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Not this guy again!

We were returning from a trip to Orlando to help our daughter move into her new house when we encountered a series of  meaningful coincidences on the drive home.

The synchronicities began as were discussing two ideas for books that an editor had told us he liked and wanted to see more on each one. One was an astrology book picking up where our Sydney Omarr books ended, but using a new approach. The other was a UFO book that involved new narratives with the theme: ALIENS WITHIN– What We Now Know. We were thinking that we would need still more stories when an e-mail arrived from an abductee-experiencer in Ontario who had just read Aliens in the Backyard. A good omen, it seemed.

We stopped for gas and lunch and, as we ate, we discussed the outline for the astrology book, and suddenly realized we’d almost missed another synchro. Our blog post for the day was about our relationship with astrologer Sydney Omarr, whose work we were proposing to expand upon.

The third synchro appeared just as we arrived home and found a book in the mail, sent by Raum (Maurice DesJardins), a UFO researcher in Massachusetts. We wrote about Raum earlier regarding his connection with a man whose abduction story was included in Aliens in the Backyard. Raum had sent us a copy of his book, The Devil’s Alibi, and surprisingly the cover illustration of a caped or winged character with a top hat looked startlingly similar to an illustration from another recent blog post dealing with dreams of such a character by three people.

To take it a step further, we had also recently written a blog post updating the story of Charles Fontaine, who now believed that his alien encounter (and everyone else’s as well) was diabolical in nature. The title and image of Raum’s book actually seemed to support Charles’ contention. But, no, the book actually has nothing to do with aliens. It’s an historical biography of 19^th century mass murderer H.H. Homes. Ah, the trickster at work again!

Come to think of it, that’s him in the illustration – not an alien, not a demon in the biblical sense, but the wily trickster laughing at us from the cover of the book!

A few weeks ago when Rob was on Coast to Coast, we received an email from a woman who took exception to something Rob had written on his website about the ten years we wrote the Sydney Omarr series of books.

This was something of a synchronicity because recently, we’ve been receiving e-mails from his long-time readers, asking where the 2015 books were. And we had to tell them that NAL – Penguin – who had been Omarr’s publisher for years before we took over the series in 2003 – had discontinued the books. Last week, my agent said that another publisher may be interested in reviving the series and, suddenly, this woman’s email arrived out of the blue. Omarr, a cluster of synchros.

Here was the original statement Rob wrote: “In addition, I co-authored astrology books with Trish under the name Sydney Omarr for ten years. That was 13 books a year—whew! How did we do that?”

Here is Ann’s email:

Hi, I have a question please. The way you wrote this, to me it reads as if you had a pen name of “Sydney Omarr”. There was no mention of the actual astrologer in your statement. Why not?  There was an actual Sidney Omarr, but the way you wrote the paragraph below it’s as if you and Trish wrote it all, together “how did we do that” is what you said.  I know Omarr died in 2003. “Co-authored with Trish”. What about Omarr ?  Or were you carrying on under his name after he died?  How did that come about ? Just curious !

The background on Omarr,  one of the most famous 20^th century astrologers, is that he and I shared the same agent. In early 1999, Al asked if I would consider ghostwriting a book for Omarr on what the new millennium held astrologically.

At the time, Omarr was blind and bedridden with multiple sclerosis. Up until the millennial book, he had been dictating the material to an assistant. He apparently had been able to visualize a chart in his mind, visualize where the various daily transits fell, and provided 365 daily predictions for each of the 12 signs. This is a big undertaking for a sighted astrologer who has software, a computer, and an ephemeris to consult. I can’t even begin to imagine how a blind person can do this. It’s a tribute to Omarr’s intellect and his understanding of astrology.

He and I chatted several times after I agreed to ghostwrite the millennial book. He was a true Leo – big-hearted, humorous, larger than life. And within a few minutes of our talking, he pegged me for a Gemini. After that millennial book, I did a couple other ghostwriting projects with him. Then, in 2003, when he passed away, Al asked if Rob and I would take over the series. He had apparently arranged it with Omarr. So, that was the beginning of our Omarr journey.

