Posted on 30 April 2012, 18:38

I traveled beyond conscious reality as I knew it, while retrieving details of my memories. During that journey I experienced an ineffable moment of total merging. I don’t know how else to describe having all your senses experience what should be an impossibility. It is as if I were given a glimpse of my/our potential.
Abby —November 10, 1997

When you are in the presence of that Source connection, there is nothing like it. There is nothing you can conceive of that isn’t understood. There is nothing that can’t be done. It is a love that cannot be contained, and you know then why I get so angry that I have to be back here.
Will —August 15, 1997

Virtually all religious and spiritual traditions in societies around the world and through time have in common knowledge of a supreme or ultimate creative principle or intelligence which is variously called the Divine, the Source (or just Source), the One, Home (especially favored by abduction experiencers), the Great Spirit, the ground of being, or God. The members of particular societies may experience a variety of relationships with this principle, ranging from a disturbing sense of estrangement or fear to a powerful feeling of spiritual presence or intimate oneness and harmony. The secular modern, or postmodern, Western culture in which I was raised and have lived is perhaps unique in the degree to which many of its members have become separated from any sense of the actuality of a divine presence or higher power in nature (Smith 1992). Some even deny the existence of any such principle, placing man at the peak of the cosmic intelligence hierarchy (Zimmerman 1998, p. 3).

I am not skilled in the disciplines necessary to argue effectively for or against the reality of a divine presence immanent in nature. My sense is that the kinds of evidence that people find relevant to such questions are more likely subjective or experiential than objective or empirical. What has, however, become clear to me in the nearly ten years that I have been wrestling with the mystery of the alien abduction phenomenon is the fact that the deeper power and meaning of the encounters cannot be understood without consideration of their transformative power and spiritual significance. “There aren’t just little gray guys with big eyes,” Karin says.

“Ultimately it’s about knowing God.” We seem to be experiencing now in the United States, and more or less throughout Western culture, a kind of spiritual renaissance. It reflects a deep hunger for something missing in the lives of many people, a sense, however vague, that there are other realms from which they feel cut off, and a growing realization that many of the catastrophic events of this century now ending have derived from radical secularism and spiritual emptiness. It seems clear that people in the West are increasingly seeking more direct contact with a higher power, which would usually be called God were it not for the anthropocentric connotation and other baggage that has become attached to this word.

Many of the phenomena documented in this chapter may sound familiar to students of the history of religious traditions. The longing for connection with Source or the ground of being; the anguish of separation from the Divine; the process of breaking down the barriers to connection or reconnection with Source; the cycles of the soul’s incarnation or reincarnation— are all familiar aspects of spiritual transformation. There is an extensive literature on these various topics, and those interested in exploring them further might consult the sources suggested in the notes to this chapter.1 What seems to be unique about the abduction phenomenon, as documented throughout this book, is its reality-shocking content, its energetic intensity, and its potentially rapid transformative power. This may enable individuals who, generally speaking, have not undertaken a path of spiritual practice to connect or reconnect with Source dramatically and quickly when they confront and work through the mind-shattering terror that often, at least initially, is produced by the encounters.

Some of the approaches to a higher power are initiated by individuals themselves. These include traditional forms of religious worship, such as prayer, meditation, and devotional service; twelve-step programs for the treatment of addictions; yoga, Holotropic Breathwork, and controlled out-of-body experiences (Buhlman 1996; Monroe 1971 and 1996); thoughtful use of psychedelic agents; vision quests and other activities associated with native and Eastern spiritual practices and rituals. But some transformational agents seem to come as if from outside, hardly expected or desired by the person himself, except in the broad sense discussed in the previous chapter.

These include near-death and other spontaneous out-of-body experiences, traumatic losses, serious illnesses or other personal tragedies that propel spiritual growth, spontaneous religious epiphanies or “born again” experiences, and of course encounters with strange humanoid beings.

In this chapter I will try to show how the alien abduction phenomenon can potentially be one of the most powerful agents of spiritual growth, personal transformation, and expanded awareness that is now affecting people on this planet.2 As Karin puts it, abduction experiences are the “fast track” for personal change (see also Whitley Strieber’s remarks on page 18).

