[This is the text of an email exchange with a friend during the time I was trying hard to validate what I was getting from Joseph Smallwood.]
1-30-06
>> I admit, I am about out of patience with chasing “past-life” memories and never finding external verifications.
> Why do you need verification?
I think metaphysically inclined people are sometimes a little too inclined to explain away difficulties, rather than truly exploring them. Verification of any one detail would give me a solid place to stand.
> What would you do differently if you had it?
It isn’t so much what I would do, as where I would be. Rather than believing I would be so much closer to knowing.
> We talk about creating “reality”, about how everything is composed of energy, how reality is “our perception” and how our beliefs determine that perception. Yet we still assume that components of our “reality” have an objective existence apart from our perceptions and beliefs.
> If reality is mutable, if we’re all co-creating “reality” every nanosecond, what’s “proof” other than another of our creations?
That is all well enough in the abstract, but of course we build our everyday lives on the assumption that the sources of our perceptions have objective existence. We only resort to saying “it can’t be proved” when we are dealing with something we aren’t really quite sure is objectively real. (I know that the word “objectively” in itself could give rise to quite an argument; but let us confine ourselves to the common usage.)
> Is it enough that we take our experiences for just what they are — experiences? Perhaps it’s the experience of looking for proof that you’re after, the feelings of intrigue, discovery, frustration, betrayal…
> Are we learning to operate consciously on multiple levels: in physical reality where we eat and drink and need proof; in meta-reality where we recognize that the need for proof is an experience like any other and nevertheless we commit to fully experiencing it; in meta-meta-reality…
No, no. I do not believe that there are two categories of reality, one for everyday and one for “psychic” things. Rather, both are particular aspects of one over-arching reality, which — I think most of us on this list would agree — needs stretching. But stretching our definition of reality to include our experiences is not the same thing as pretending that we are free to believe whatever we want to believe, regardless of evidence or in the teeth of evidence.
End Email.
I remember my need to verify the information I got from non-physical sources. It was early on in my explorations of all things New Age, which was in my early 30’s. (I’m 60 something now.) I wanted to know if I could trust the information and the one(s) who gave it to me. I was fairly good at distinguishing between the Still Small Voice ( the voice of the Holy Spirit, having been raised Christian) and the voice of ego. It seemed the same test for validity applied to both: did it resonate with me? I hear that as a clear bell tone, a clarion not heard but felt. Reading your words makes me curious how I resolved that need for verification, if I ever did. I think I took enough of the information on faith and verified it in the doing. And after a while, I called it good and moved on to other parts of the puzzle.
That doesn’t necessarily verify Joseph Smallwood, a bit player for the Union in our American Civil War. Having read “Chasing Smallwood,” I found his words very cogent and very interesting. His life is completed, yet eternally present. He speaks fluently of his different time streams, especially the one where you went back and healed him versus the one where you did not. And he reflects thoughtfully on our times, drawing parallels that we might miss otherwise. I also feel that Joseph still has an interest in the health of our nation, having dedicated part of his life to fighting for the union.
I’d be interested in your thoughts, Frank, on how you got over the need for verification, or did you?
Your question makes me think (always a painful and awkward thing). I can’t remember when, or even how, but I know that I came to realize that seeking verification, especially of facts or of source, amounts to asking one of the useless questions. Useless, because unanswerable.
Let me put it this way. In processing intuition, or guidance, or hunches — call them what you will — it is a mistake to treat them differently from how we would treat any other source of information in our lives. We hear something, or think it, or intuit it, and either it resonates with us or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, we reject it. If it does, we accept it — only, is it wise to accept something forever and ever, just because it resonates at this moment? So, as in the Russian saying, trust, but verify. Accept that something has resonance, but don’t assume that that means God and the angels would swear to it.
My rule of thumb is to accept what feels right, but accept it provisionally, subject to my later deciding I was mistaken.