The books numbered 13 a year – an annual, which had general astrological info, trends for the particular year, and monthly roundups for the 12 signs. The other books were for each sign and included daily predictions based on the transits of the moon and other planets, as well as Omarr’s unique numerological system, which he told us about before he died.

Rob learned enough about astrology so that the 13 books became a joint effort and we were honored to write them. They helped get our daughter through college debt free and kept us on top of astrological trends every year for a decade. We were sorry when NAL decided that the 2014 books would be the last.

When I summarized this for Ann in an email, she replied:

It would look better if some of that was added. Because many people knew Sydney Omarr was an astrologer but the way it was worded on your website it kind of sounded as if Sydney Omarr might have been your pen name…in a way that was true,  but it also leaves out a lot, you know ?  As if someone was taking credit for any book with the Sydney Omarr name.  I mean I read it and made that “leap,” you know ?  But he wrote many books himself, on his own.   Really, people reading that on your site might suppose that you and Rob ARE “Sydney Omarr”, and always were {pen name}.  That’s all. Thanks for the reply.

I explained that in the back of every Omarr book, his bio was given – not ours. Her response:

Yes, I know on his books, but if someone had not ever picked up one of his books, maybe had just heard about him, you know ? Or read a book and then later, years later, they see a statement and don’t think of checking a book.  Thank you for understanding what I meant though. I think Sydney was a cool astrologer.  I really appreciate the response. You guys did a good job on his books because I kept buying them ! 

The upshot is that Rob changed the statement on his website (scroll to the bottom) and I’m finally setting the record straight: we did NOT write any Omarr books before the millennial book that was published in 2000.

And now I’m beginning to wonder if there’s some spirit communication going on here. Sydney, are you around? Over there on the other side, are you doing birth chart possibilities for souls who are intending to reincarnate soon? Is there some type of new, futuristic astrology you’re mastering? I’m attuned for synchros about this!

’67 Dodge van, but no white stripe

We’ve written a number of times about the possible link between UFO/alien encounters and synchronicity. Usually these synchronicities crop up near the time of the experience, especially in the aftermath. But do significant synchros that happen years later have anything to do with an earlier UFO-related experiences? Hard to say. But here’s one such story.

David Malcolm used to work for AUTEC, the secret Navy base that has been called the Underwater Area 51. He had a significant UFO sighting and strange experiences while employed on the base as a civilian. I met David several years ago while I was involved with a UFO Hunter episode on Andros Island in the Bahamas, home of AUTEC. We’ve kept in occasional contact over the years as he is someone attuned to synchronicity.

This is a simple story but one of those synchros that you have to just shake your head and say, ‘What are the chances?’ Here it is:

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Have you seen this red chalk drawing of a bearded old man? If so, it was a copy. The original has been kept in an underground vault at a constant 68 degrees Fahrenheit and 55 percent humidity for decades. Now it will go on display in Turin for the first time since World War II. But only fifty people will be allowed to see it in the underground vault, and the temperature will be turned down to compensate for their body heat.

Obviously, there’s something special about this painting. For one thing, it’s a self portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, which of course make it special and very valuable.

 But there’s something else. It has a very unusual history. The curators of the Royal Library in Turin believed so strongly that the drawing had magical powers that they hid it during World War II to keep it from falling into the hands of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

 Giovanni Saccani, the Royal Library’s director, says it was believed that looking into da Vinci’s intense gaze would transfer enormous strength and power to the viewer. Because of this, it was the only item from the library’s vast da Vinci collection that was removed and guarded from the Nazis. It was taken to Rome in a special intelligence operation, but no one knows where it was hidden. It was returned from Rome at the end of World War II.

 The self-portrait was in fragile condition when it was taken and continued to deteriorate after its return. Since 1998, it has been kept in the special vault where its condition has remained stable.

