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.