The Laser, the Chopper, the Moped

Posted on August 9, 2009 by Trish and Rob


The first part of this story – about the council man, was brought to our attention by Max Action, whose synchronicities have appeared several times on this blog.

In 2008, Jim Englin, a Council member of West St Paul, Minnesota and a State Patrol helicopter pilot, was flying a chopper that was hit by a laser. It turned the plexiglass opaque, nearly blinded him and his crew, and they almost crashed. Englin subsequently wrote a bill that prohibits pointing a laser at aircraft, Minnesota lawmakers supported it, and it became law on August 2, 2009.

Just two days later, the first arrest was made under this new law. The plane in question? A chopper Jim Englin was flying. “Immediately the cockpit lit up and the windscreen got opaque with a green light.”

This synchronicity has the trickster’s fingerprints all over it. Even Englin apparently recognized the irony. “We were chuckling, saying can you believe this? What are the odds of this? The law was written because we were out there and got hammered and now we are getting hammered again.”

What is it in Englin that drew this experience twice? Was it the law of attraction? Perhaps. But what about serial trickster synchronicities that involve the same people again and again,as in the next story?

In Bermuda in 1975, a man riding a moped was struck and killed by a taxi driver. Exactly a year later, this man’s brother was killed in the same way. That in itself qualifies as a synchronicity. But according to Phenomena: A Book of Wonders, where this story was first reported, both deaths happened on the same street, on the same moped, by the same taxi driver, who was carrying the same passenger.

So four people in all were involved- the two brothers, the taxi driver, and the passenger.And three of the same objects – taxi, moped, street. What was it in each of these individuals that invited a repeat of the same situation and event? Was there supposed to be a lesson in this? The sheer orchestration of these events really begs the question: who’s in charge?

UPDATE: Sansego asked what a trickster is. We should’ve explained it. A trickster synchronicity usually has a wry or ironic twist to it, like the universe is playing a joke on you. The trickster is an archetype, an image or idea common to all people regardless of race, religion, culture. You see him a lot in movies – Jim Carey’s character in The Mask, the joker in Batman (although the joker is a darker side of the trickster), Smeagol in The Lord of the Rings.

Posted in helicopter, moped, transportation, travel, trickster | 8 Comments

John Lennon and the Psychic

Posted on August 8, 2009 by Trish and Rob

On August 23, 1980, Lee Spiegel, who hosted an NBC radio show Unexplained Phenomena, was interviewing psychic Alex Tanous for a show that was to be broadcast later. The interview took place at the American Society for Psychical Research at West 73rd Street in New York, directly across the street from the Dakota Apartments. Spiegel asked Tanous to predict something that would occur in the next few months that would be of interest to the many rock fans in the audience.

Tanous replied: “The prediction that I will make is that a very famous rock star will have an untimely death and this can happen from this moment on. I say untimely because there is something strange about his death, but it will affect the consciousness of many people because of his fame.”

The taped interview was played on September 5, 1980. On December 8, John Lennon was shot at the door of the Dakota.

Since Tanous hadn’t given a specific name, Spiegel had made a list of possibilities. John Lennon was at the top of the list.
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I checked on this story and one source says the program aired on September 8, three months to the day before Lennon’s death.

Tanous was born to psychic parents. Even before they had met, writer Kahlil Gibran told Tanous’s father that he would have a son with “exceptional gifts, of great abilities” but that he would also know “great sorrow.”

There’s more information about Tanous at the Alex Tanous foundation website

Posted in john lennon, precognition, prediction | 13 Comments

Deadly Subject

Posted on August 7, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Hexagram 42

Some of you have noted that we’ve had a lot of synchronicities here related to death. It’s a subject many of us find uncomfortable. Adele Aldridge is one of those persons, and so she has asked the I Ching about the subject. She found the answer comforting.

***

Here’s a question I asked of I Ching when a friend died and I was musing on the meaning of death in general. I am never comfortable with the fact of death, wanting to live forever and complaining all the time about the aging process and nothing I can do about it. So my question to I Ching was: Help me to accept death.