 Does the drawing really have magic power? Some experts doubt it’s even of da Vinci since it is drawn in the style he used as a young artist but shows him as an old man.

 Saccani, however, has no doubt it’s real and has this to say about its powers:

 “Anyone who finds themselves standing in front of this drawing is struck dumb. The first thing they say when they recover is ‘this is giving me the shivers.’ The expressive power of this face is absolutely connected to an emotion and an ability that only Leonardo could possess.”

 Saccani says that many students stand in a room above the vault before a test to soak up some of da Vinci’s genius.

Bernard Beitman, whom we’ve written about before on the blog, is a visiting professor of psychiatry at University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He’s studying coincidences and has written a book on the topic, Connecting with Coincidence.

He emailed us today that his site on coincidence/synchronicity has gone live and asked visitors if they would take the Weird Coincidence Survey. I spent a few minutes this evening taking the survey. It was fun! Anyone at all familiar with synchronicity will see he’s hit all the salient points.

You can also read about Bernard’s book  and visit his blog.  What I really love about all this is that Bernard is the first psychiatrist since Carl Jung to attempt to systematize the study of coincidences. As you’ll see when you poke around his site, it’s partly because of his own experiences.

I can’t wait to read the book!

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To all our American friends, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I received an e-mail recently from a man who said that he’d had forty years of encounters with mysterious beings. Jim Finn wrote me after listening to a radio interview I’d done about BUMP IN THE NIGHT: Ghosts, Spirits & Alien Encounters. He said that he agrees with me that there’s a blurring at times between spirit phenomena and alien encounters. Sometimes they appear together. Other times it’s difficult to tell whether a being is from the realm of the dead or from an alien craft.

Jim also questions whether dreams of such beings are just that – dreams – or are they actual encounters with entities of various stripes? One thing is certain though, when three people who don’t know each other well, all recall the same mysterious dream character, it’s truly a synchronicity, a meaningful coincidence.

Here’s one such story from Jim.

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One day years back, I was talking with some friends and one of the women said she had a weird experience, waking to find someone in her room one night. The description she gave was of a tall male wearing what seemed to be a top hat and cape. He didn’t do anything, he didn’t say anything – he was just there.

Time passed and I had forgotten all about it, until one night I was having what I would say was a common sleep paralysis dream event. Except that mine always came with a complete bodily vibration effect (which does seem to be a normal part of the SP picture in some cases).

Anyway, I was consciously fighting to move, and the more I fought the stronger the vibration and the paralysis became. I seemed to finally manage to move to a slightly bent “L” position on the bed and I fought to open my eyes. What I saw shocked me. There was a light coming in through the window, and the shadow of a tall man with what seemed to be a cape and – some kind of hat, just standing at the foot of the bed nearer to the wall.

Nothing was said, nothing happened, but according to what I had written in earlier notes, I shouted at him in my head to get out of my room, at which time there was a fearful screech like a big bird. At that point it was over and I woke up in a more normal position. Did it happen? I eventually remembered what the woman had told us that day. But I just dismissed it as typical residue from my daily life – until….

I was subbing at schools in North Carolina some years later, when a girl in one of my classes was talking about her odd phobias. She feared this, she feared that – and, she had a fear of – Abe Lincoln. Abe Lincoln?

I asked her later why and she began to tell me about a very strange event in her life. She woke up one night, and there at the foot of the bed was this (you guessed it) tall man with a cape and a hat, and he reminded her of Abe Lincoln. Same story, he didn’t say anything, he didn’t do anything – he was just there.

This young girl’s life was not connected to either mine, or the woman I had originally talked with as we were in another state at that time. Yet she had the exact same experience.

Was it all real? Did we ALL see the same person? Or was this just more residue of the day, fed from a source that was seen or heard somewhere, but not remembered?

