic, facts and reasoned discourse get nowhere, the temptation is always there to try some kind of coercion, and be really, really clever to somehow trick them into admitting the truth. I will find another way, an ethical way. Until then I am going to have to accept and, perhaps relish, sly digs, and overt ignorant remarks from some quarters, as confirmation that my message is being heard, and someday I will discover the way to make my message understood as well.

A Shiny New World to Explore!

Today I talk about the last part of my QHHT session, the part when I was taken deeper into my subconscious. I don't remember all of it at this time, and now that I've "accidentally" deleted the recording, (My recorder gives everything a generic name, and when I thought I was deleting a client's recording, I apparently deleted mine, since the client's recording is still there.) I'll never know exactly what I said. Even though I think I remember, I'll never know if I'm wrong or what I'm leaving out. In any case, here is what I remember.

When I was asked what my purpose is, and how I was to fulfill it, I was overwhelmed with sadness and despair. I saw people, lots of people, trapped in a huge black hole. A hole filled with pain and misery and ignorance. They are trapped there and they don't even know it. I cried at their pain. I knew I was supposed to help them, but I didn't know who they were or how I was supposed to do that.

Then I saw a second group of beings(?) that I called "They." "They" didn't want me to function. "They" don't want my subconscious to communicate at all, and do everything in their power to prevent it. They screwed up my face and convulse my body, they'd twist and distort my face and lips to keep the words from coming out. "They" are powerful, but not overwhelmingly so. I can get past them but it takes considerable effort, and I can work up a sweat. "They" were generally successful at blocking answers to my medical questions.

That's pretty much all I remember. My feeling is that the people in the black hole are people on this planet. Who or what are "They?" I have no clue. But I've felt their influence since I first start meditating, many years ago. I have frequently bounced, shaken, vibrated and convulsed whenever I got near important events. In fact, that has been one of my markers for what things are significant, the more violent the reaction, the more important the thought, incident, belief must be. One typical thing  for me is to get gobbledygook for answers when I ask questions. I used to assume that I wasn't getting any answer. Lately it's become increasingly obvious that I was getting answers to me questions, they were just garbled into incomprehensibility. Now I know why.

After the session, I slowly began to notice differences. Small things. It seems now that when I close my eyes, I can see farther and clearer than before. Everything looks a little different and that's very cool. The other day, when I asked about a pain and had a immediate response and healing, that's new. Something has definitely changed. It's very subtle, it's like everything has shifted, ever so slightly, into a new perspective. Some things are more interesting, and some are more boring. Some things more important, others, less. Shifting priorities can be unsettling so I'm glad I have time to get ousted to it.

I know from experience that this pretty newness will eventually wear off and become the new normal, but for now: I have a shiny new world to explore!

Woo Woo Taboo

Today lets talk about science. First I want to define science and the scientific method,  terms that are widely misused and abused.

Science: "knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation" -- merriam-webster.com

Scientific Method: "principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses" -- merriam-webster.com

Or as I was taught in school, the scientific method is as follows: You observe the world, make observations and collect data. From that data you construct a hypothesis about how what you see works or why it is the way it is. Then you design experiments to test your hypothesis. If the result of your experiment agrees with your hypothesis, you can accept it as provisionally true and perhaps, with enough experiments, promote it to a theory. If the results don't agree, you must go back and change you hypothesis or create a new one. The point here is that every hypothesis and theory is only provisionally true, it can be disproved at any time. A theory is like a balloon, no matter how perfect it may seem, it only takes a single, tiny hole to deflate it completely. It doesn't matter how well a theory is accepted or how famous or well respected it's proponents are, one hole, all gone.

The difference between religion and science, as I'm told, is that religion is biased on faith in dogmas, statements that absolutely cannot be questioned under any circumstances, while science is biased on faith on theories, which can be disproved, revised, or discarded at any time. Sounds good, but in fact, people get really attached to their theories and don't give them up easily, that's human nature. Scientific discoveries are bottled up not just on religious grounds, but on selfish or monetary grounds as well. Thus "Funeral by funeral."

