Translations and dramas

All my reading of novels, of history and biography, and my frequent viewings and re-viewings of films may be seen in a different way, in light of the hint thrown out the other day by whatever force I was talking to. Behind all those stories of individuals are stories of conflicts of forces, of ebbs and flows of the power that flows through people for its own purposes.

This will strike some people as fanciful, as inappropriately concrete metaphor, so they will think either it is playing with words or it is being seduced by words into cloud-cuckoo-land. I can feel how inadequate language is. Trying to render what I just got there, the best I could do missed most of it.

Your practice has been to develop your skill. In practice that has meant, to bend your habits in certain directions in order to compensate for tendencies that would interfere.

Okay, we’re going to have to work differently, aren’t we?

We are. Express it.

Let me try to say what I just got.

A long process of development

My initial attempts at automatic writing imitated what I thought I understood from what I had read. This changed into communicating with The Boss, then Evangeline (first attempts to personify the forces I was experiencing), then The Guys Upstairs, then individuals such as David Poynter and Joseph Smallwood, then historically recognized figures like Lincoln and Jung and others, then – interspersed more as exceptions than as part of a progression – people I had known like my old friend David Schlachter and finally Rita. That long process, extending from about 1989, led me along, with gradually accumulating experience repeatedly modifying not only what I thought I knew, but the practice. The sequence aimed to change how I went about things, correcting mistaken ideas and, perhaps more fundamentally, habitual traits that tended to interfere.

My perceptions changed, my ability to work with those perceptions changed, and so did my part in these discussions. It has been a good long time since I was only a scribe writing down pearls from the other side. Dictation became conversation. Conversation clarified into part instruction, part how-to. From the beginning, the process was never what I expected on the basis of what I had read. Instead, it was peculiar to me. It was quite disconcerting to Rita in 2001, I remember. She was not used to a process where the person communicating was right there, passing along humor from “them.” But I don’t see how we could have done our work then, let alone our work subsequently, if we had tried to make what came to us fit into some preconceived box in format or content. And now, I think we’re changing gears once again.

It’s like we’re edging toward Bob Monroe’s “rotes,” where non-verbal transmission of information has to be unpacked into words, which can only be done by someone familiar with 3D restrictions of thought and experience. So, all these words have been in response to “Express it.” Earlier it was, “One level does not understand another,” and it was with that sentence that I realized that our manner of proceeding was going to have to change. I am not complaining. I think it is a good thing. But it is different, and should be seen as a new departure.

I got that we all speak at our own level of understanding. Some are incapable of seeing any level but the one they are used to. Some move in their lifetimes from one to another, leaving behind not only the habit but even the memory of the former level. Some – I’m one – move from level to level, partly inadvertently or unconsciously, partly upon demand as they learn to discern different levels. I don’t think there is any implied “better” or “worse” about it, but it is a difference in the three states. Either (1) stable and relatively unchanging, or (2) stable, then transformed, then stable again, or (3) a stability consisting of fluidity.

I think those of us who are able to move among levels are here as translators, stitching together different levels of understanding. And as I was writing that, I was reminded that the Indians called Joseph Smallwood the commuter, the man who alternated from one world to the other. That referred to him going back and forth between Indians and white worlds, but that same habit of mind that could translate different ways of seeing things might persist, I suppose.

Or might be an effect of prior training.

Hmm. Such as Joseph the Egyptian, you mean?

[Pause]

Dramas as doorways

Well, the point I’m taking such a long time getting to is that what is obvious reality to one level is fantasy to another. We see it in our 3D lives and it is also “as above, so below.” It just depends upon how far you care to extend it.

So, an example. If I say that our 3D lives are only somewhat real because we are the embodiment of forces beyond the 3D level, some people intuitively get it. In fact, it is more like I am agreeing with something they already know than like they are hearing anything new. But others have to wrestle with it, at first having to take on faith that I am not speaking nonsense, then seeing what they can make of it. And others not only can’t make anything out of it, but you might say won’t. It is self-evidently nonsense, and they aren’t going to waste their time. The different levels don’t translate.

And this brings us back to the thought that came to me as I sat down to do this: Dramas in whatever form are stories, and stories are, shall we say, peepholes, or entry-points, or doorways into other levels of meaning. But doorways function as doorways only if you walk through them, and those who are not ready to go through the doorways never even see them as such.

And I think that rounds out what we are going to get from these two cryptic expressions. This is a very interesting development. I will say, pro forma, to the energy system that is communicating to us, thank you. But my sense is that he is far beyond such human interaction.

This is an excerpt from “Only Somewhat Real,” not yet published.

