• Overcoming obstacles in talking to the other side

    From an altered-state session with the guys upstairs, Rita Warren asking the questions, on February 26, 2005:  R: All right, now the practical implications of what we’ve been talking about. When I’m asking questions of you through Frank, is there some stance he can take that will make it easier for him to feel like…

  • Belief and doubt

    A further excerpt from an altered-state session with the guys upstairs, Rita Warren asking the questions, on February 26, 2005: R: …. Well, I ordinarily think of both Frank and myself as being very tolerant of ambiguity with others who are very dissatisfied with that state. However, one of the things that has arisen for…

  • William Bloom: Do people really create their own reality?

    This article came to me in an email some time ago, and surfaced tonight, so perhaps it is time to pass it on. I am not (the guys are not) totally in agreement with everything he says about the background of incarnation, but I am fully on board with his objections to the way New…

  • Astronaut back again in India?

    This clipping goes back to July 2007, but I don’t think it has lost any relevance in the past few months. The guys have convinced me that our views on reincarnation are simplistic at best, downright distorted at worst, but regardless of what we think is “really” happening here I think you will agree that…

  • Colin Wilson’s “The Outsider”

    This appreciation of Colin Wilson by Colin Amery first appeared in 2001. I have written about the debt of gratitudeI owe him. This story is typical of such debts, I think.  Colin Wilson’s The Outsider by Colin Amery  In l956 Wilson’s Outsider was an overnight success, and later went into twelve impressions, the youthful looking…

  • A Review of Wilson’s “The Books in my Life”

    This is a review of Colin Wilson’s The Books in My Life, published by Hampton Roads Publishing Company in 1998 and — to my surprise and delight — dedicated to me. I had met Colin three years earlier, on the memorable 17th of March, 1995. THE BOOKS IN MY LIFE Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.…

  • The Monk in the Lab

    This article by the Dalai Lama appeared in The New York Times April 26, 2003 at a time when some people thought that invading Iraq was going to lead to peace. But maybe the way to peace doesn’t lead through war but through self-mastery. The Monk in the Lab By TENZIN GYATSO DHARAMSALA, India These…

  • Tears from Heaven

    A friend sent me this, back in June 2000. I just came across it and found it as moving now as it was then. Author unknown, and her son’s name unknown. In fact I don’t know any more about it than what is here. (The friend who sent it to me is gone as well,…

  • Become the change you want to see

    A friend quotes Gandhi as saying “become the change you want to see.” In this connection, I remember a line from a Dion Fortune novel (The Sea Priestess), in which the heroine, a woman working magic, says that in order to put a new pattern into the mind of the human race, it is necessary…

  • A classic statement on how to live

    The first time I saw Max Ehrmann’s classic statement was on a birthday card from my father-in-law. I thought at the time that perhaps he was trying to make a point – give me a nudge – that he didn’t feel able to do orally.I have seen this piece derided, and of course it has…