The response from I Ching was: Hexagram, 42 Increase, with the 2nd line moving to Hexagram 61 Inner Truth. I was impressed with Wilhelm-Baynes view of the 2nd line that changed:

“Someone does indeed increase her; Ten pairs of tortoises cannot oppose it. Constant perseverance brings good fortune. The king presents her before God.”

And,

“. . .Where increase is thus in harmony with the highest laws of the universe, it cannot be prevented by any constellation of accidents. But everything depends on not letting unexpected good fortune make her heedless; she must make it her own through innerstrength and steadfastness. She acquires meaning before God and man, and can accomplish something for the good of the world.”

Talking about death as an increase as something good and also echoing the fact that “It cannot be prevented by any constellation of accidents” once again impressed me with the magic of I Ching. I appreciated that positive view.

And then what could be more appropriate than “Inner Truth.” The Stephen Karcher interpretation for this Hexagram in the section he names, The Shaman Speaks, he says, ”. . . This is Wood over Metal: an open centre that allows inspiration to pervade and influence the world. The ideal Realizing Person reflects this by deliberating the Great symbols that can release us from the fear of death. Persist and work through inspiration. This is the Great Transition.”

Adele Aldridge

I Ching Meditations
Yoga Babe Cafe

Posted in death, divination, I Ching | 4 Comments

They’re baaaaack!"

Posted on August 6, 2009 by Trish and Rob


Since questions about the movie Poltergeist came up in relationship to yesterday’s post on the wedding tragedies, it seems that it’s appropriate to followup. There are definite synchronicities involved here–dark ones for the most part. This comes from the web site: Above Top Secret. The writer isn’t identified.
***
It’s not an urban legend because the deaths have been confirmed and did occur. I’m sure that most of us “paranormally” minded folks have all seen at least the first in the trilogy of Poltergeist movies. There were three that were released and some strange events occurred surrounding the cast and timing of their deaths.

First, the facts:
1982: Dominique Dunn who played the older sister in the first Poltergeist movie was murdered by her ex-lover shortly after the film’s release.

1985: Julian Beck who played the bad spirit’ in Poltergeist II, died of stomach cancer. It was not unexpected as the cancer had been diagnosed in early 1984.

1987: Will Sampson who played the ‘good spirit’ in Poltergeist II, died of after receiving a heart-lung transplant. Will was also known as the tall ‘mute’ Indian in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

1988: the young girl in all three movies was played by Heather O’Rourke. She died of a septic infection due to a bowel blockage that cause bacterial toxins to enter her system. Originally it was thought she had the flu, as all the early symptoms were the same. Within 24 hours, she died on the operating table while they tried to remove the blockage.

The events:
1. The three movies were released in 1982, 1986, and 1988. The deaths occurred between these years.
2. The two actresses who were “sisters” in the movies died in the same year as the first and final releases (1982 and 1988).
3. The actors who played the “good” and “bad” spirits in the movies died the year before and the year after the middle movie.

Granted these can just be coincidences, but the timing surrounding their existence and the release dates of the movies is very interesting. As far as I know, there is not another movie or set of movies that has shared the same amount of misfortune (especially within such an eerie time frame).
***
Here we are slipping into more synchronicities about death again. As they say, it’s the one sure thing, and the one thing that makes most of us uncomfortable. A little more on that tomorrow.

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Signs for the Wedding

Posted on August 5, 2009 by Trish and Rob

When I ran across this one, it seemed too bizarre to be true. I checked with snopes, and they’ve got it entered as possibly true because they’ve heard about it from a different sources. If true, it’s a wonder the marriage lasted as long as it did.
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Princess Maria del Pozzo della Cisterna married Amadeo, the Duke D’Aosta, son of the king of Italy in Turin May 30, 1863. The couple, it appears, were among the few who survived the wedding.
– The princess’s wardrobe mistress hung herself
– The palace gatekeeper cut his throat
– The colonel leading the wedding procession collapsed from sunstroke
– The stationmaster was crushed to death under the wheels of the honeymoon train
– The king’s aide fell from his horse and was killed
– The best man shot himself

The couple had three children. Amadeo became king of Spain in 1870, Maria, queen consort of Spain. But Amadeo abdicated the throne three years later, and Maria died the same year from complications from childbirth. Their marriage lasted ten years.

