Stray Thoughts

My January 2017 column for The Echo

It’s simple when you think of it in a certain context

By Frank DeMarco

Years ago when I was still a book publisher, I met Hank Wesselman at an INATS (International New Age Trade Show) in Denver, and he and I traded copies of our books. I read his first book, Spiritwalker, with interest, as I did with the two succeeding volumes of trilogy – Medicinemaker and Visionseeker – when they came out in later years. In 2009, I did one of his weeklong workshops in Oregon, along with Dirk Dunning, a friend with whom I have done several programs at The Monroe Institute. So, I came to know his material pretty well.

I don’t know about you, but I judge a book’s information by its effect on me. Ernest Hemingway said every writer needs an internal crap detector, and in my view that goes for readers, as well. When I read Spiritwalker for the first time, not only did my crap detector not go off, it strongly indicated that these books were telling important truths. I am far more skeptical of “science” than Hank is (he is an anthropologist by training), but I found his volumes fascinating, particularly in that they are first-hand experiences of communication via non-physical methods. Of course, in those days, I had no independent way to judge the material.

But now I do. In the years since I first read those books, I have been exposed to a lot of first- and second-hand information from the non-physical world. First came the information that Rita Warren and I received in 201-2002, and then, in the past two years, the material Rita fed me, several years after her transition from the 3D to the non-3D world. That material changed the mental world I live in, as it has done for many others.

Last month, in response to a prompting out of nowhere I can identify, I reread Hank’s trilogy, and found that what I have learned from Rita have made Hank’s books read very differently. First-hand experience will do that! Some things that I puzzled over at first reading, or took on faith, now seem obviously, inevitably true. Take this sentence, for instance, from Spiritwalker:

“Kahunas believed that everything in the everyday world has an ordinary aspect `here’ and a nonordinary aspect in the spirit realms.”

When I first read that sentence, years ago, I didn’t know what to make of it. All it said to me was that certain men believed a certain thing for reasons of their own which they did not divulge, and which the author did not explain. I don’t think this came from any desire on their part – or Hank’s – to deliberately mystify the subject. I think they just took it for granted and didn’t think to try to explain. I didn’t have the key.

But now I do. In the light of my long dialogues with Rita and others, I saw that this is just simple truth. In light of Rita’s explanation of the essential unbreakable oneness that is the 3D and non-3D world, the statement is not only sensible, but obvious, almost too simple to need stating.

It really is simple. Even the great god Science knows that reality consists of more than three dimensions plus time. Scientists are arguing about whether reality consists of six dimensions, or 12, or perhaps more, but for our purposes, how many there are doesn’t matter. However many there are, we are in all of them, even though we commonly perceive only height, breadth and length, and time.

We are in all of them, whether we know it or not, because there is no way we can not be. If you are in any, you are in all, in the same way you cannot be in height and depth, say, but not length. Rita explained that those dimensions we do not experience directly, we experience as aspects of time. As our ability to experience additional dimensions improves, they are, in effect, subtracted from our experience of time, so that time itself seems to change for us.

And if we are in all dimensions, so is everything else. Thus we live in the ordinary world (what Rita calls the 3D) and the non-ordinary world (the non-3D). So of course everything has one aspect here and one there. “Here” and “there,” in context, are parts of the same indivisible oneness.

In the second book of the trilogy, Medicinemaker, Hank quotes mythologist Joseph Campbell:

“The great key to understanding myth and symbol is that the two realities, ordinary and nonordinary, are actually one. The deed of the hero is to explore both dimensions and then return, to teach again what has been correctly taught and incorrectly learned a thousand times throughout human history.”

Plain, simple truth, but as usual, truth is more easily understood in its proper context.

 

 

An article I published in the December edition of The Echo. Perhaps it will read differently to you now than it would have read then.

Fear and the elections and your access to guidance

By Frank DeMarco

I spend a lot of time on Facebook, and I have liberal friends and conservative friends, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and Can’t-Stand-Any-Of-Thems. What strikes me most in the aftermath of last month’s elections is not how divided they are, nor even how different their worldviews are, but how similarly they are reacting.

In nearly all cases, the reaction boils down to fear.