Every heard "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof?" Sounds good, but is it science? Here's the problem, what is the scientific definition of "extraordinary"? "Extraordinary" is a value judgment, it's not a measurable quantity. Who decides what claims are "extraordinary", and what level of proof is "extraordinary"? This is frequently used by scientists to dismiss any claim they don't like. They just assert that no existing level of proof is "extraordinary" enough to meet their standards. And if the level of proof is raised, that's still not enough. Thus has been the case of psychic research for almost a hundred years, no matter how many objections are answered, no matter how high the level of proof, it still isn't enough.

Fringe, and religios types frequently misuse science terms and the scientific method to muddy the waters of the popular perception of science and technology. Scientists contribute to this mess by slinging their own confusing and frequently misleading jargon when trying to defend their positions against pseudo-science, which, all to often, means any idea that might threaten your research funding or offends your intellectual sensibilities. Which gets us to the crux of the matter: Scientists and science writers and supporters almost never bother to distinguish be ideas that are provably false and those that might be true, but they're not allow to say so because they are taboo.

In Taboo woo woo science? Dr. Dean Radin does a wonderful exploration of the taboos in science, the field that regularly claims not to have any. The fact that there are subjects that any creditable scientist and researcher will not mention, will not touch with the proverbial triple-radiation-shielded-remote-controlled-10-foot-pole, gives the charlatans, the fakers and con-artists free rein to say whatever they like. Since science refuses to give us the tools we need to distinguish fact from fiction, the fakers are free to have a field day, and we're left to sort out the mess. Thanks a lot guys!

Get With the Program!

I was lying in bed this morning, in that half-aware state, somewhere between awake and asleep, when I noticed some discomfort in my groin. No big deal, but I was "looking" at it and something seemed off, I had the thought "What caused that?" Immediately I heard, "An injury sixteen years ago." Huh. So, I thought "Can you heal that?" I heard "yes," and the pain went away. Cool! So I asked, "Can you heal my shoulder?" "No," was the reply. "Why not? " I asked. "Because it's a lesson." "What lesson?" I wanted to know. "Patience." I was getting a little annoyed by now. "Patience for what? Job, work, something else?" No answer. I could tell that whatever I had access to was now gone. It seems my attitude had severed the connection.

In the movie "Constantine," the main character  is a kind of demon hunter, (...it's complicated, watch it if you want to know.) that discovers early on that he has incurable lung cancer. He asks, "Is this punishment?" "No," was the reply, "It's two packs a day for twenty years."

Gangaji makes a point in her videos that it (enlightenment?) is not about getting really good at certain spiritual practices. Or avoiding certain practices. It's about being honest about who and what your are. Whatever you do, whatever you are, admit it, own it, and tell the truth about it.

I have been told, from different sources, over several decades, that we do it to ourselves, people! That everything that happens, every disease, every injury, every event has been designed by us for a specific purpose. I'm not sure I buy that 100%, but I'm getting close. I can see, for instance, how my actions and attitudes contributed to the downfall of the company I used to work for. I was not a mover or shaker, I didn't make any of the business decisions, but I played my part in the final outcome. If only by selecting which company I worked for. I have always determined what kind of people I would work for, and what jobs I would have, through my beliefs around what I was allowed to have, and what I was supposed to do and be.

A little too "New Agey" for you? Consider the bible, Matthew 18:18: "Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." If you're a Christian, you are saying that you have direct control over the rules of heaven, but no control over your own life. I guess that's a good way to avoid any responsibility, it's all somebody else's fault, or "part of God's plan." But it's a bad way to have a fulfilling and satisfying life.

If life is a video game, you wrote it. All the twists and turns, the blind alleys, obstacles and puzzles. If doesn't seem to make sense, or your just not satisfied, perhaps it's time to confront those obstacles that lead to the next level and unlock new abilities. Find your purpose and get with the program people!