“You want to know what it’s like to be in Source?” she once exclaimed. “You want to know what it’s like to be connected to the universe? You want to know about that fifth-dimensional part of yourself [she means a kind of fine vibratory resonance] that’s in every other human being, and you want to know what it feels like to be talking to that and be communicating with that and be in communion with that? Here it is, honey. Let’s go. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the past two and a half years, being in that space, working through that stuff, and learning how to communicate in ways that we don’t have a language for here.” In earlier chapters we have seen how the light, energy, and vibratory intensity of the abduction experiences, the traumatic shattering of the abductees’ worldviews, and the shocking visions of the threat to the planet’s life to which they have been exposed have combined to open their awareness to an expanded view of reality. Here we will explore more deeply the expanded sense of consciousness and the spiritual power and meaning of the encounters for the abductees’ lives and for their view of themselves in a rapidly and radically transforming world.

In order to appreciate this dimension of the phenomenon, it is necessary, I have found, to bear with the experiencers the fear, pain, and nearly overwhelming vibratory energies associated with the abduction experiences, and to put aside as much as possible conventional worldviews and ontological preconceptions. If a facilitator is unable to do so, the experiencer may become stuck in a place of resentment and victimization from which personal growth is difficult or impossible.

Sue expresses this challenge clearly: “I think what this phenomenon is doing, the abduction scenario,” is to press “really nasty buttons. It makes you feel like a victim. At the moment you have no control. You can’t do anything, so what do you do? Do you lie back and take it? Do you withdraw, or do you fight? Well, I’ll tell you, if you get up and fight and get beyond that victimization feeling, change happens. It’s unbelievable what happens. It has been for me, and I know it can be for everybody else. But what most people are not doing is getting beyond that feeling of being a victim.” The alien beings are usually perceived by experiencers, not as spirits or godly creatures, but as emissaries or messengers from the creative principle, which they most often seem to call “Source.” For Karin the beings function as “the go-between. It’s the translator” or a “kind of interpreter,” bridging the gulf that has developed between humans and “the One.” “For us to get the message from the Divine Source, it has to come through something that’s already connected,” she suggests. Other experiencers note that the beings seem to have a connection with spirit or Source that we do not have or have lost.

Passport to the Cosmos by John E. Mack, M.D. is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online bookstore

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Posted on 26 April 2012, 2:16

37 When we are all united in Heaven, you will value nothing that you value here. For nothing that you value here you value wholly, and so you do not value it at all. Value is where God placed it, and the value of what God esteems cannot be judged, for it has been established. It is wholly of value. It can merely be appreciated or not. To value it partially is not to know its value. In Heaven is everything God valued and nothing else. Heaven is perfectly unambiguous. Everything is clear and bright and calls forth one response. There is no darkness, and there is no contrast. There is no variation. There is no interruption. There is a sense of peace so deep that no dream in this world has ever brought even a dim imagining of what it is.

38 Nothing in this world can give this peace, for nothing in this world is wholly shared. Perfect perception can merely show you what is capable of being wholly shared. It can also show you the results of sharing while you still remember the results of not sharing. The Holy Spirit points quietly to the contrast, knowing that you will finally let Him judge the difference for you, allowing Him to demonstrate which must be true. He has perfect faith in your final judgment because He knows that He will make it for you. To doubt this would be to doubt that His mission will be fulfilled. How is this possible, when His mission is of God?

39 You whose minds are darkened by doubt and guilt, remember this: God gave the Holy Spirit to you and gave Him the mission to remove all doubt and every trace of guilt that His dear Son has laid upon himself. It is impossible that this mission fail. Nothing can prevent what God would have accomplished from accomplishment. Whatever your reactions to the Holy Spirit’s Voice may be, whatever voice you choose to listen to, whatever strange thoughts may occur to you, God’s will is done. You will find the peace in which He has established you, because He does not change His Mind. He is invariable as the peace in which you dwell and of which the Holy Spirit reminds you.

40 You will not remember change and shift in Heaven. You have need of contrast only here. Contrast and differences are necessary teaching aids, for by them you learn what to avoid and what to seek. When you have learned this, you will find the answer that makes the need for any differences disappear. Truth comes of its own will unto its own. When you have learned that you belong to truth, it will flow lightly over you without a difference of any kind. For you will need no contrast to help you realize that this is what you want, and only this. Fear not the Holy Spirit will fail in what your Father has given Him to do. The Will of God can fail in nothing.