See if this sounds familiar:

* Heavy investment in a set of values identified as traditional American values.

* Perception that these values have been under continuous assault for decades.

* Fear that unless the prevailing trend is turned around, these values may be lost forever.

* Conviction that the corporate media lies, omits, distorts, and, in general promotes its own agenda.

* Suspicion (amounting to belief) that the other side is suppressing the vote, or miscounting it, or stuffing the ballot boxes electronically or otherwise.

Familiar list? It should be. This summarizes not only what you and your side believe, but also what the opposite side believes. The specifics are all different; the psychological state is identical. Most people seem to feel that they are living under siege. They fear for the future, and they are convinced that they have valid reason for that fear.

Both sides. Fear of the future. But is it warranted?

You could make a case that indeed it is. You can always make that case, no matter the circumstances. What seems right to you can be defeated; what seems wrong can flourish. No matter what happens, some people are going to suffer. Viewed the way most people view life, they would say that fear of the future is warranted; indeed, only makes sense.

From a 3D perspective, of course it makes sense. The 3D world tempts us to see ourselves as isolated and powerless, with external events impinging on our lives without much rhyme or reason. It leads us to overvalue the present moment. Experienced from a 3D perspective, the present moment is always overpoweringly important and is often a crisis.

But there is another way to look at things, a way that is not only more hopeful but more plausible, a way rooted not in separation and conflict but in connection and interaction.

Look at things from a non-3D perspective. The non-3D recognizes that the present moment is only one moment in time. It recognizes that we are not isolated individuals, as we appear to be, but connected in many ways, both in the non-3D and in the 3D itself. It sees that all things come into existence from the past and have their moment and then pass out of existence. Yes, we live in the present, but no, the present moment doesn’t last forever. And remember, we live in the 3D and non-3D alike.

But what does this mean practically?

For one thing, it means that nobody has a universal perspective, and therefore nobody is right about everything. You have your values, and others have theirs, and maybe neither position is absolutely right, but contains some truth and some error.

It means that you don’t have much excuse for assuming that you are good and your opponents are bad. You can’t know what is in their hearts, any more than they can know what is in yours. We tend to judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions. Obviously if you use so crooked a scale, the measurement is always going to be in your favor.

It means that events are more neutral than our reactions to them. The same events that exhilarate one person depress another and leave a third person unaffected. To a greater extent than we commonly realize, our reaction to events is rooted more in fear of what they portend than in the events themselves. Our experience is rooted less in “what the facts dictate” than in our accustomed reactions.

So for instance, it appears that Donald Trump is going to be our next president. If we look at that fact without the hopes and fears we attach to it – that is, if we recognize that our hopes and fears are ours and are not intrinsic to the situation –  we see that we are freer than we may think. Those who think that Trump is going to bring about a restoration of traditional America are likely to be disappointed. So are those who think he is going to bring about a descent into fascism.

Hopes, and fears, are not facts. They are emotions, which means they are ours. We are certain to be wrong about some things, and for all we know we are wrong about everything. We won’t know until things play out.

There is no use living in a state of fear. Much better to live in a state of reasonable expectation. As Seth pointed out long ago, this is a safe universe.

—-

Frank DeMarco is the author of many books on access to non-physical guidance, most recently Rita’s World Vol. II. His website is www.ofmyownknowledge.com. On Facebook he is frank.demarco.10.

 

Y’ think they might know something?

This story is headlined, “Watchers of the Earth,” and its subhead says, “Indigenous peoples around the world tell myths which contain warning signs for natural disasters. Scientists are now listening.”

About time.

https://aeon.co/essays/indigenous-myths-carry-warning-signals-about-natural-disasters?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=66079ca453-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_04_11&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-66079ca453-69504445

An article that appeared in The Echo, November, 2016

Virginia as power spot

Is Virginia a special place spiritually?

A friend asked me that question recently, and I had to stop and think. The word “spiritual” is used in so many vague ways, and means such different things to different people – even to the same people in different contexts – that I think we would be safer to rephrase the question. Let’s put it this way: Is Virginia a special place energetically?

On the basis of 33 years here, after about the same amount of time in other places, I have to say yes, I think it is. Let’s think about power spots and grounding (or flat) spots.