The Earth Still Moves.

On day, some months ago, I went to the hardware store. The closest hardware store is about two miles away, just far enough for a decent bicycle ride. It was a nice morning and an easy ride, since it's downhill all the way there. Of course that means that it's uphill all the way back, but who cares if I'm sweaty when I get home, right?

Before I went inside I needed to lock up my bike. I have a chain with a key lock that I probably inherited from one of my kids, and I keep the keys on a little ring that's hooked to the lock when I'm not using it. In order to open the lock, I remove one of the keys from the ring, then take the ring off the lock after it's open and put the key back one. I've been doing this for years, no big deal. But this time, in the process of putting the key back on the ring, I somehow got both keys off the ring and I dropped the ring.

Now this place was not busy, there was nobody else nearby. I was standing not too far from the door, on a concrete sidewalk, in good condition, at least six feet on a side. It was a clean, white surface, clean swept. No dirt, leaves or trash, just a big white, empty expanse. Empty is important because the ring was nowhere to be seen. "Ok, so it bounced or rolled somewhere," I thought. So I looked, and looked. I searched for quite a while. I even got down on my hands and knees and scanned the whole area. Nothing. It was hard to give up because there was simply nowhere for the ring to have gone, but as W.C. Fields said, "If at first you don't succeeded try, try, again. If then you don't succeeded, give up. There's no need to be a damm fool about it." I needed to get my shopping done and figured I could look around again when I came out. As I went inside, I had the distinct feel that someone was messing with me...

When I came out of the store, I could see, plain as day, a shinny key ring lying right in the center of the big, empty expanse of concrete. Where I was standing was at least ten feet from the ring, but even at that distance it was obvious and impossible to miss. So why didn't I see it? I think that someone, something didn't want me to see it. To prove a point, and to have a little fun.

I have always had trouble allowing myself to accept all this spiritual stuff. I want to comfortably know where the reality leaves off and the woo woo nut case begins. This was a message for me, a mischievous poke in the ribs to nudge me a little further down the path. For you, you can make it mean anything you want it to.

Lately I have become increasingly amused by the phrase "I don't believe..." as though the universe cares one whit what you believe or don't believe. Facts are people. So, you can be one of the Cardinals who refused to look through Galileo's telescope or you can be Galileo. Either way, the earth still moves.

Fix Me, I'm Broken

An article by Candace Craw-Goldman

Does this sound like you? Do you go from doctor to doctor, modality to modality, desperate to find the cure for what ails you?

Whether it be cancer, allergies, arthritis, depression or even loneliness, if you are searching for a solution, and think that all you have to do is find the right _______ (doctor, drug, surgery, treatment, guru, crystal) and then pay for your _______(appointment, prescription, session or item) and then you will be _______ (happy, healthy, balanced, loved), you will surely fail in your quest.

Every challenge, every dis-ease, every problem you have must be ultimately solved by you.

You have the challenge or dis-ease for a reason. You can certainly drive that reason underground with treatments of any and every kind, but it will only fester or return or “change its spots” until you face the issue that brought it on squarely and honestly and make some sort of shift.

All healing is self-healing. You can be healed with any number of things; a successful surgery, energy work or a change in diet, just as long as you have made the necessary internal or emotional changes to return to health and balance.

I have had clients achieve extraordinary results with Quantum Healing Hypnosis. I have seen lives transformed and even “miracles” happen right before my very eyes. But I have also seen the opposite: No change whatsoever.

Why? Why do some people heal and others do not?

It has been my experience that those who do experience healing have something in common: Somewhere along the line, they have made crucial personal changes or, have simply had great realizations or understanding about themselves or about this great grand adventure we call life. They then are ready to accept their healing in the way that is comfortable for their belief systems. 

Some people definitely need knives and drugs to believe in health and balance. Others do not.

