In working on my novel, I came to a place where the non-3D group is explaining something to the 3D group that is practicing functioning as a group mind, and a thought came to me that doesn’t (or at least doesn’t yet) have its place in the novel, but seems worth thinking about.
• We are composed of many individual strands, each of which may be its own lifetime currently in process.
• Every life has unfinished business.
• Quite possibly we carry our unfinished business from one lifetime into the here-and-now of another lifetime, perhaps neither we nor it knowing it.
• We all know how unslaked emotions demand attention, like little kids saying, “Deal with me!”
• What if our strands experience the equivalent of sibling rivalry? What if they experience each other (and, by extension, us) as interference?
We have been thinking in terms of helping other lives, but what if, in fact, the primary beneficiary of such assistance is we ourselves? If there is any truth in this, perhaps it would be worth our time to treat each of our different moods as individuals and offer to help, as we would if we saw a 3D person in pain.
Calling Max Goodwin! “How can I help?”
An awakening
It was the night of Thursday, December 10, 1992, and I was alone, downstairs at The Monroe Institute’s Nancy Penn Center. The Gateway course that we had just completed had been quite a roller-coaster, opening chambers within me that would take years to explore. I didn’t know how my life would shape up from there, but I knew that something decisive had happened.
I had plenty of mistakes yet to make, plenty of illusions yet to be baffled by, plenty of blunders and forgettings and stupidities to commit and suffer from. In no way could it be said that I now “had it all together,” as people used to say. But – if only for the moment – I was awake, and if I could wake up once, presumably I could wake up again.
This was only partly because of the psychic exploration encouraged and facilitated by the tape exercises. I had taken to that like a man dying of thirst who comes to an oasis. My liberation from the constrictions that had bound my past came partly from tape-assisted experiences, but more from interacting with the other participants, and with one in particular. I had always found it hard, dealing with people. Really, in ways I can scarcely remember at this distance, I was afraid of people. Gateway took that away. Long story, not one to go into here.
The point here is that on that Thursday night, after everyone else had gone to sleep, I was roaming around the darkened silent building in a state of quiet exultation, my senses and intuitions wide open, with no internal doubting-Thomas interfering., and three things happened.
The first thing: In the debrief room at Nancy Penn was a little goldfish bowl, complete with two pretty unimpressive fish. That night, roaming around, my attention was caught by the bowl and I sort of focused on the fish. (I don’t know how to describe what I did without making it seem special, which it was not.) I really, really concentrated on them – and both fish suddenly moved, in a jerky, startled-seeming way, as if they were people who had just heard a loud noise and realized there was somebody else there. (I know it sounds crazy, sounds like wild imagination.)
The second thing, I was in the exercise room, on the bottom floor, and I looked out the window and saw a fir tree, whipping back and forth in the wind. Following impulse, I went out the door and embraced the tree, like putting your face into a cat’s fur, and felt an emotional bond. But then, I have always loved trees. I was out there in my bare feet, standing in the snow, using what I have been taught about maintaining my body temperature, and the very cold seemed to reinforce my mood.
The third thing came next morning, looking up at the sky and seeing birds interacting with each other, making complicated recurring patterns as they soared.
A while later, I put my feelings into this little poem.
Focus 21
The fish were startled.
They saw me. Out of nowhere
a kindred consciousness appeared.
The fir tree, tossing and shaking
from the wind’s rough caressing hand,
called me. I went. The circling
fir arms said “joy.” The playful birds
making patterns said “joy.” The ice
engaged my feet and it said “joy.”
A long sad lifetime changes.
The view from here says “joy,” and says
that’s all it ever was.
When people have asked me about my Gateway, I sometimes tell them, it was the beginning of my life as a conscious individual. But I don’t find it very easy to say why, and certainly not how.
Which of two
For years, most notably between late 2005 and last year sometime – I spent an hour or so nearly every day, talking to the guys, then transcribing what I had gotten, then sending it around to the Explorers list as well as my own private newsnet list, and then here. Out of those conversations came several books, some of which have been published, some which have not yet been.
For some time now, rather than recording new conversations here, I have been reprinting old ones. Friends have asked when, or rather if, I will resume the conversations, and when I have said perhaps never (though one never knows), sometimes they have not seemed to quite understand. It occurs to me, the easiest way to explain is to quote portions of Emerson’s poem “Terminus.” (His son later wrote that when his father read his that newly written poem, he for the first time realized that his father had grown old, and Emerson was only in his early sixties at the time.)
I encourage you to read the poem in its entirety, but for me to reproduce it here would be to dilute my point. So, excerpts:
It is time to be old,
To take in sail:—
The god of bounds,
Who sets to seas a shore,
Came to me in his fatal rounds,
And said: “No more!