There is enough information all around to say that sometimes these experiences just may be real, sometimes not. What we need is a conscious effort to create a dividing line; we need to question the event. For me today, breaking things down to a least common denominator begins by asking – what was learned?

If I can’t figure it out, if nothing is learned, I just log it in my head as entertainment only. Like a cool movie, it was just that. I never had a dream where I learned anything, where I was told anything, so it has to be logged as entertainment only because that’s all it is – entertainment.

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Jim is somewhat dismissive of his experience, but the fact that he encountered two others who had similar strange dreams seems to suggest that it’s something more than mere entertainment. But maybe some synchros occur just to show us that there is more to life—a deeper reality—than our everyday world.

I don’t usually follow celebrity scandals. But the allegations against Bill Cosby, sometimes referred to as America’s Dad, deserves some sort of commentary.

To date, 16 women have publicly stated that they were raped – and/or drugged and raped – by Cosby. Two or three…okay, you might think they were after a lucrative settlement. But SIXTEEN?? This is the sort of number that demands an investigation of some kind. Unfortunately, many of these allegations happened in the 70s and 80s and fall out of the realm of the statute of limitations.

From the Washington Post:

The accusations, some of which Cosby has denied and others he has declined to discuss, span the arc of the comedy legend’s career, from his pioneering years as the first black star of a network television drama in 1965 to the mid-2000s, when Cosby was firmly entrenched as an elder statesman of the entertainment industry, a scolding public conscience of the African American community and a philanthropist. They also span a monumental generational shift in perceptions — from the sexually unrestrained ’60s to an era when the idea of date rape is well understood.

The saga of the abuse allegations is set in locales that speak to Cosby’s wealth and fame: a Hollywood-studio bungalow, a chauffeured limousine, luxury hotels, a New York City brownstone. But it also stretches into unexpected places, such as an obscure Denver talent agency that referred two of Cosby’s future accusers to the star for mentoring.

The allegations are strung together by perceptible patterns that appear and reappear with remarkable consistency: mostly young, white women without family nearby; drugs offered as palliatives; resistance and pursuit; accusers worrying that no one would believe them; lifelong trauma. There is also a pattern of intense response by Cosby’s team of attorneys and publicists, who have used the media and the courts to attack the credibility of his accusers.

What seems very clear in this whole thing is that Cosby believed himself to be untouchable, beyond impunity, and that some of these women were incredibly naïve, accepting his attention, the pills he offered, the wine. The women were ambitious and OMG, this was the famous Cosby and maybe he could pull some strings…

The other thing that is quite clear in all this is that because Cosby is so famous, such an icon and philanthropist, law enforcement looked away. He has never been charged with anything, except in a civil suit that was settled in 2006. Martin Singer, Cosby’s attorney, issued a statement recently about the whole thing:

“The new, never-before-heard claims from women who have come forward in the past two weeks with unsubstantiated, fantastical stories about things they say occurred 30, 40, or even 50 years ago have escalated far past the point of absurdity,” he said. “These brand new claims about alleged decades-old events are becoming increasingly ridiculous, and it is completely illogical that so many people would have said nothing, done nothing, and made no reports to law enforcement or asserted civil claims if they thought they had been assaulted over a span of so many years.”

What Singer doesn’t address is that the attitude of law enforcement in the sixties and seventies, and perhaps even now, is that the woman must somehow be at fault. She must have enticed the rapist, come onto him, seduced him first, showed her boobs, did something that inflamed the man’s insatiable libido –  and rape was the logical end result.

This argument is so patently absurd that it defies rational explanation. Rape is the most violent transgression against another human being – except for murder, but at least with murder, you die. You don’t suffer for years afterward, reliving every horrible second, wondering what you might have done differently. Rape is a violation not only of a woman’s body, but of her soul, her spirit, her very humanity. Rape is a Neanderthal’s response to the power structure. It’s the man’s demand in Cave of the Clan Bear to “assume the position.” It’s about physical and psychic power gone awry.