QHHT addresses spiritual, ancestral, mental and emotional components of your dis-ease. If you are open to that concept, and ready to trust yourself to heal, rather than looking outside of yourself for someone or something else to cure you, you might consider this method to assist you.

Permission to share this article is given as long as it is shared completely with all links and remains unaltered in any way. Copyright 2012 (2014) Candace Craw-Goldman 

www.newearthjourney.com

http://newearthjourney.wordpress.com/ www.newearthjourney.wordpress.com




And the Truth Shall Set You Free

Why did Jesus have to die? That was the headline on an Easter edition of Time magazine some years ago. Intrigued, I bought the issue. I remember read the story, and that it said that there were three competing versions for the answer to that question. I'm not sure if I remember any of them, but I do remember that I didn't buy any of them. "He died so we don't have to?" What is that? So we don't have to...what? Die? Well, we do, so what's that all about. Oh, and then there's the classic: "He died for our sins." Lovely, so it's all our fault! Way to go God! God, the creator of all, perfect and infallible in every way creates a being so imperfect that she has to kill a part of herself, in a nasty way, to make the creation worth anything? What kind of God creates a flawed being, drops it in a world designed for it to fail, then punishes it forever if it doesn't measure up. Free will?! Where's the free will if the options are choose right or be dammed?! This is the God of love? Who are we kidding?

Sorry, to me that's just a steaming pile of you-know-what. It sound too much like a clumsy human invention.

Hey, just for laughs, lets consider another option. What if Jesus wasn't saying "Believe in me and you will live," but "Believe in me, you will live." He was trying to tell us all that the temple rules and casts mean nothing, we are all going to heaven, we all will rise again, no matter what. To prove it, he died and came back. His plan was to show that anyone can come back from the dead and for that he needed a demonstration. So he chose to die in public, in the most indisputable way possible, so that no one could say afterward that it was a trick, he wasn't really dead, and then rise again.

So far so good, that part went off without a hitch, he died and came back and no one could deny it. But we humans were trickier than he gave us credit for and we stopped his plan dead in it's tracks, so to speak. Since we couldn't deny that he came back from the dead, we did the next best thing: we denied he was human. Sort of.

I can see the temple leaders working this one out: "He could do that because he was God. No, wait, if he was God then he actually couldn't die... Um, wait a minute...let's see, if he is human, then he can't come back from the dead, but, if he's God he can do anything and the whole dying on a cross thing was just a pointless show. Oh dear! Wait! I got it! He was both God and Human, that way the human part can suffer and die and the God part then resurrects!"

The people: "Oh, I see... Wait a minute, come again? What is partially God? How can you be partially omnipotent, partially the creator of all there is?"

Leaders: "You poor ignorant slobs, don't ask such stupid questions. It's all a Devine Mystery, of course. We are important teachers and we know what the Truth is, so you don't need to worry your little heads about it. You live once and then you die and you look to us to make sure you are right with God when you do, so take care!"

For me, the simplest, straightforward answer is the one most likely to be true. Jesus was trying to tell us that we are all children of God, that we never really die, and you can give up the fear of death and the paranoia about "getting right with God." Live a good life. Treat people as you wish to be treated. Even criminals will get to paradise, so arbitrary rules are not what it's all about. Treat the homeless and whores with compassion and respect, you are no better or worse than they are. Anything you can't take with you is of no value in the end. What does follow you is how you value others, especially those who your society, social class, nationally and religion tell you to hate, to fear or just be uncomfortable around. Following silly rules is easy. Giving money to your church is easy. Having compassion for the blacks on your street, the muslim in the store, the homeless outside the store is hard. And the struggle to do so will leave marks upon your soul that will go with you, and will demonstrate the value you place on all God's creations. That is what matters in the end.

