A question of God and the problem of evil

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

I woke up thinking about God and the problem of evil and suffering 

(Now, first off, I know that lots of people don’t use the word God for fear they will back themselves into superstition. But these same people will say “the universe” or “all that is” as a back-door way of saying the same thing.  “God” is just a word; what’s the sense in being scared of a word? We know you’re not talking about an image of an old man with a beard sitting on a cloud.)

People ask, why does God permit evil? Why does God permit suffering? Why does God permit this, that and the other?

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Hemingway’s Puzzlement About the Soul

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

My recurring theme is that our culture, by turning its back on its spiritual roots, has lost contact with the reality of spiritual (that is, non-physical) life. In so doing, it has lost contact with reality, for how can you understand the meaning of things if you systematically disregard a significant portion of what exists? And how can you know who you yourself are, if you systematically discard millennia of tradition and scripture designed to teach that aspect of things?

In reaction to our culture’s downgrading of spiritual knowledge, some have turned to fundamentalism: blind belief. But this won’t do either. If you don’t know, you don’t know, and neither blind belief nor blind disbelief substitute for knowledge. And our culture is not teaching that knowledge, because it has forgotten where to find it.

In short, materialist civilization is lost, and those who are fated to live in it are lost too, no matter how intelligent, no matter how insightful, unless and until they free themselves from this delusion. As an example, I offer a long quotation from Hemingway’s posthumously published True at First Light, which was pieced together by his son Patrick.

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Beware premature clarity, and yet —

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

[Sunday, January 15, 2006]

6:45 a.m. So. Here we are again. I shied away from that discussion about TGU versus any one of you. Why? It is as if I wasn’t ready to hear it – or as if I hadn’t finished making up the answer! But in fact I don’t know why. So I guess I’m ready for you at least to tell me why I’m gun-shy, and then the rest if you can get it through the pipeline.

This is a bigger subject than you consciously know. You recognize that you almost wish the question had not been raised, but you don’t know why. It is because you know, too, that “here comes another hit on my belief system.” But that is a danger of exploration – that at some point you will find something that reevaluates – or forces you to do the re-evaluating, rather! – everything you think you sort of know from experience.

When you first go exploring, that is the easy part, at least for a certain temperament. You start, knowing that what you think you know is probably wrong and certainly inadequate. For the first long phase, it is all gain. Each discovery is an item, one more useful trophy. If it doesn’t seem to fit very well into anything, that’s all right, maybe it will fit better later; maybe further discoveries will demonstrate where and how it fits; maybe it will be the key to fitting in other things. And in fact this is your assumption, your reliance, and your experience.

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Memorial ceremony for Rita Warren

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Beginning at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 22, some of Rita’s friends and neighbors gathered in David Francis Hall at the Monroe Institute to celebrate her life — not least by telling stories. As usual I had my camera in my pocket, but it never seemed appropriate to take photos of the room or the participants beforehand, and, I admit, afterward I entirely forgot. There weren’t a tremendous lot of people there — maybe 50 — mostly I imagine because few of her extended network of friends, former students, fellow TMI participants, and former colleagues were able to attend on such short notice, and on the day before Easter. But I noticed that pretty nearly everybody from the New Land (the residential community surrounding the Institute) was there, which didn’t surprise me.

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A conversation with Rita

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Before we get into this short transcript, a caveat. To the question, “How do you know that you were really talking with Rita and not making it up?” there can only be one true answer: I don’t know. I think so, but I don’t know so. I can’t prove it, any more than I could prove any other conversation I have ever had Upstairs. All I can do is present the material as it came, and let you decide.

Rita Warren was stricken with a massive stroke at a little after 10 a.m. Tuesday morning, March 11, and lingered, paralyzed on her right side, without the power of speech, before finally obtaining release late Wednesday afternoon, March 19. While she was in that in-between state, on Friday morning, I decided to try to communicate with her, on the theory that although she was still tethered to the body she might have more freedom to communicate. Hence this. Material in brackets is added by me for the sake of clarity.]

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Rita’s Legacy (2)

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

This was to be part two of the introduction to the book that would explain what Rita and I had learned in extensive conversations with The Guys Upstairs. Rita’s training as academic comes through quite clearly here, I think.

By Rita Q. Warren

The background

As Frank has reported, Bob Monroe turned his Explorer program over to my husband Martin and me shortly after his new lab was opened in early l984. Here is how that came about.

In 1979 Bob and his family had sold their home (“Whistlefield”) near Charlottesville, Virginia, and re-located about 30 miles south, in rural Nelson County, to build The Monroe Institute (TMI). He opened the first Gateway Voyage program in July, l979.
A friend and I had read about Bob’s work in his first book, Journeys out of the Body, and were eager to visit the Institute and participate in a Gateway. Fortunately, we were able to attend the second program given in Virginia, in August, 1979. My world changed in that week as it did for many who have experienced Gateway. [Those who have written about that life-changing event include Joseph McMoneagle (Mind Trek); Bruce Moen (Voyages into the Unknown), Ronald Russell (The Vast Enquiring Soul); F. Holmes Atwater (Captain of my Ship, Master of my Soul), and Frank himself (Muddy Tracks).]

I had thought of myself as a rather stodgy University professor during the l970s and early 1980s, although I had had some periods showing promise earlier. During Gateway, my life was full of color and amazing adventures, experiences beyond ego. I hadn’t planned to retire from teaching for another ten years or so, but when Bob offered lots near TMI for sale in 1980, I couldn’t resist. Martin, having already retired, came down to the New Land to build a large house so that we would have room for us and for Nan Wilson (the friend with whom I had done Gateway) and, shortly thereafter, Darlene Miller. Bob offered another Gateway for New Landers (as we were now being called) and although I was concerned that a second Gateway could offer nothing so incredible a second time, Nan and I attended, and I did indeed have more heart-warming and soul-stirring experiences.

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