Posted in history, signs, weddings | 6 Comments

Room With a View

Posted on August 4, 2009 by Trish and Rob

This story first appeared in the Sunday Times in May 1974. It’s another one of the stories which makes you wonder who’s really running the universe!
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During WWI, Arthur Butterworth from Yorkshire was stationed at an army camp on the grounds of Taverham Hall, near Norwich. He’d ordered a secondhand book on music from a London bookseller and when the parcel arrived, he opened it while standing at the window in his hut. A postcard fell out of the book, apparently placed there by the previous owner. The card had been written on August 4, 1913. Butterworth turned it over to see the picture. The photograph was exactly what he could see from his window – Taversham Hall.

Army camps during the war were signified only by a post code, not a name, so the bookseller couldn’t have known where the book was being sent, which makes it unlikely that the seller just slipped the postcard into the book.
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Another level to this story is that as I was writing it up to post on August 4, I realized that August 4 is the date on the postcard.

I Googled Taverham Hall and discovered that it’s a British preparatory and nursery school. From their website:

“Augustin Sotherton, from Ludham, was offered the three thousand acre estate in 1623. It remained within the family for three hundred years, and the Revd. John Nathaniel Micklethwait, a retired parson, inherited the estate through the female side of the family in about 1850. He decided to demolish the existing substantial hall and engaged an architect, David Brandon, to design a country house of stature befitting a Norfolk gentleman. Today’s hall is a typical example of the time with its high Tudor chimneys, stone mullioned windows and gables. Brandon’s drawings also displayed a substantial tower, but fortunately good sense prevailed and the tower was never built.”

“During the war the army moved in and evidence of their presence can still be seen today with soldiers names scratched into the brickwork and bullet holes in the weather vanes. After the war the school returned to the hall and prospered under the headship of John Peel. Since then it has taken on charitable trust status, grown considerably and is now fully co-educational with modern facilities.”

UPDATE

Gypsywoman had an odd experience with the house on the postcard – or, rather, with one that looked just like it. Here’s her comment. Her photo is below her comment:

After i read your story and sent the comment, my curiosity got the better of me so i pulled up a photo of the building across from my place – and posted it just now, along with a little blurp – while i can see now that they are not so totally similar, in that fleeting moment, i was taken back to the building here – in any event, another little fun oddity is that the name of the building here is the PARSON-THORNE MANSION – and i noticed that the building in your story was at one point purchased by a retired PARSON –

Posted in history, time and space | 7 Comments

Australian Sojourn

Posted on August 3, 2009 by Trish and Rob

During a trip to Australia, Jane Clifford (Between the Lines), had plenty of time for daily meditations with the intent of bringing into her life everything she needed. She said the results were immediate and astonished her.

One day, while in Sydney she decided she wanted some decorative baskets for storage. “On the day I set out to buy some I stepped out of the house and there on the pavement next door were lovely baskets of the type and size I needed. In Australia, whatever is put out to be collected can be taken away and used by anyone who wants it. A wonderful form of instant re- cycling.” And wonderful synchroncity.

She continued her meditative work and it wasn’t long before more magic was forthcoming. “I had set off to explore Manley Island without shorts or swimwear or beach towel. Walking towards the beach I stopped and asked a stranger if there was a charity shop nearby. She just happened to be British and from the same area I had been born.”

Even though the woman didn’t know of any such shops, Jane fell into step beside her. The woman was going to the post office and there, right next to it, was a huge charity shop. “She was astonished because she had never seen it before. It turned out the shop had just opened two days before. If I had not walked with her for a few hundred yards I wouldn’t have found it.”