41 Have faith in only this one thing, and it will be sufficient: God wills you be in Heaven, and nothing can keep you from it or it from you. Your wildest misperceptions, your weird imaginings, your blackest nightmares all mean nothing. They will not prevail against the peace God wills for you. The Holy Spirit will restore your sanity, because insanity is not the Will of God. If that suffices Him, it is enough for you. You will not keep what God would have removed, because it breaks communication with you with whom He would communicate. His voice will be heard.

42 The Communication Link which God Himself placed within you, joining your minds with His, cannot be broken. You may believe you want it broken, and this belief does interfere with the deep peace in which the sweet and constant communication which God would share with you is known. Yet His channels of reaching out cannot be wholly closed and separated from Him. Peace will be yours, because His peace still flows to you from Him Whose Will is peace. You have it now. The Holy Spirit will teach you how to use it and, by projecting it, to learn that it is in you.

43 God willed you Heaven and will always will you nothing else. The Holy Spirit knows only of His Will. There is no chance that Heaven will not be yours, for God is sure, and what He wills is as sure as He is. You will learn salvation, because you will learn how to save. It will not be possible to exempt yourself from what the Holy Spirit wills to teach you. Salvation is as sure as God. His certainty suffices. Learn that even the darkest nightmare that disturbed the mind of God’s sleeping Son holds no power over him. He will learn the lesson of awaking. God watches over him, and light surrounds him.

44 Can God’s Son lose himself in dreams when God has placed within him the glad call to waken and be glad? He cannot separate himself from what is in him. His sleep will not withstand the call to wake. The mission of redemption will be fulfilled as surely as the creation will remain unchanged throughout eternity. You do not have to know that Heaven is yours to make it so. It is so. Yet the Will of God must be accepted as your will to know it.

45 The Holy Spirit cannot fail to undo for you everything you have learned that teaches you what is not true must be reconciled with truth. This is the reconciliation which the ego would substitute for your reconciliation unto sanity and unto peace. The Holy Spirit has a very different kind of reconciliation in His Mind for you, and one which He will effect as surely as the ego will not effect what it attempts.

46 Failure is of the ego, not of God. From Him you cannot wander, and there is no possibility that the plan the Holy Spirit offers to everyone for the salvation of everyone will not be perfectly accomplished. You will be released, and you will not remember anything you made that was not created for you and by you in return. For how can you remember what was never true or not remember what has always been? It is this reconciliation with truth, and only truth, in which the peace of Heaven lies.

Extract from A Course in Miracles: The Original Edition

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Posted on 21 April 2012, 20:52

Early in the evening of 27 November 1975, the writer and television personality Ross McWhirter was shot in the head and chest by two gunmen on the doorstep of his north London home. He was rushed to hospital, but was declared dead on or shortly after arrival, before his identical twin brother Norris could reach his bedside. The murder made the front pages of the following day’s newspapers, for the McWhirters, (below) editors of the Guinness Book of Records, were probably Britain’s best known pair of twins after the notorious criminal Kray brothers (of whom more later). 

When I heard the news on the radio that night I found myself wondering if there was any truth in the claim that twins could pick up each other’s thoughts and feelings at a distance? I had read somewhere that telepathy – the receiving of information by other than our normal five senses – was common between twins, especially at times of crisis, and since murder is the most extreme crisis imaginable, I thought here was a good opportunity to put that theory to the test.

The problem was that I did not know Norris McWhirter, and did not feel like writing to ask what he felt, if anything, when Ross was killed. I did, however, eagerly read his biographical tribute to his brother which was published the following year, but finding that there was no mention of telepathy in it, I decided that while some twins might be telepathic, these two had not been. Even so, the incident stuck in my mind, and I began asking around in the hope of finding somebody who knew Norris well enough to ask him, after a decent interval, if he had felt anything at the time of Ross’s death. He might have, I thought, but might have preferred not to mention it in his book. However, I could not find anybody who knew him at all, so it seemed there was nothing more I could do.