No farther shoot
Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root.
…
There’s not enough for this and that,
Make thy option which of two;
Economize the failing river,
Not the less revere the Giver,
Leave the many and hold the few.
…
Talking to the guys in writing, and then transcribing and posting it, has always been a joy and an education, but it takes time and energy, and at this point to do that is to not do other things, including the novel I am about halfway through writing. “Make thy option which of two,” and I am doing that.
But if the first part of the poem is in a sense negative, the final part is pure positive, and I have identified with this sentiment from the first time I came across it:
As the bird trims her to the gale,
I trim myself to the storm of time,
I man the rudder, reef the sail,
Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:
“Lowly faithful, banish fear,
Right onward drive unharmed;
The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
And every wave is charmed.”
I don’t know what that says to you. To me it is an almost offhand declaration of faith in life. What the guys apparently came to teach me, Emerson knew long before: All is well, all is always well. There is never the need or excuse for worry.
Some hints from Thoreau
From A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, his first book, though not his best.
It is easier to discover another such a new world as Columbus did, than to go within one fold of this which we appear to know so well; the land is lost sight of, the compass varies, and mankind mutiny; and still history accumulates like rubbish before the portals of nature. But there is only necessary a moment’s sanity and sound senses, to teach us that there is a nature behind the ordinary, in which we have only some vague pre-emption right and western reserve as yet. We live on the outskirts of that region. Carved wood, and floating boughs, and sunset skies, are all that we know of it. We are not to be imposed on by the longest spell of weather. Let us not, my friends, be wheedled and cheated into good behavior to earn the salt of our eternal porridge, whoever they are that attempt it. Let us wait a little, and not purchase any clearing here, trusting that richer bottoms will soon be put up. It is but thin soil where we stand; I have felt my roots in a richer ere this. I have seen a bunch of violets in a glass vase, tied loosely with a straw, which reminded me of myself.
…
The anecdotes of modern astronomy affect me in the same way as do those faint revelations of the Real which are vouchsafed to men from time to time, or rather from eternity to eternity. When I remember the history of that faint light in our firmament, which we call Venus, which ancient men regarded, and which most modern men still regard, as a bright spark attached to a hollow sphere revolving about our earth, but which we have discovered to be another world, in itself,—how Copernicus, reasoning long and patiently about the matter, predicted confidently concerning it, before yet the telescope had been invented, that if ever men came to see it more clearly than they did then, they would discover that it had phases like our moon, and that within a century after his death the telescope was invented, and that prediction verified, by Galileo,—I am not without hope that we may, even here and now obtain some accurate information concerning that OTHER WORLD which the instinct of mankind has so long predicted. Indeed, all that we call science, as well as all that we call poetry, is a particle of such information, accurate as far as it goes, though it be but to the confines of the truth. If we can reason so accurately, and with such wonderful confirmation of our reasoning, respecting so-called material objects and events infinitely removed beyond the range of our natural vision, so that the mind hesitates to trust its calculations even when they are confirmed by observation, why may not our speculations penetrate as far into the immaterial starry system, of which the former is but the outward and visible type? Surely, we are provided with senses as well fitted to penetrate the spaces of the real, the substantial, the eternal, as these outward are to penetrate the material universe. Veias, Menu, Zoroaster, Socrates, Christ, Shakespeare, Swedenborg,—these are some of our astronomers.
There are perturbations in our orbits produced by the influence of outlying spheres, and no astronomer has ever yet calculated the elements of that undiscovered world which produces them. I perceive in the common train of my thoughts a natural and uninterrupted sequence, each implying the next, or, if interruption occurs, it is occasioned by a new object being presented to my senses. But a steep, and sudden, and by these means unaccountable transition, is that from a comparatively narrow and partial, what is called common sense view of things, to an infinitely expanded and liberating one, from seeing things as men describe them, to seeing them as men cannot describe them. This implies a sense which is not common, but rare in the wisest man’s experience; which is sensible or sentient of more than common.
In what enclosures does the astronomer loiter! His skies are shoal, and imagination, like a thirsty traveller, pants to be through their desert. The roving mind impatiently bursts the fetters of astronomical orbits, like cobwebs in a corner of its universe, and launches itself to where distance fails to follow, and law, such as science has discovered, grows weak and weary. The mind knows a distance and a space of which all those sums combined do not make a unit of measure,—the interval between that which appears, and that which is. I know that there are many stars, I know that they are far enough off, bright enough, steady enough in their orbits,—but what are they all worth? They are more waste land in the West,—star territory,—to be made slave States, perchance, if we colonize them. I have interest but for six feet of star, and that interest is transient. Then farewell to all ye bodies, such as I have known ye.