Jesus was/is an powerful, enlightened being. We all have the ability to do and be what he did, the difference between him and us is that we don't believe it. "Know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

A World With a View

I stumbled into alternative healing through the back door, I suppose. My childhood had no particular religious or philosophic bent at all, that I can remember. Now that I think of it, it seems a little strange that nothing of the sort ever seemed to come up. Maybe I was too young to notice, but I don't think so. I was left with a vague idea that all priests, monks, witch doctors, etc. were all cut from the same mold: vaguely ridiculous, overdressed, self-importantly shaking their fingers about sin and quick to yell about the devil and evil spirits whenever there was something they did out understand or didn't like. And I ignored them.

By the ninth grade I had developed an interest in psychic phenomena and parapsychology, perhaps from reading lots of science fiction. I had somehow managed to find a book about the parapsychology experiments at Duke University, probably J. B. Rhine's book, New Frontiers of the Mind (1937), and saw that there was science behind the fiction. I found it all a bit exciting but perfectly sensible and reasonable, but my upbringing caused me to doubt everything: Don't believe anything (they're trying to trick you), and, above all, keep your head down and your mouth shut. So for many years I avoided having anything to do with anything religious, psychic, ghosts, UFOs, you name it. Basically a closet believer who toed the materialist, "ain't no such thing" party line in public. I was actually afraid of being associated with any of that stuff in any way. Even afraid to read about it in private, like somebody might "catch" me.

All that started to shift only a handful of years ago when my wife and I went to a marriage counselor. After working with the therapist for a while, I discovered that she was a spiritual teacher and a psychic, and, suddenly, it was like I had permission to believe again. It was like a great weigh was lifted off my shoulders and I was free!

In truth, I must have been slowly progressing for years. But that was the time when the locks of self doubt and fear, slowly eroded by increasing self-confidence and self-awareness finally flew open.

It would be nice to say "And they lived happily ever after," but no, not so fast. That was just the beginning of the confusing and sometimes painful process of re-jiggering my reality. That process is still ongoing, for there is still a huge amount of information that I need to sift through, digest, and integrate into my constantly evolving world view.

A Non-Human Reality?

Yesterday I got to experience a QHHT session first hand, to see what it was like to be the client. It was really wild, and puzzling.

A session starts with an interview. The practitioner and I didn't know each other, so we needed time for him to understand me enough to know what to look for and be able to understand and interpret what he hears. That took an hour. Then we got to the hypnosis, which starts with a past life regression using a light trance, then goes to a deeper trance where we can accessed the subconscious. That is where the healing and the power is. Where we get past the BS of the everyday conscious mind and find out what's really going on.

In my regression I saw three "scenes," but calling them past lives is...well, you judge. There just sort of...are.

Scene #1: I'm a man with a beard wearing dark brown skins, with hairy legs, and sandals, and I'm carrying a stone-tipped spear in both hands. I'm standing on the top of a hill in what looks like high country pine forest. A tree-filled valley lies in front me and there are stone-topped mountains in the distance. Pretty standard "cave man" right? Well the twist is that "I" am a silverly sphere, about the size of a softball, that is floating behind the man and controlling him like he was in a video game. I saw things sometimes through his eyes and sometimes from the outside as I maneuvered around to get a better look at what was going on,

Scene #2: Very hard to describe. Picture a featureless dark gray void. Floating in the center of the void is a rectangular, light grey slab that feels massive, and is about the size of an airplane hanger door. In the center of the slab, about one quarter of it's size, is a textured circle that kind of looks like a chrome-plated sphere filled with reflections. Got it? Now, a short distance from the upper right corner of the slab is a man, seated at a console, dressed in a silvery, reflective suit. There is nothing around him and he is seated on nothing, but he looks exactly like he's seated on a chair. A chair that isn't there.

I am a light-colored lumpy ball with arm and legs sticking out in various directions, and I am floating some distance away, watching. My feeling is that the circle is a portal of some kind, and the man is working to open it to a particular destination. Then the circle starts to change colors. I think that means is was opening. End of scene.