Fortunately, I was wrong. More than twenty years later I had one of those lucky breaks that make you think you do have a guardian angel after all. As I will describe in more detail in due course, I was able to get an eye-witness account from somebody who had been with Norris McWhirter at the time of the shooting and yes, he had unmistakably reacted. Moreover, he had reacted in a dramatic way, almost as if he too had been shot – by an invisible bullet. So it seemed there could be a special twin connection after all. I decided it was time for some proper research. I published four appeals for evidence, and asked everybody I met if they knew any twins. Early results were disappointing – the only twins I knew or was able to meet had never had any experience of the sort I was looking for, and I received fewer replies than I had hoped.

Even so, the evidence began to trickle in and it soon became clear that one twin often reacted to what was happening to the other, and this nearly always seemed to be something painful, frightening or life-threatening. Here are just a few of my early cases, all of them collected directly from the source:

*  A mother is holding one of her twin babies when he suddenly goes into convulsions and screams in terror for no obvious reason. His twin is lying silently on the couch beside her, face downwards. He is turning blue and suffocating. His mother is convinced that she only managed to save him because his brother sounded the alarm. The twins are just three days
old.

*  A five-month-old wakes up as the clock strikes ten and startles his father by crying desperately for a quarter of an hour as if in pain, then suddenly stopping and going straight back to sleep. In a hospital several miles away his brother is having a painful injection. His mother, who is with him, happens to note the time – 10 p.m.

*  The mother of another pair of five-month-olds notices that when one of them is having his inoculations, he takes them quite calmly – but the other one yells his head off.

*  A student at a New York university wakes up suddenly at 6 am., certain that something had happened to her sister in Arizona. So it had – a bomb had just gone off right outside her home.

*  The sister of a London woman who is having a painful pregnancy telephones from Australia begging the obstetrician to operate as soon as he can. ‘I can’t stand the pain’, she says. The obstetrician tells me this kind of thing is quite common with twins.

My new file got thicker and thicker. There was the case of the Manchester man who woke up with a start, feeling as if he had just been hit on the head, and learning the next day that at exactly the same time his twin had fallen and banged his head. There were the two brothers who went skiing on different pistes in the Alps and both fell, breaking the same leg in the same place, again at exactly the same time. There was the little Spanish girl who suddenly developed a red blister on her hand at the time her sister, several miles away, burned her hand with an iron, causing an identical blister. There was the woman in New York who was suddenly taken ill, saying that she felt as if she was having a baby, which she certainly wasn’t. Her sister in Europe was, though, several weeks prematurely.

So it went on and on. The evidence was abundant, compelling, and above all consistent.

Extract from Twin Telepathy by Guy Playfair published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online bookstores.

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Posted on 19 April 2012, 15:05

Man is created and left to discover himself, and on the road to this self-discovery he experiences the creations of his own imaginations which ultimately show him the Truth and lead to real freedom.

There is an interesting myth in regard to the creating of man which may serve to point out this fact.

It is said that when the gods decided to make man, and make him a Divine Being, they held a long discussion as to where would be the best place to hide his Divinity.

Some of the gods suggested that it be hidden in the earth, but others argued that some day man would penetrate the earth and so discover himself; it was then suggested that it be hidden in the depths of the sea, but this idea was rejected, for man would go under the sea and there discover his true nature; it was next suggested that his real nature should be deposited somewhere in the air, but this also was rejected, for he would surely fly through the air and find himself.

After a long discussion it was finally agreed that the best place to hide man’s Divinity would be IN THE INNERMOST NATURE OF MAN HIMSELF—this being the last place he would look to find it! This discovery would not be made until he had had all the experience necessary to complete a well-rounded life.

“The Word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.”

Of course, this is a fable, but how clearly it sets forth the reality of the case! The word is really in our own mouths, and every time we say “I AM” we are repeating it; for “I AM” is the secret of nature and the emblem of Eternity.

The story of “The Prodigal Son” is the story of man’s return to “His Father’s House” How truly the poet puts it when he says that “Trailing clouds of Glory do we come from Heaven which is our home.

“This is the mystical meaning of that marvelous poem of Robert Browning’s, called “Saul.”

Saul had lost his sense of real life and lay in a stupor in his tent when David came to sing to him, to awaken him to the realization of his true nature.