…
What is called common sense is excellent in its department, and as invaluable as the virtue of conformity in the army and navy,—for there must be subordination,—but uncommon sense, that sense which is common only to the wisest, is as much more excellent as it is more rare. Some aspire to excellence in the subordinate department, and may God speed them. What Fuller says of masters of colleges is universally applicable, that “a little alloy of dulness in a master of a college makes him fitter to manage secular affairs.”
…
In the life of Sadi by Dowlat Shah occurs this sentence: “The eagle of the immaterial soul of Shaikh Sadi shook from his plumage the dust of his body.”
The celestial kingdom and us (from “Life More Abundantly”)
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Looking at the 3D world as it is projected from the non-3D, we have sketched the role of mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms in maintaining it moment by moment. Let us look at the celestial kingdom, then return to humans who bridge animal and celestial kingdoms. It is easier to describe a bridge if one sees what it bridges.
This is a convenient scheme of things, not a scientific or religious characterization. Something seen in another frame of reference is not going to seem the same. Every context has its own boundaries around a thing, and so doesn’t quite describe the same thing; at most there is great overlap. So, let us define “celestial” in this context not as “heavenly” meaning the afterlife nor meaning astronomical realities. Here, “celestial” will mean the invisible substructure and superstructure of reality, the non-material yet essentially 3D forces that hold things together.
Your present civilization sees matter and energy as separate things, even though science famously recognizes that E=mc2, or, in other words, that energy and matter are different states of the same thing, or different states of the same energy.
Matter is slowed energy, so they must be the same substance.
If you do not hold firmly in your mind that energies are not in any way different from materials, you will unconsciously let them split off from one another, tempting you to consider them as if they were separate. Do that and the next step is to concentrate on one and ignore or even forget the other. This is how medieval understanding devolved into a disconnected spirituality and a disconnected materialism, a long slide that reached bottom at about the end of the 19th century. Then came the discovery of radiation and Einstein’s famous equation, and quantum theory, and science began – but only began – the long climb upward toward reintegration.
And spirituality?
That’s what we and of course many others are working on. Seeing the celestial kingdom again as a normal part of the everyday world re-spiritualizes matter and grounds energy. That is a statement that will repay consideration. Meanwhile, let us proceed to our classification scheme.
The celestial kingdom includes all the occult properties of matter. That which makes a particular piece of ground a “power spot” or a “sacred site” is a specific connection of the celestial kingdom to the geography of a given site. It is not merely a matter of minerals. The ancient Germans had their sacred groves of oaks. That was an example of the vegetable and celestial kingdoms inter-functioning. And of course the mineral structure had to be able to support the oaks. The animal kingdom contributed to a minor degree, in the sense of squirrels burying acorns, say, but primarily the animal kingdom benefited from, that is, luxuriated in, the portal thus created.
If I have the sense of it, you are saying power spots may be created by the interaction of the celestial kingdom with the mineral kingdom, or with both mineral and animal kingdoms.
Yes, and remember, humans are a part of the animal kingdom. So when humans recognize a power spot and build on it and in a sense magnify it, they too are contributing, in a way that other animals cannot.
Power spots are only special cases of the larger energetic superstructure of the Earth. A whole science of geomancy has existed, primarily in China, and a newer version has been developing in the West beginning in the 20th century with the rediscovery of ley lines.
Which of course implies that it was known in older times when the structures and highways were built that trace them.
There is nothing new under the sun. Also, there is more in heaven and earth than your science knows, Horatio. Also, there is nothing new or old – to vary the saying – but that thinking makes it so. But the point is less what has been than what is coming to be. Power spots, ley lines, etc., are the planet’s electrical grid, energy that carries potential, but is more passive possibility than active volition. For that, you get into “superstition” and “old wives’ tales.”
Yes, I’ve been waiting for this. Elves, fairies, sprites, salamanders, and all. I’ve never had to decide what I thought about all that. Instinctively I’ve been tempted to dismiss it all as nonsense; at the same time, I’ve learned to be a little careful about what I dismiss unexamined. Anything believed by many people over time has some truth.
Pixies, fairies, the little people, etc. – where do you think such ideas come from? If you say, “From the imaginations of various peoples,” that begs the question of why they imagined one thing in the place of another. Werewolves, shape-shifters, familiar spirits – do you think these, too, are only the imaginings of superstitious peasantry? You do, but not because you are seeing fact; because you are seeing through the mesh of your civilization’s filters. You can’t see them, except ever so faintly and uncertainly, because your culture gets in the way.