 

Mind on mind

From The Sea Priestess, pp. 296-8:

And in the dusk, when the moonlight fell on the wood-smoke, we saw, or thought we saw, the shadowy figure formulating; we built it out of our imagination in the shadows as one sees faces in the fire, as Morgan had taught, and to our eyes it took on life and spoke, for we were not imaging a phantasy, but the shadow of the real, and the real came down and ensouled it. Thus, I think, have the gods always manifested to their worshippers

…and though we knew his form was such stuff as dreams are made of, there came through that form the touch of mind on mind and that was the thing that counted, and no one who felt it could think that he was hallucinated.

… As for me, I would sooner have that sense of the touch of mind on mind, with its tremendously stimulating influence, than any amount of objective evidence.

 

A deepening

Whoever you are, you are not so much accustomed to words, are you? Yet, you are coming through my mind; why does that not command the language I know?

[A long pause. At least, it seemed long. Less than a minute, I suppose.]

That was quite an experience. The response I got was a deepening of communication, in a few waves of difference, as if my mind settled, bit by bit, into a deeper, calmer place. And this wasn’t during the reaction, or because of the reaction. It was the reaction. Whoever I am in communication with is well beyond words, and needs my access to words if it is going to communicate at all.

That is much better. Can you see how your assumption that you were talking to a human mind – or an ex-human mind, as you like to say – absolutely interfered with the communication process? Absolutely interfered, and, carried farther, might have absolutely prevented.

You are nearing a fundamental transformation of your understanding of the process, if you are open to it and do not prefer to halt at the relatively stable place you have come to.

No, actually, I look forward to it.

Only somewhat real

Very well. So, from a mind that has never been human, you cannot expect a human slant on things, even though the words and concepts have to come through yours. Remember, always, that you are in the process. Any communication to humans must have a human intermediary, obviously. This affords opportunities for mistranslation of concepts, but without it, there is no medium of transmission. And of course in speaking to humans, the recipients themselves are equally sources of misunderstanding, mishearing, even deliberate refusal to understand or to hear.

Yes, that’s clear enough.

It is clear, but it is almost immediately forgotten as soon as heard. So, try to bear it in mind.

I’m not writing scripture, I get that.

Oh, but you are! What is scripture but human attempts to convey messages? Any serious and relatively successful attempt to communicate is of the same nature as scripture. However, don’t take that to be elevating you in stature; take it to be reminding you and your readers not to elevate scripture to a level it cannot sustain.

“You do the best you can,” Bob Monroe said. I think he was trying to say something of what you’re implying here, that all communication involves distortion because it is a translation from one set of conditions to another.

Almost from one reality to another. Not quite, but almost. And it requires great patience, practice, sincerity and even a form of recklessness. All of which you have been practicing for as long as John Tettemer was a monk.

I take it that is encouragement for any who are impelled to take the same road.

They don’t necessarily require encouragement, but some may find it there.

Now listen, for time is short in the remainder of this session. You have been told that your life as experienced is only somewhat real. This is because your life as you are experiencing it is deeper, with stronger cross-currents, than a mere conflict of compound-beings. You got the idea: Try to express it.

We see history as it affects us, so it becomes a matter of individuals, such as MacArthur and Wilson and Roosevelt and Hemingway and John F. Kennedy and Churchill and Robert Henri, and W.B. Yeats and so on. And to us, this is reality. It combines the external world we experience, even at second-hand, and the inner world we construct or experience as we cooperate in shaping our ideas of what is going on. But a deeper level of reality involves the same events, the same individuals, but experiences them as forces, as – I don’t know how to put it. As manifestations, I suppose.

Try not to stop there, but continue, for when you return you will not be in the same place.

In a real sense, our 3D lives may be seen at different levels of reality, and our accustomed way of seeing them is relatively superficial. All the deadly forces that run through us, as well as the living forces too, could be said to live their own lives through us. No, that doesn’t get it.

Try!

If you were a playwright, you might try to express certain ideas. You would have to clothe the ideas in characters, and express them in conflict and interaction of the characters. There would be no other way to do it.

Perhaps not “no other way,” but continue.

It would be the interplay of forces that concerned you, and the interplay of the characters you had invented would be secondary.

Well, not exactly. You acquire a stake in the characters as you animate them. You should know that, as you think of those you have brought to life and then have seen having that life, with its own bounds and possibilities.

This is an excerpt from “Only Somewhat Real,” not yet published.

 

Information and process

TGU: This is still too vaguely expressed. Get your thoughts into gear, as they say. Or rather, apply yourself, don’t just drift.