Scene #3: I'm a plant. I'm a big, ball-shaped collection of limbs and branches and leaves, dangling some distance above a clearing in a jungle. I seem to be attached to a huge plant high above. The jungle around me is very green and lush, there are rainbow colored birds flashing by. On the ground, there are centipede-like animals with brown fur and eight or ten legs, crawling over the leaves.

I am like a sun, I radiate the of energy or life force that keeps everything around me alive and thriving. I am very happy and content.

Jump forward: A darkness in coming. It's sucking all the energy away and everything is dying and turning black. I see it approaching like a wave and there's nothing I can do. I am extremely sad and struggle, but I know there's nothing I can do. I no longer have the energy to prevent it.

Next, I'm in space moving away from that planet. The entire planet is black ash, except for one white circle, which is the remains of the plant that I was. For some reason it turned to white ash instead of black. As I move away I feel great despair and sadness for what was.

The lesson I got from this is: cycles. Everything has a start, a middle, and an end. That is the way of all things, and is required for balance. I need to understand and accept growth cannot come without change and change requires something to end so that something else can begin. Don't cling, accept and move on.

That's enough for now. Next time I'll talk about what my subconscious had to say.

Falling Apples

I've started rereading Many Lives, Many Masters, rereading Dr. Brian Weiss's first book. I wanted to revisit how he dealt with discovering the past lives and reconciled their existence with his materialist scientific background. He had never heard of reincarnation, when one of his patients, under hypnosis, started reporting events from past lives. Ever the academic, he turned to libraries and, looking for any information on the subject, he turned up a large body of work. Carefully research and documented and published in mainstream journals, this work varied, comes from people with impressive credentials, is unassailable on rational scientific grounds, and is almost completely ignored by the scientific community. Look for yourself. With the internet, now it's easier than every to look this stuff up. And it's all there, and more, and still "Does not exist" according to any science course, text book or mainstream compendium on the state of scientific knowledge in the 21st century.

What's going on here? I justification I've heard goes something like this: "This looks really great! But wait, if this was for real, everybody would be talking about it. But nobody's talking about it, therefore there must be something wrong with it and I won't talk about it either." Circular logic that creates and unacknowledged code of silence about anything that might upset the materialist applecart. (Research funding, don't you know, old boy. It's all about the money.) Apparently, Issac Newton was the last scientist capable of looking at a falling apple and willing to acknowledge the implications of that simple act.

Dr. Rupert Sheldrake addresses this issue in this TED talk Rupert Sheldrake - The Science Delusion BANNED TED ... Once removed from the TED web site and now published on alternate locations. TED's decision to censor scientists that spoke against the status quo created quite a brouhaha, see TEDs Controversy – 3 Threatening Talks They Tried to Censor for that story.

There is a saying academic circles "Physics advances not discovery by discovery but funeral by funeral." Meaning that new controversial ideas cannot get any traction as long as there are famous and respected "mature" scientists who's position, reputation and ego threatened by them. Since in this case, pretty much every conservative group, including religions, are on the side of suppressing the information.

In a way, I guess that's kind of cool because it leaves room for the citizen scientist. Amateurs can do research and make discoveries without be blindsided by some big corporate or university research budget. So, for now, we amateurs rule the roost! 

Read for yourself. Foremost research on reincarnation: Dr. Ian Stevension.
Psychic research in general: Dr Dean Radin.

Much to Learn

I had another QHHT session with my daughter today and it was good. She was able to find a past life with some powerful memories. Some so powerful that she would not share them. One of the pitfalls of working with family, they aren't always as open as they might be with a professional stranger. At any rate, we had a long talk afterwards and I hope I as able to help her to integrate that life and it's lessons into her life today.

I tried, gently, to draw parallels between the events of the past and today. And the way she saw it was also interesting. For instance, when someone arrives in a scene, you ask them to look around  to get some idea where and when they are. My daughter couldn't looked around, and she made the comment that everything that wasn't directly in front of her was like a memory. That is a really cool detail, because that's what an actual memory of a real event is like. I've never heard anyone mention that before, and I'm sure my daughter hasn't either.