Dion Fortune certainly believed in at least some of them.
Plenty of people – respectable people, sometimes scientifically distinguished people – know what they have seen and experienced, but they know, too, what they dare not acknowledge lest their reputation be destroyed.
Now, let us sum up this so far: The celestial kingdom has its passive and its active side; its ley lines and its “supernatural” folk. Those are the extremes, and many phenomena in the middle. Only, bear in mind – and perhaps we have not yet said this – the celestial kingdom like the other kingdoms exists in All-D, obviously. Therefore, some aspects of it can never be experienced, nor weighed and measured, in 3D terms alone. They can’t be made sense of without taking into account the fact that the 3D shades into the non-3D.
Cheering thought
i happened to be re-reading “The Rubaiyat” by Omar Khayyam, and was struck among other things by this quatrain:
“Why,” said another, “Some there are who tell
Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell
the luckless pots he marred in the making. Pish!
He’s a good fellow, and ’twill all be well.”
Amen, brother. it boggles the mind to think how many people must have lived their lives in fear of hell, even while thinking they loved the God who could play so unfair a game.
BTW if you haven’t ever read The Rubaiyat, you can easily find it online. It’s great. You already know some of its verses, i suspect, and many of its phrases (well, Edward FitsGerald’s translation of them, anyway).
Certainly you will have seen this one:
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread–and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness–
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
And perhaps this one:
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter–and the Bird is on the Wing.
but to see how they all fit together, take a few minutes, read the whole thing. It will brighten your day.:
Interconnection among species (from “Life More Abundantly”)
Monday, September 30, 2019
Recognize that we are – as so often – describing to you what you well know, but from a different point of view. It is the viewing as much as the viewed or viewer that is important here.
Interesting to see you put the process as a third term, equal in importance to subject or object.
To viewer or viewed. Not quite the same thing. The viewer isn’t the subject.
We are sketching the familiar world in an unfamiliar way. The 3D world is broadcast; is projected, from the larger world of which it is part. It is not some boulder sitting in a field of nothingness. The 3D is a subset of the All-D, and so cannot be properly understood in isolation. In practice you will mostly see it in isolation; still, the differences between your usual perceptions and ideas and those we try to impart are based exactly in that difference: We describe the 3D as part of its context; you mostly and usually see it as if it existed in isolation.
- If 3D were in existence for its own sake, you might look at this as potentially very destructive, indeed disastrous.
- If 3D existed in isolation –not part of the All-D – similarly it would be an out-of-control situation that would likely end in disaster, or at best in meaningless change.
- If 3D existed only in time then what happened or did not happen would be, in a sense, irremediable, or, let’s say, of only historical existence.
But none of these conditions is true. The 3D exists as part of everything; It exists to fill a function. It is as immortal as reality, because time is not what it appears to be when seen in a strictly 3D perspective.
Humans change, and they change the world around them. This will be obvious when you remember that the “external” world is not separate from you, but in a way expresses you. Inner and outer aspects being of the same reality, how could a species that changes not experience itself as inhabiting an ever-changing world?
You were going to explain this sentence: “The animal kingdom provides continuity of awareness of one’s other beings and an awareness of continual interaction.”
Animals are essentially tribal, familial, interactive. At one extreme is the insect kingdom with a hive-mind of nearly no individual separate awareness. At the other end is mankind, with an awareness of individuality that often drowns out awareness of the matrix in which humans live. But individually aware or not, all animals are in essence part of their species’ awareness, in a way plants are not. However, this may be difficult to express.
We are learning, these days, how much more aware of each other plants can be.
Yes, but it is an order of intelligence quite different from human awareness. The closest analogy would be to the hive-mind of the animal scale that ranges from hive to individual awareness.
It is as if hive-mind animals take up where plants leave off.
In a sense, yes. There is a sort of continuity. And of course the human mind extends from the animal to the celestial, whether or not consciously.
Shamans talking to plants are talking to the overall hive-mind that is a specific kind of plant?
Each species may be said to have its own representative, so that, say, a human taking a psycho-active substance may come into contact with the plant’s particular intelligence. It would not be a separate intelligence, but more like if the entire human race, or any subset of it, had one individual representative.
So you see, animals are always aware not only of others of their species but of others of all species within their individual existence. A herd or a pod acts in effect as an extension of the individual, but that is the relation in a nutshell. If you think of the animal kingdom as producing continuity of awareness of the larger picture, that will be a good start. Humans are aware of things that cats aren’t, but both function to maintain a world of interconnection among species that is beyond the capability of the plant kingdom.