Again, from the Washington Post:

If his accusers are to be believed, the earliest allegations against Cosby remained hidden for decades, private artifacts of an era when women were less likely to publicly accuse men they knew of sexual misdeeds and society was less likely to believe them. But they have flared periodically throughout the past nine years, both because of changing attitudes and, particularly over the past month, because of social media’s ability to transform a story into a viral phenomenon almost impossible to suppress or control.

The allegations represent a stunning reshaping of Cosby’s legacy. Cosby built his fame on a family-friendly comedic persona. He has lectured black youths about proper behavior. He has been honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom and been lauded for making the largest donation ever by an African American to a historically black college, Spelman College in Atlanta.

Now an ex-NBC employee, Frank Scotti, comes forward with his role: he often stood guard outside Cosby’s dressing room.

So is Bill Cosby several people? The comedian, the avuncular advisor to black youth and a serial rapist?

I haven’t found any synchros yet in this story, but given the media attention I’m sure there are some. The problem is the story disgusts me. When I wade through all the material, looking for the synchros, I feel disdain, sadness, revulsion – not only at Cosby, but at the structure of American life, where celebrities are revered like Olympian gods.

No telling where Cosby will end up. A number of his shows have been cancelled, but he recently received a standing ovation in Melbourne, Florida for his standup routine. We Americans are the kings of denial. We don’t like it when our celebrity gods are revealed to be dark forces, liars, perverts. It’s when our schizophrenia as a nation,  a people, a collective reveals great schisms.

Synchronicity has a way of bringing people back into your life who you haven’t seen or heard from in years but played some pivotal part in your past. This happened recently for us and concerns one of the first – perhaps THE first- abductee we ever met, Don Estrella.

Don retained partial memories of an abduction that occurred one Halloween while he was wearing a pirate’s costume and his companion was dressed as a clown. We wrote about his abduction in Aliens in the Backyard:

 It was the mid-1980s and Don was essentially lost and homeless. We were intrigued by his colorful background. He had worked as an assistant to author John Keel at the time Keel was delving into the chilling Mothman saga in West Virginia, which later became a book, Mothman, and in 2002 a movie, The Mothman Prophecies, starring Richard Gere.

Estrella reveled in telling stories related to the giant red-eyed flying beast. He had also worked in a clerical position at the United Nations, where he started a UFO club. He recalled that then-UN secretary-General U Thant had sent someone from his office to attend the initial meeting.

Curious about his abduction experience, we persuaded Estrella to undergo a hypnotic regression with psychiatrist Dr. Bethhold Schwarz, of Vero Beach, Florida. The author of UFO Dynamics, Schwarz had interviewed or regressed hundreds of contactees or ‘UFO observers,’ as he often called them.

During the session, Estrella recalled a bizarre scene in which he was abducted on a North Virginia highway on a Halloween night, while he was wearing a pirate’s costume and his companion was dressed as a clown. They never made it to the Halloween party. The engine in their car died and wouldn’t start. That’s when three small beings appeared and escorted them to a waiting circular craft. They joined seven or eight other abductees standing in line in an obvious stupor.

 Estrella sobbed throughout the regression as he described being taken aboard, placed naked on a table, examined and probed. While those procedures are now common descriptions by abductees, Estrella also recalled seeing strange symbols on the interior wall of the craft. During hypnosis, he drew several of the alien symbols.

While Estrella was haunted for more than two decades by his experience and seemed lost because of it, author, researcher and Harvard psychiatrist John E Mack pointed out that some abductees have experienced physical healings and spiritual transformations as a result of their abductions. Estrella apparently developed psychic abilities in the aftermath of his experience and, as we recall, was happiest sitting in a restaurant with a cup of coffee and a cigarette and giving free readings to the waitresses. He was fairly talented at tuning into near-future events and reading a person’s past.

Over the years, we wondered what had happened to Don. Then last week, we received an email from Raum, a writer and UFO researcher in Massachusetts, who had experienced a synchronicity that had prompted him to write us. In the subject heading of his email were the words: Don Estrella.