F: Once upon a time, this work consisted of my willingness to act as scribe, trusting that I was not making it all up behind my own back (a suspicion I have never lost, though that too is too simply put). Then it became a dialog in which my part was as focused as expositor as it was as receptor. Then Rita began encouraging me to express understandings in my own words, so that my part in the enterprise came to be part radio receiver, part translator, part essayist. And now you seem to want me to use an insight conveyed to me as a point of view, and build on that.

From one point of view, what you just said is entirely mistaken. That isn’t what happened at all. But from your point of view, the progression seems natural. Well, it is part of your work to show that this is how you experienced it, and our work to show what it really was. From the beginning, you have been interested in information and we have been interested in process.

Yes, I guess I do know that, though it took me a while to catch on.

Well, where you are now is the skeleton behind the flesh of human activity.

This is an excerpt from “Only Somewhat Real,” not yet published.

 

Author-reader communication

Prologue to the forthcoming book, “Only Somewhat Real.”

Prologue

This book is the latest of several books compiled from more than 25 years of exploration into the nature of reality. After so much time and effort, naturally you come to see some things more clearly, more deeply. But the more your world diverges from mainstream assumptions, the harder it becomes to communicate with those still in the mainstream. It isn’t impossible to bridge the gap, but it requires certain things of the reader:

  • Be open to new ideas. That means not being unwilling to be convinced. You don’t need to (and probably shouldn’t) start by believing; it is only necessary that you start by not adamantly dis-believing.
  • Reserve judgment until those ideas are fully understood. Resist jumping to conclusions. Don’t allow yourself to brush aside an unfamiliar argument as “nothing but” something more familiar. Wait and see where it goes.
  • Wrestle with the ideas presented, to see whether they ring true. It would be as bad to automatically accept what you read as to automatically reject it. Neither reaction can change your life. Test what is said here; think about it; question whether your own life-experience supports it. Only when you wrestle with it will you know how much of it is relevant to the life you are making.

But communication requires things of the author too. It’s up to the author to provide a precis of any necessary background information, including specialized terms, so that the reader can dive right in. That’s the purpose of this prologue.

* * *

Years of explanations have left me with the following understanding of the reality behind our lives. This is not the place to explain or justify these ideas, only to set them forth clearly so that you may understand where we’re coming from.

The world is constructed of consciousness. Before matter, before energy (and, after all, matter is only energy bound into relatively stable forms), comes consciousness. All the world is alive, even the things we think of as dead. Animals, vegetables, minerals; all made of consciousness. That includes synthetic fibers, radioactive waste, and even Congressmen.

Our familiar world of three dimensions is only a subset of a larger reality which we call the non-3D world. Although we speak of them as separate, and usually experience them that way, they together form one thing. Call it the All-D.

The 3D aspect of All-D experiences three very distinctive conditions: separation in time and in place, delayed consequences, and one ever-moving present-moment. It was created (out of the All-D) specifically to provide that combination of conditions; together they constitute a crucible in which new souls may be forged, developed, matured, and passed along to the non-3D.

The non-3D aspect, by contrast, is much more fluid in its movement through time and place, experiences immediate (and immediately malleable) consequences, and allows one to range in time in the way we in 3D range in space. In other words, its prevailing characteristic is non-locality (both in time and space) and extensive inter-communication.

The two realms are usually seen as separate, but they interpenetrate, being indivisible. Together they constitute our outer and inner reality, the 3D world being experienced through the senses, the non-3D world through intuition.

Humans are souls animated by spirit; that is, we are structured intelligence animated by vast impersonal forces. Although we experience ourselves as individuals, it is equally true to describe us as communities of other threads of being, some of which some call “past lives.”

Finally, in investigating both the visible and invisible properties of the world, we find it useful to remember the ancient adage, “as above, so below.” Apparently reality is constructed to scale, with similar architecture at all levels.

Together this view of the world explains many things.

The grail

When a man is said to be searching for the Holy Grail within the mysteries, he is really looking for two things: his own spiritual essence and his own spiritual purpose. This in turn gives him the d rive from his spiritual self, which is necessary to carry out his particular part of the divine plan. Strangely enough, in searching for this innermost spiritual reality within himself (it sounds like a rather egocentric exercise) he is actually finding the nature of God, because in practice the two cannot be divided.

Essentially the search for the Holy Grail is a search for the most intense, inner reality of the individual. When you are looking for the Holy Grail outside, you are having a quest or adventure, and you are really seeking the type of experience that the spiritual nature actually needs. So all quests for the Holy Grail put the objective in a position where people have to overcome their own deepest fear to get the vision of that which is sought. It always hits at the weakest point. In practice the search for the Grail is really the quest for the self carried beyond the normal dimensions, and in looking within and finding the self, one has to find God because one is impossible without the other.

  • The Story of Dion Fortune, pp. 125-6