Nearly 50 years ago, British author John Michell in his ground-breaking book The View Over Atlantis, introduced the modern world to ley lines, conductors of earth energies. Ley lines crossing produce power spots. In Europe, such spots were recognized and employed in worship from prehistoric times. Christianity built its cathedrals atop the older temples, thus availing themselves of the same energies.

In the new world, identifying power spots was not so easy. For one thing, there were no stone temples to mark the spots. For another, English-speaking America didn’t begin to be settled until the 1600s, by which time “science” in its confident ignorance was busy disregarding folk wisdom as superstition. To speak of power spots in Colonial America would have been to label yourself ignorant, superstitious, and perhaps in league with the devil.

Today if you say “power spots, people tend to think of Sedona, and other well-publicized places. Well and good, but what of Monticello? Can it be a coincidence that the brilliant Mr. Jefferson fell in love with that little mountain as a young boy, “sleeping rough” (camping out) there for the sheer love of it? Was it mere chance that led him to build his house at the top of the mountain, at a time when nearly anybody with a choice built down toward the bottom, where water was more readily available? And of course it doesn’t stop with Jefferson and Monticello. Think of your Revolutionary War history and call the roll of the brilliant men whose lives were shaped in central Virginia at a crucial time in the world’s history.

Of course, this doesn’t prove anything. The results of living in an areas with power spots cannot be demonstrated, so much as lived.

I was born and raised in a little town in South Jersey, and I can tell you, South Jersey in my experience is flat, physically, mentally, culturally. Whatever success I have had in life came to me after moving to Virginia, and, I am convinced, never would have come if I had stayed in a flat spot.

(I don’t mean to imply that flat spots are not useful. They can be safe and nurturing places to raise children, and certain mentalities value stability and continuity over exploration and growth. It’s a matter of taste – but God help the explorer who is condemned to live his life in flat spots, or the person seeking freedom from change who winds up in a power spot.

Which is it for you? Are you in the right place for you (or, perhaps, for you as you are now, at this present moment)? I don’t know any way for you to prove anything to yourself. Feelings may be wrong, ideas may be wrong. Just because you are certain doesn’t mean your certainty is correct.

But there is this, as Jesus advised long ago: By their fruits you will know them. You have been living in central Virginia for a while now. Look at your own life. Are you here because you had no good alternatives? Are you uneasy here? Unfulfilled? Do you find yourself longing for a slower life, or a life with more commonly accepted certainties? If so, maybe you aren’t in the right place.

If, on the other hand, you are happy to be here, and your main complaint is that the Echo isn’t expanding your circle of acquaintances fast enough, chances are you are where you ought to be, in Mr. Jefferson’s power spot.

 

A little while ago my daughter’s family and I went to the Metro Richmond Zoo. I think giraffes are the strangest looking animals. Here are a couple of pix of a giraffe and my granddaughter and me.  (The giraffe is the one with the triangular head.)

And, just to put the issue into perspective:

 

My brother sends me this five-minute URL of a singer (Peter Mayer) playing guitar and expressing a lovely true song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua0PE1zulD4

When we’re really awake, we remember.

Made some final corrections to the sixth draft of Dark Fire, and I’m pretty happy with it. After seven intense months of writing, melding at least five previous versions, writing a logical sequel to not one but two novels – it was a lot! I re-read it in my last round of corrections and found that I’m happy with how it reads.

It’s not so easy, visualizing a world and making it come real, but there isn’t anything more satisfying, at least for me. And to be doing it as a form of homage to TMI and to Bob Monroe (even though my C.T. Merriman is very different from Bob), was immensely gratifying. I again took the opportunity to include what we might call distorted cameos of various friends – not portraits, but portraits of various traits, as they might play out if mixed and matched, put it that way. And as always I have used some names of people I am fond of, even though the characters bearing their names may have no resemblance to their personalities.

So far only one person has read it entirely, and she liked it well enough. Another is in the middle of it, and he likes it will enough. And I like it well enough. So I guess it’s time to get about the depressing business of finding a publisher or putting it out myself.

Later. Two TMI programs coming up this month, beginning the 22^nd. Meanwhile, I’m going to take a breather, maybe gloat a little.