After enjoying the beach she stepped into an ethnic gift shop looking for something with a lizard on it to give her son. Not able to find anything, she asked the young man who was reading a book behind the counter.

He looked up from the book, an astonished expression on his face. “He said, ‘I don’t believe it!’ and went on to explain that she had spoken the very words he had just read. He showed me the sentence in which an older woman turned her head and said to a young man the exact same words.” She noted that it was a synchronicity and mentioned a book by Deepak Chopra that is subtitled, Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence. The man nodded and said that he had met Deepak.

Posted in Australia, travel | 10 Comments

The Girl from Petrovka

Posted on August 2, 2009 by Trish and Rob


This is one that we’ve known about since before starting the blog, but somehow we forgot to post it. It’s a good one…and even comes with a celebrity.
***
When Anthony Hopkins was researching his part for the film of George Feifer’s The Girl from Petrovka, he searched London bookshops for a copy of the novel. Unable to find one, he went into Leicester Square subway station to catch a train home. Lying on a bench in the station was the book, evidently left behind by a fellow traveler.

That in itself is astounding, but two years later, while in the midst of filming in Vienna, Hopkins was greeted on the set by Feifer. The author mentioned that he no longer had a copy of his own book, and told Hopkins how he had lent his last copy to a friend who had mislaid it somewhere in London. Feifer added that it had especially annoyed him because he had annotated that particular copy. Scarcely believing that such a coincidence could be possible, Hopkins handed Feifer the copy he’d found at the subway station. “Is this the one?” he asked. “With the notes scribbled in the margins? It was indeed the book Feifer’s friend had lost.

The odds? Astronomical.

Posted in actors, Anthony Hopkins, books, movies, writers | 8 Comments

Animals as Oracles of Global Events

Posted on August 1, 2009 by Trish and Rob


On December 26, 2004, an undersea earthquake erupted in the Indian Ocean. The violent upheaval of the tectonic plates displaced an enormous amount of water and within a few hours, waves as high as a hundred feet radiated outward from the epicenter. A tsunami crashed into the coastline of eleven Indian Ocean countries, killing near 250,000 people. The wave that spread out across the Bay of Bengal was visible from space, and scientists were able to precisely measure the size of the quake and the resulting tsunami. However, they weren’t able to predict it. What has become apparent in the five years since is that animals were aware of what was coming hours, even days, in advance.

In Sri Lanka’s largest wildlife reserve, there wasn’t a single report about dead animals. According to the deputy director of the National Wildlife Department, elephants, wild boar, monkeys, and deer moved inland to avoid the killer waves. Along India’s Cuddalore coast, where thousands of people died, the Indo-Asian News service reported that buffaloes, goats, and dogs were found unharmed. Bats were seen frantically flying away just before the tsunami struck.

“Imagine what could happen in California and other parts of the Western world if, instead of ignoring the warnings given by animals, people took them seriously,” wrote British biologist Rupert Sheldrake in Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home.

There have been examples where authorities successfully forecast a major earthquake, based in part on the observation of the strange antics of animals. National Geographic reported that in 1975, Chinese officials ordered the evacuation of Haicheng, a city with one million people, just days before a 7.3-magnitude quake. Only a small portion of the population was hurt or killed. If the city officials had ignored the odd animal behavior, it’s estimated that the number of fatalities and injuries could have exceeded 150,000.

Sheldrake theorizes that “animals may sense what is about to happen in a way that lies beyond our current scientific understanding. In other words, they may be prescient, having a feeling that something is about to happen, or precognitive, knowing in advance what is going to happen.”

Over our years here in hurricane country, we’ve found animals to be a more reliable indicator than the National Hurricane Center about where a storm is headed.What are your experiences with pets/animals about weather-related events?

Posted in animals, precognition, Sheldrake | 9 Comments

Bearly yoga

Posted on July 31, 2009 by Trish and Rob



We’ve been waiting for a chance to post this little bear photo for some time. It seems appropriate after the little ditty about Simba the cat. Keeping in line with the Simba post, we should ask: Do little bears normally do yoga postures? If so, how often do they do it in someone’s backyard and pose for a neighbor’s camera?