Hello Rob and Trish,

Synchronicity abounds!  A couple of weeks ago my significant other (Ruth) and I had been discussing Don’s condition as he’d recently been hospitalized.  That evening I picked up my Kindle and I happened to be reading “Aliens in the Backyard” when I exclaimed to Ruth, “Hey, these ‘synchno’ writers are writing about Don!”  Was a complete surprise. 

I read the three or four pages of you reiterating what you remember of his case.  There were a few, more or less, insignificant errors but I was bowled over seeing his name out there with what I know about the man. I’d love to hear Schwartz’s tape of their session.  Before Schwartz died Don wrote and asked him for a copy of the tape, to which I understand he complied, but I never did hear it myself.

I was fortunate enough to have Don as a close friend until he dropped out of our lives a few years back.  Ruth liked and understood him, now visits in the nursing home daily as he named her as his proxy.  She today mentioned your names to him and he remembered you.  His mind is confused and groggy but old memories die hard as I’m sure you know.

We’ve traded a number of emails with Raum and learned that Don had helped Ruth uncover her memories of repeated abductions since age 10. We also discovered that Don was actually in hospice and wasn’t expected to live very long. We sent Raum a copy of Aliens in the Backyard to give to Don. Then, on November 18, we received another email from Raum:

Hello Trish, As I just wrote to Rob, Don passed on at 4:03 this afternoon.  Ruth was there holding his hand —she was in hospice with him as she has been since early yesterday with hardly a break.  For me, her selflessness to Don is for him being our friend—but more than that, a fellow abductee,  a man of love and peace. He’s a reminder there are good people in the world.  With him we saw other realities.

The book we’d sent him arrived the day after Don  died.

In a subsequent email from Raum, he nailed the synchros  beautifully:

Hi Trish,

The more one thinks on it, the more incredible this ‘meaningful coincidence.’  A ‘syncho couple’ (you) receives the very thing that you have written two books about.  A researcher (me) happens to be reading a book on UFOs that you wrote several years ago which included a story about a ‘psychic experiencer'( Don ) who, because of his UFO experiences, becomes the focus of this ‘serendipitous coincidence’.  Unfortunately this also involves his last act before leaving this plane of existence permanently.  His proxy, the researcher’s ‘other half’ who is herself an abductee, had been brought through hypnosis into this UFO realization (among others) years ago by ‘the psychic experiencer (Don).    The ‘braiding’ is exquisite.

RIP, Don. Many thanks for all the fascinating insights you shared!

The taboo in mainstream science against the study of UFOs and alien encounters has been on-going for more than 50 years. It’s well known that the fear of ridicule and the label of charlatan has kept scientists who might otherwise take an interest in the subject from actively pursuing it.

However, if your intent is to assume alien abductions don’t exist, it’s apparently acceptable to create poorly researched studies to explain away the phenomenon. One example of such biased science and questionable science journalism appeared November 11, 2014 on the Scientific American website.

The article  suggests that alien abductions might be the result of trauma related to ‘accidental awareness.’ That’s a term for patients who wake up during surgery and are aware of what’s happening to them. Those patients sometimes experience various psychological problems in the aftermath of their experiences during surgery.

So why are alien abductions linked to poorly administered anesthesia? It’s because the bright lights and the masked medical team working over the patient supposedly look similar to what abductees experience when aliens perform mysterious procedures on their bodies. A study on the subject was published in a psychiatry journal in 2008 by David V. Forrest, a Columbia University psychoanalyst.

Scientific American picked up on the subject because of a recently released report on accidental awareness by the Royal College of Anaesthetists. The report documents the potential for lasting, perhaps permanent, psychological damage to afflicted patients. However, when the Royal College inquired about alien abduction, none of the hundreds of patients interviewed said they had any such experiences.

Yes, none.

