Here’s a story from Marcus Anthony, an Australian therapist-futurist, and author of The Sage of Synchronicity. His previous stories here, Jack the Ripper, and Bright Lights are two of my favorites. Now we learn more about Marcus’ past in this story of a hellish job experience and how he escaped.- R
“It was during a meditation in early 1996, that the image came to me. I saw a woman with dark hair. She was turned away from me, and on the back of her shirt were two letters: “NZ”. Brilliant as I am, I knew it must have something to do with New Zealand. Exactly what, I wasn’t sure, as my knowledge of the Shaky Isles was restricted to knowing that their sheep are uglier than Australia’s, and that they dishonestly tried to claim credit for the Pavlova, a creamy cake, definitely invented in Australia.
“The vision of the NZ woman remained perplexing.
“A few weeks later, I was talking to a colleague of mine over lunch. He mentioned that an international school principal from New Zealand was coming to Australia to recruit teachers, and suggested I apply. I said I would think about it, said goodbye and walked over to buy a snack from the kiosk. When the cashier handed me the change, a coin jumped out at me like a punch in the nose. It was a New Zealand twenty-cent piece, somehow mixed in with the local currency.
“I took the hint. I applied for the job, got an interview and received an offer shortly afterward. Had I known that this synchronicity was an invitation for a joyride to hell, I suspect I would have said “No”. Which is probably why the universe declined to give me that little bit of additional information.
“Still, the fact that my flat mate, Martin, had also received an offer from the same school, and accepted it, encouraged me. His position began three months before mine, so he flew out first.
“On July 8th 1996, I stepped off the plane at Wellington airport. The hellish bit didn’t start right away. It got a bit warmer slowly every day, until a certain point about three months later when the world as I knew it became a furnace of chaos. At work, my department head literally would not acknowledge my existence, not even to say hello to me in the morning. She gossiped about me in staff meetings, conspired to turn other staff members against me, and nailed long lists of demands to my forehead – her preferred way of communicating. What was worse, I was told that she made fun of my clothes behind my back (and if anyone tells you that trousers that are two-inches too short are uncool, they don’t know what they are talking about). My Australian flat mate Martin had already been bullied to such a degree that he resigned not long after I arrived. Australians were an endangered species at the school, and we hadn’t even mentioned the pavlova.
“Not content in seeing me being battered about the head and body at my place of employment, my teachers proceeded to see how far I could be pushed before I broke. They threw me into the fire, and looked on to see whether I’d burn alive or if I’d claw my way back out of the embers and construct myself anew.
“Slowly, something special began to happen. I started to draw in the lost pieces of my soul, the light and the darkness within. I connected with the inner child, the part of me that had never been loved. In this emotional bonding, I began to develop acute perception. Soon I was able to draw information from past, present and future, from within and without – in an instant.
“I said it was hell. But it was really just a very, very big test because that was what I needed. It all came back to my Bliss, something I had asked for when I had first begun my spiritual journey. I had asked to be shown what it means to truly love. What I didn’t know at the time of asking is that everything has a price. I didn’t realize that genuine love requires healing the parts of the mind that lie in shadow.
“You never quite know how powerful you are until you have been stretched to the limit. Even as I went through the most challenging period of my life, I was given the most amazing gifts. Besides beginning to stand in my power as a human being, I met the most brilliant, incredible and courageous people.. These people became the inspiration for my doctoral thesis and my first book Integrated Intelligence. Integrated intelligence (INI) is the idea that we human beings have an innate capacity to draw upon knowledge and intelligence which exists beyond the confines of the five senses.
“Given the right environment and support, and with the personal courage and commitment to push personal boundaries, ordinary people can develop extraordinary intelligence – integrated intelligence. This includes the capacity for deep intuition, and to perceive the profound meanings often hidden within life. It also entails the ability to process information from spiritual realms currently not on the map of modern science. Integrated intelligence can make you wise, by deepening your relationship with the world and cosmos. It can help you perceive and understand synchronicities, the numerous fortuitous and deeply meaningful events that come into your life every day. Integrated intelligence can make you a sage of synchronicity.
“Some readers may be interested to know what happened at my school and with the spiritual group I was with.
“It was quite a frightening situation at the school, as the head teacher literally set out to destroy my reputation. What I began to do was gently confront her with every tale I heard about her badmouthing me at meetings or in front of her classes. I asked her if this was true, and she denied it each time. Eventually she realized I wasn’t going to be easily bullied, so she stopped targeting me, and began to have a go at another female teacher on staff, named Paula. However, Paula was rather more tempestuous than I, and the two ended up having screaming matches right there on campus. So the heat eased, at least for me! Then, in what I can only imagine to have been the second immaculate conception, the head teacher got pregnant, and took a year off work. Paula and I stayed at the school, but both resigned when the head teacher returned to work.