At first David sings of the wonders of Creation and of the delights of life; he tells Saul of his power and glory as a human being; and, as the song expands, he touches the secret spring of Saul’s being—“He is Saul ye remember in glory, ere error had bent the broad brow from the daily communion.”
Then, he plainly tells Saul of the Christ.

This revelation finally awakens Saul to “His old motions and attitudes kingly.”

The healing has taken place and the realization of the Truth has freed Saul from the thraldom of false belief.

Taken from The Science of Mind by Ernest Holmes

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Posted on 13 April 2012, 19:26

Time is the most formidable and difficult problem which confronts humanity.

Kant (below) regards time as he does space: as a subjective form of our receptivity; i.e., he says that we create time ourselves, as a function of our receptive apparatus, for convenience in perceiving the outside world. Reality is continuous and constant, but in order to make possible the perception of it, we must dissever it into separate moments; imagine it as an infinite series of separate moments out of which there exists for us only one. In other words, we perceive reality as if through a narrow slit, and what we are seeing through this slit we call the present; what we did see and now do not see—the past; and what we do not quite see but are expecting—the future.

Regarding each phenomenon as an effect of another, or others, and this in its turn as a cause of a third; that is, regarding all phenomena in functional interdependence one upon another, by this very act we are contemplating them in time, because we picture to ourselves quite clearly and precisely first a cause, then an effect; first an action, then its function; and cannot contemplate them otherwise. Thus we may say that the idea of time is bound up with the idea of causation and functional interdependence. Without time, causation cannot exist, just as without time, motion or the absence of motion cannot exist.

But our perception concerning our “being in time” is entangled and misty up to improbability.

First of all let us analyze our relation toward the past, present and future. Usually we think that the past already does not exist. It has passed, disappeared, altered, and transformed itself into something else. The future also does not exist—it does not exist as yet. It has not arrived, has not formed. By the present we mean the moment of transition of the future into the past, i.e., the moment of transition of a phenomenon from one non-existence into another non-existence. For that moment only does the phenomenon exist for us in reality; before, it existed in potentiality, afterward it will exist in remembrance. But this short moment is after all only a fiction: it has no measurement. We have a full right to say that the present does not exist. We can never catch it. That which we did catch is always the past!

If we are to stop at that we must admit that the world does not exist, or exists only in some phantasmagoria of illusions, flashing and disappearing.

Usually we take no account of this, and do not reflect that our customary view of time leads to utter absurdity.

Let us imagine a stupid traveler going from one city to another and half way between these two cities. A stupid traveler thinks that the city from which he has departed last week does not exist now: only the memory of it is left; the walls are ruined, the towers fallen, the inhabitants have either died or gone away. Also, that city at which he is destined to arrive in several days does not exist now either, but is being hurriedly built for his arrival, and on the day of that arrival will be ready, populated, and set in order, and on the day after his departure will be destroyed just as was the first one.

We are thinking of things in time exactly in this way—everything passes away, nothing returns! The spring has passed; it does not exist still. The autumn has not come; it does not exist as yet.
But what does exist?

The present.

But the present is not a seizable moment; it is continuously transitory into the past.

So, strictly speaking, neither the past, nor the present, nor the future exists for us. Nothing exists! And yet we are living, feeling, thinking—and something surrounds us. Consequently, in our usual attitude toward time there exists some mistake. This error we shall endeavor to detect.

We accepted at the very beginning that something exists. We called that something the world. How then can the world exist if it is not existing in the past, in the present and in the future?

That conception of the world which we deduced from our usual view of time makes the world appear like a continuously gushing out igneous fountain of fireworks, each spark of which flashes for a moment and disappears, never to appear any more. Flashes are going on continuously, following one after another, there are an infinite number of sparks, and everything together produces the impression of a flame, though it does not exist in reality.

The autumn has not yet come. It will be, but it does not exist now. And we give no thought to how that can appear which is not.

We are moving upon a plane, and recognize as really existing only the small circle lighted by our consciousness. Everything out of this circle, which we do not see, we negate; we do not like to admit that it exists. We are moving upon the plane in one direction. This direction we consider as eternal and infinite. But the direction at right angles to it, those lines which we are intersecting, we do not like to recognize as eternal and infinite.