That's one thing I love about this work. Not everything is knows, there are new discoveries to be made at any time and I can make them. Yes!

First Success!

I had more success! Well, partial success anyway. My client, C, was able to access an interesting life as a young girl with a group of nomads in Egypt. I have no idea when it was, and it doesn't really matter, for it was a good first step for both of us. It took some work to get C that far down, so yay for that, but I when I tried to move her forward to the next step in the process, C seemed to pop right out of her trance. Perhaps the her subconscious was just not ready yet. It took me a while to develop my meditations skills, and I'm still learning, so I should not be surprised that it may take awhile for C, and me, to reach a level of proficiency.

This is really a bonus for me. To actually have some measurable success is something that means a lot to me. Success in this area has always been elusive to me, results have always been vague, subjective and impossible to reproduce. All the best results have been so hard to verify that I'm always left wondering whether there's anything to it at all. It really helps that my daughter is eager to try again. This time I am very hopeful that the what I learned from her last time will help us tremendously.

Meditate, Schmeditate? Lighten Up Already!

Have you heard of Dr Eric Pearl (www.thereconnection.com/eric-pearl)? You can read his book or go to his web site, but I think it's much better to see him in action, in person or a video. Why? Because all us new age, cosmic connection, Reikii invoking, energy healing, channeling, aura seeing types tend to take ourselves and our practices way too seriously. Eric Pearl's introduction to his process comes across much more like a stand-up routine skewering the alternative spiritual movement than journey of spiritual discovery. I love it. He has stripped energy healing down to it's essence and discarded all the frills that practitioners tend to use to decorate their practice. All too often, the people I talk to are so intently focused on discovering and following all the "proper rules," that they lose site of the point of it all.

I, for one, have distanced myself from organized religions largely because of all the arbitrary and, to my mind, just plain silly, rules and dogma, the outlandish decorations that have become so encrusted around the original message that you can't find that message with a pickaxe and blasting powder. I am one of those people who figure "If I just study and learn more, it will all make sense." Big mistake. Digging into the historical and philosophical underpinning of western religions sealed the deal for me, causing me to file pretty much all their "rules" on a dusty shelf under "Maybe It Seemed a Good Idea at the Time." For instance, it took the catholic church 350 years to admit they were wrong about the patently obvious fact the Man (not Women, or course) is not the center of the universe. I am flabbergasted at the outrageous hubris of the church leaders who could make such a statement in the first place. And Limbo, an entire cosmic state, apparently whisked into existence and then out again, by what, Papel decree? If they were wrong about those things, what else are they currently, solemnly, insistently, fervently, and even fatally, wrong about? Preaching that condom use is a sin, in a part of Africa overrun with AIDS? In short, my studies have shown me that the vast majority of all the teaching of western religions seem to stem much more from a mixture of political expediency and existing traditions than the Word of God.

So think, and celebrate the lighter side of things. Enjoy the fact that we are all different. Poke fun at spiritual pretension, and open up to other points of view. If you can't stand to laugh at yourself and you spiritual practice, then I submit that perhaps you are more focused on the Practice than the Spirit.

It is my view that the structure of any faith is there to guide you, not rule you. If there is any overriding message of the "New Age" spiritual movement, it is that you must find your own path, you must take responsibility for your own growth. For anything constructed by woman or man will have flaws and it is up to us to discover where to put our feet. Accept that there is no one absolute answer, for anything, and that the best you can every say is that some set of beliefs and practices work best for you. Question beliefs and traditions but do not judge, for no practice is absolutely wrong either. Keep what works for you, and set aside the rest, for they may be useful later. None of us can still wear those skinny, teenybopper jeans we once had, so don't expect any spiritual practices to fit you any better, decades down the road.