That’s what happened to photographer Fay Atwater. She gave the photo to our friend Nancy McMoneagle, who sent it to us. The little bear was posing on Nancy’s back porch outside of Charlottesville, VA. They have a couple bears living in the woods behind their house. They live in a magical area not far from the Monroe Institute. Nancy is the stepdaughter of Robert Monroe, author of Journeys Out of Body. Her husband, Joe, was a member of the Stargate remote viewers (or psychics) who worked for the Army and CIA during the 80s to the early 90s.

When we visited them several years ago, we took a number of photos of their beautiful property. When we brought the photos up on our computers, two of them showed a misty effect. One is of a Buddha statue, the other of the forest where the bears live. Ghosts? In the photo of the woods, you can see what looks like three tall ghostly figures at the edge of the forest. None of the other photos taken there that day showed the same effect, and there was no visible mist.

The yoga bear isn’t really a synchronicity, but it’s a cute photo. And the other two pictures are puzzling. Is is possible to capture spirits on digital cameras?
***
UPDATE
Jim Banholzer has had more time than anyone else here to study the two misty photos and below he gives his personal interpretation. For some spooky reason, when I changed the color of Jim’s comments, it wouldn’t go up. So you need to highlight it. Somehow, that’s sort of fitting.

UPDATE 2

Okay, now it’s legible. But it took some fiddling!
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After seeing the photos from the McMoneagle’s property posted on your blog, I went back to January 2007 and reread my original interpretation:

“This second (now first) photo is very Lords of Ringish. There is a very wise man in the forest. He is a second sniffer for the primary spirit. The primary spirit contains double anguishes. The first wise man is an Elder Statesman, with lion-like qualities and he is an owl. His beard looks like the United States with more enlightened parts of the country swelling larger. Another man there is another owl (night-eagle). MON-EAGLE – Midnight Over Noon eagle?”

Looking at this a second time, I saw two more men on the left of the elder statesman. Now a wolverine demon towards the right center. In addition, a twenty-two foot tall man –reminds me of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, donning a large green acorn cap.

Also reminds me of my repeated childhood dreams of flying outward from our Towering Oak Tree on Columbus Street, starting in 1966. Only a few weeks ago did I ever consider that I was turning into a bird at night, seeing brighter clarity in the dark. In addition, I only recently learned that owls have the disability of not being able to move their eyes. Gives them the ability to think ahead more, before they crane their necks.

There is another spiritman behind the two most powerful; I’m not sure who he is, near him a possible alien with Spiderman like eyes. One man standing at the front edge of the forests dons a long dark robe. He has a green head and is spraying some contagion. A larger face overlapping that one is saucer-like, levitating sideways. This one looks to be expelling some type of exhaust into the ether. Two logs at the edge of the wavy forest floor attract spirits to this off beam sphere. Humans like us have had extensive tranquil visits upon these same seats.

A face towards the left of the photo seems to be feline-like, but has some wolf in it too. The blue smokespirit towards the middle right, looks like he could be pointing a finger down at you, using the same tree a Ring-Wraith is holding. I just started hearing Jim Morrison’s song in my head about Texas Radio and the Big Beat.

The clay face about thirteen feet off the forest floor is expelling some steam from its mouth. Its head looks like a sound machine, and a hand vise grip –or anvil –or TV or computer monitor. Maybe, it’s shouting for me to buy that Annotated Thoreau book, and get off the computer.Iron man is in a tree thirty feet up, left of center. He is from a war. Could be from years ago. His iron has rusted through to a point that he now sees that there is much uncertainly in being a civilized iron-man. Much more disturbing than what they pledged him to believe in boot camp. He is just beginning to realize –maybe a little too late, that it is even more disturbing to not be greatly troubled by man’s inhumanity to man, perpetually losing battles. I believe there is much more, but that is the gist of it for today

Posted in bears, ghosts, yoga | 4 Comments