We imagine them as going into non-existence at once, as soon as we have passed them, and that the lines before us have not as yet risen out of non-existence. If, presupposing that we are moving upon a sphere, upon its equator or one of its parallels, then it will appear that we recognize as really existing only one meridian: those which are behind us have disappeared and those ahead of us have not appeared as yet.

We are going forward like a blind man, who feels paving stones and lanterns and walls of houses with his stick and believes in the real existence of only that which he touches now, which he feels now. That which has passed has disappeared and will never return! That which has not as yet been does not exist. The blind man remembers the route which he has traversed; he expects that ahead the way will continue, but he sees neither forward nor backward because he does not see anything; because his instrument of knowledge—the stick—has a definite, and not very great length, and beyond the reach of his stick non-existence begins.

Wundt, (below) in one of his books, called attention to the fact that our vaunted five organs of sense are in reality just feelers by which we feel the world around us. We live groping about. We never see anything. We are always just feeling everything. With the help of the microscope and the telescope, the telegraph and the telephone, we are extending our feelers a little, so to speak, but we are not beginning to see. To say that we are seeing would be possible only in case we could know the past and the future. But we do not see, and because of this we can never assure ourselves of that which we cannot feel.

This is the reason why we count as really existing only that circle which our feelers grasp at a given moment. Beyond that—darkness and non-existence.

But have we any right to think in this way?

Let us imagine a consciousness that is not bound by the conditions of sensuous receptivity. Such a consciousness can rise above the plane upon which we are moving; it can see far beyond the limits of the circle enlightened by our usual consciousness; it can see that not only does the line upon which we are moving exist, but also all lines perpendicular to it which we are intersecting, which we have ever intersected, and which we shall intersect. After rising above the plane this consciousness can see the plane, can convince itself that it is really a plane, and not a single line. Then it can see the past and the future, lying together and existing simultaneously.

That consciousness which is not bound by the conditions of sensuous receptivity can outrun the stupid traveler, ascend the mountain to see in the distance the town to which he is going, and be convinced that this town is not being built anew for his arrival, but exists quite independently of the stupid traveler. And that consciousness can look off and see on the horizon the towers of that city where that traveler had been, and be convinced that those towers have not fallen, that the city continues to stay and live just as it stayed and lived before the traveler’s advent.

It can rise above the plane of time and see the spring behind and the autumn ahead, see simultaneously the budding flowers and ripening fruits. It can make the blind man recover his sight and see the road along which he passed and that which still lies before him.

The past and the future cannot not exist, because if they do not exist then neither does the present exist. Unquestionably they exist somewhere together, but we do not see them.

The present, compared with the past and the future, is the most unreal of all unrealities.

We are forced to admit that the past, the present and the future do not differ in anything, one from another; there exists just one present—the Eternal Now of Hindu philosophy. But we do not perceive this, because in every given moment we experience just a little bit of that present, and this alone we count as existent, denying a real existence to everything else.

If we admit this, then our view of everything with which we are surrounded will change very considerably.

Taken from Tertium Organum by P.D. Ouspensky published by White Crow Books. Available from Amazon and all good online book stores.

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Posted on 12 April 2012, 14:25

During February 1772, John Wesley, (below) the famous theologian and co-founder of the Methodist movement, received a letter from Swedenborg, stating:  “Sir: I have been informed in the world of spirits that you have a strong desire to converse with me.  I shall be happy to see you, if you will favor me with a visit.  I am, sir, Your humble servant, Eman. Swedenborg.”

After receiving the letter, Wesley told some fellow clergymen that he had been very strongly impressed to meet and speak with Swedenborg, but he was mystified by the letter as he had never mentioned the desire to anyone. 

Wesley responded to Swedenborg (below) that he was about to leave on a six-month trip, but would like to meet with him upon his return. In reply, Swedenborg said that it would be too late as we would “go into the world of spirits on the 29th day of the next month, never more to return.” Swedenborg died of natural causes on March 29, 1772, even though he still appeared in good health and gave no signs of dying beforehand.

 
He had, in advance, also told his landlady and maidservant of his departure that day.  The latter said that he seemed pleased at the prospect, “as if he was going to have a holiday, to go to some merry-making.” 

The Afterlife Explorers: Vol. 1: The Pioneers of Psychical Research by Michael Tymn is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and all good online book stores.

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