“My relationship with the spiritual group is far too complex to detail here. Over a period of about three years I went through many spiritual “tests” with them. Some of them were far to intensive for me to “pass”, and I had to leave the group on several occasions, which was very distressing for me at the time. However, I remained in contact with many of them until the group disbanded. I have not heard from any of them for over a decade. I would love to contact some of them again. Perhaps I will sometime in the future. The group leader, a remarkable woman (whom I refer to as Jessica in my book Sage of Synchronicity), never sought publicity. I have no definitive information about where she is now.”
***
If anyone would like to contact Marcus with personal comments, you can e-mail him at: mindfutures@yahoo.com.
BONUS ALERT! For the next few days, Marcus is making Sage of Synchronicity (as an e-book) available to readers of our blog free of charge. If you click the link to the title at the top of the page, you will find the complete text. We were also pleased to find out that Marcus mentions this blog twice in his book, once in the text, and once in the recommended reading section.
This was a very cool post, and I look forward to the book. Many thanks. As for synchronicity – my husband has been looking at the requirments to move to NZ. Maybe not the right place…
Thank You Marcus! The free ebook is a huge gift too and I truly appreciate it.
Thanks for publishing the story, Rob and Trish! I'm glad it means something to people.
For Mike Perry… in regards to “doing hell” to grow, I hope my little story didn't give the impression that I'm suggesting that you have to suffer to grow as a person. I agree that suffering can be a teacher, but you'd have to be a real masochist to seek to learn that way! However, it is true that comfort is the enemy of growth. This is actually something that Jessica (not her real name, by the way), the leader of the spiritual group in NZ would sometimes say. She really liked stirring up the dust! The mind tends to like things staying within a certain comfort zone. You have to acknowledge that reality if you want to develop what I call integrated intelligence. That's because it requires pushing into unknown cognitive zones, and the ego gets scared. I was lucky to have teachers who really pushed me way past what I ever would have dreamed on my own. At times it was sheer terror.
In regard to Trish and Rob's point about knowing what a synchronicity means, I do talk a bit about this in my book. My view is that most genuine synchronicities are immediately recognisable. If you have to think about it a lot, then it is probably just a random event. When Jung grabbed the scarab beetle in the famous synchronicity (I'm assuming this blog's name refers to that incident), he didn't have to sit there and work it out. It was in his face, so to speak. So, I believe that synchronicities don't make themselves known through the analytical mind – they speak right to the psyche. We need to let go and listen to the heart, when we suspect one has occurred.
Marcus
So there's a silver lining after all, Sansego!
I'm glad you posted it because his experience is so helpful in understanding mine. As you know, I only took this job because of the unlikely coincidence that led me to this place and it took about four months to learn that I had been "tricked." On the positive side of this experience, I became interested in and a big believer of the Law of Attraction and how our energies manifest our realities. I've seen up close and personal how co-workers negative attitudes and love of drama continue to keep them in the same mode of eternal crises, while I've seen the benefits of some of my attitudes in manifesting a different reality for myself.
Despite the hell of my job, or more accurately…because of it, I am much more interested in metaphysics, synchronicities, and Law of Attraction.
It's interesting how this post–and others–not only tell tales of synchronicity, but sometimes generate additional synchronicities among readers. Indra's net!
Sansego – we knew you would like this one. Many parallels for you. And how interesting that you're going to a meeting about job opportunities in the same part of the world! This seems like a good omen for you!
This post is amazing…as Marcus described a situation that is a lot like where I work (a completely hellish environment). It was funny that you posted this one today, for I don't know if you're aware that today is "Australia Day"…and tonight there is a meeting about a job opportunity in Australia and New Zealand that I'm attending.
hmmmm…was in the middle of leaving a post a few minutes ago and was relating my own similar story and just as i was literally tapping out the situation, my laptop decided to do an unannounced scan and shut down – so, i've taken that as a sign – and thus i will just comment that this was truly a mesmerizing story and one to which i personally relate on many levels – great post – and now off to read sage –
hmmmm…wv=sors=sours – another sign?
Another excellent post.
"You never quite know how powerful you are until you have been stretched to the limit." How true that is. It's just a pity that sometimes it takes a lot of heartache to realise this.
Mike
We have a post coming up later this week on the difference between synchronicity and awareness that might interest you.
Great story, Vicki. But I think synchronicity by its very nature isn't random. The trick is figuring out the message!
I just went to a news website and the first article in travel that caught my eye…"New Zealand air to offer couch seating".
How bizarre! LOL
What an interesting story. I found it very informative and helpful to me personally.
A funny thing happened after I read it, I went to my email account to check my messages and one of the first ones to pop up was an offer to travel to Australia and New Zealand.
I can't tell you how often after I read one of these postings that things like that happen to me.
My brother bought a new car and the next day I hear about a terrible accident and in the newspaper that night they describe the car and it is the same make as the car my brother just bought.
This happens all of the time to me, I wonder why, since so often there isn't any important message just the fact that it happens.
Do others experience this?
Random acts of synchronicity.