Amazingly, Scientific American reported that fact, but continued on about the supposed link between accidental awareness and alien abductions.

The article’s contention, based on David Forrest’s study, hangs on the thinnest thread of so-called evidence. Here it is: Barney Hill, who along with his wife Betty are considered the first modern abductees, mentioned in an interview that the experience he underwent while on the alien craft reminded him of the time he had his tonsils removed. That’s it. No mention of any previous surgeries for Betty, who also was subjected to alien medical procedures.

Beyond the lack of supportive evidence for the claim, there’s also the assumption that alien abductions aren’t real. So much for the scientific method. To quote from the article: “Assuming Barney Hill wasn’t actually brought aboard a spaceship that night in 1961, he may have experienced a flashback to his tonsillectomy.”

Since such research eliminates the possibility of actual alien abductions,  then they must be something else: fantasies, hoaxes, and hidden memories of traumas, such as sexual abuse or now accidental awareness.

In other words, anything but a real alien abduction. Our take: When it comes to alien abductions, don’t assume anything.

If capitalism to you is synonymous with greed, then spiritual capitalism might sound like an oxymoron. But there are actually benevolent capitalists who are willing to use their wealth to help others. I’m not just talking about donating money to causes with the intent of getting a tax break, but applying spiritual principles to their work.

According to an article in ODE Magazine, spiritual capitalism is based on the recognition that every businessperson–whether you’re the CEO of a major multinational or the head of your own small firm–is in the service industry, and the services rendered must benefit not just yourself and your shareholders, but the planet and other people as well. The first commandment of the growing spiritual-capitalism movement is: Taking care of business means taking care of others.

I was surprised to discover that a book called Spiritual Capital, by Michael E. Hendren, was published in 2007. Hendren lays out ‘ten commandments ‘of spiritual capitalism. Here they are:

# l Define Business as a Spiritual Experience

#2 Don’t Shrink or Play Small in this World

#3 Dare to Love and the Numbers Will Follow

#4 Embrace Leadership as a Sacred Responsibility

#5 Develop Management into an Art

#6 Empower Them with Ownership

#7 Transcend to the Higher Level

#8 Don’t Take It All So Seriously

#9 Count Your Blessings

#10 The Truth Will Set You Free

The concept of spiritual capitalism attracts ‘angel investors,’ who help small start-up companies that show potential, and usually are out of the mainstream – ones that would have a difficult time getting money from traditional sources. A small but increasing number of angel investors organize themselves into ‘angel groups’ or ‘angel networks’ to share research and pool their investment capital, as well as to provide advice to their portfolio companies

It’s easy for cynics to trash the idea of spiritual capitalism and angel investors as concepts to allow rich people to feel good about themselves. Yet, if there’s anything that’s needed in the world now it’s benevolent investors and capitalists who are willing to try to spread the wealth in a time when the rich are getting richer and the rest of us are mucking along.

One such angel investor is a wealthy Chinese woman who you probably never heard of. Her name is Katherine Yip. She was born in China and moved to the U.S. as a baby. She grew up in America and went to Harvard. Then she moved to Hong Kong and took on the challenge of being a woman in a sector of the Asian business world dominated by men.

Katherine is best known for co-founding two of the largest investment firms in the Asia Pacific region, VinaCapital Group and Pacific Alliance Group (known as PAG Asia). She’s involved in private equity, the same financial territory as Mitt Romney. Private equity deals, especially those involving the forced take-over of companies, are all about vulture capitalism. Possibly as a counter to such criticism, Katherine Yip has gone out of her way to help small companies with good ideas, as well as supporting a variety of worthy causes, such as sponsoring a scholarship program.

We learned about Katherine from a friend in publishing.  To our surprise there was very little about her on the Internet and she had only recently given her first ever TV interview to Bloomberg News. That’s amazing for someone in her position. Our research about her broadened our knowledge about the better side of the financial industry—the realm of the angel investors and spiritual capitalism.