Walk-Ins?

Posted on September 15, 2016 by Trish and Rob

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Back in the 1980s, Rob and I read a series of books by former journalist Ruth Montgomery. Strangers Among Us, about walk-ins, is one of her most compelling books.

From what I recall of the book, a walk-in is a discarnate consciousness, a soul, that “walks into” the body of a living person rather than going through the entire, lengthy birth and growth process. This is usually done with the unconscious consent of the living individual. The walk-in usually brings his or her own memories into the awareness of the living person.

You don’t hear much about walk-ins anymore. But CJ, one of the women who comments on our blog and has contributed a great deal of information over the years, believed at one time that she was a walk-in for a woman who had died in Chernobykl in 1986. In recent years, we haven’t heard much from CJ about this and haven’t heard from anyone else about walk-ins, until today.

Poet Sharlie West wrote today, thanking us for using her poem in the ghost ship Caleuche story  and then related a weird sequence of events she experienced about walk-ins:

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“I was glad to see my poem this morning on your blog. Even if the inhabitants of the island are collectively imagining the ship, I would question why? How did it start? Something was going on for a long period. So interesting.

“About Ruth Montgomery. In the 1980s, about 1985, I was sitting by the kitchen table and read about a Psychic Fair at PG Plaza (Prince George’s Plaza). It was around Halloween, raining out, and I announced “I have to go there, right now.” I got up from the table, got in the car, and zoomed over to the plaza and literally bumped into a woman near the tables psychics had set up. An electric current went between us.

“She announced, ‘You’re a walk-in’, and proceeded to tell me her name; she was from Cassadaga. Well, the whole thing made me skeptical, and I ran from it. About a week later, my friend Josie dropped by with her boyfriend, who sat down next to me and within minutes told me I was a walk-in like his friend Ed Hager (I believe) .I went downtown DC to Yes bookstore, walked in and the owner welcomed me, “we were hoping you would join us. You’re a walk-in aren’t you?”

“I was so overwhelmed. Didn’t know what they were talking about. And so I read Ruth Montgomery’s books and any other information I could find. And I still don’t know why they were all telling me that or how that’s even possible. (I suppose I could be in denial.)

“But why the cluster?  “Certainly the world is not the simplistic place most people would like it to be. There are many layers, shadow worlds, that we can only occasionally glimpse. Synchronicity helps us understand the layers. Our minds are not bound by boundaries. The sleep state is probably closer to reality than waking is. There we can go effortlessly through boundaries.”

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The synchronicity of her email for me is that I was writing the introduction to a proposal on spirit contact, which is what Cassadaga is all abut, and have found that whenever I have written about this place – a blog post, something in a book- other people come along and mention the town. Yet, the few times I’ve taken informal surveys among long-time Florida resents about what they know of Cassadaga, most of them have never even heard of it, the oldest Spiritualist community in the south. If you’re looking for a psychic reading, this is the place to go.

The first question I usually get when I mention Cassadaga is, “What’s that?” Once I explain what Cassadaga is, the responses go in one of two directions: “Oh (snicker, snicker) psychics are scams,” or “Wow, where IS this place?”

Maybe, in the end, Ruth Montgomery was right, that there are walk-ins among us, a walk-in within you or me who is helping to change the paradigm from the inside out. Or maybe it’s all just another New Age BS story. Or, even stranger, supposed it is part of the new, emerging paradigm?

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Awesome Sloth

Posted on September 14, 2016 by Trish and Rob

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This sloth looks like it doesn’t have a worry in the world. The pic was taken outside Rio de Janeiro by adventure tour guide Marcelo Sueth. I’m not kidding. That’s his name. Pretty close to sloth. A name synchro there, it seems. Sueth said he saw a particularly photogenic sloth just hanging in a tree, according to UPI.com.

After determining the animal wasn’t threatened by his presence, Sueth stuck a selfie stick into the tree and took this classic “sloth selfie.” The image has had more than 2 million hits on Instagram and elsewhere on the Internet.

 

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Replay by Ken Grimwood

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Trish and Rob

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When we moved into our present home in June 2000, we had asked the sellers if we could bring our books to the house before the closing. They said sure. They probably imagined a bookshelf. Instead, our boxed books literally filled the living room, floor to ceiling.

Today, 16 years later, our library is bulging at the seams, our desks are overrun, our iPads are crammed. If we moved, we would have to get rid of a lot of books. But many of these books are no longer in print and are not available as e-books. My collection of astrology books, for instance, has some true treasures written by astrologers who brought in new information. Our paranormal collection doesn’t rival that of George Lucas, which we saw at Skywalker Ranch around 1990, but I couldn’t part with a single volume. And then there’s the fiction…

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2 chaotic bookshelves among many

“You read it, then pass it on,” says my neighbor, Annette, as she scours the shelves for something good to read.

Well, not exactly. We read it and keep it. Take Replay by Ken Grimwood. Published in 1988, Replay is a classic. Some people call it a time travel novel – and yes, there are elements of that – but it’s also about what happens when we die. The first line:

Jeff Winston was on the phone with his wife when he died.

 I’m now reading this novel for the fourth or fifth time. With each read, I learn something new about writing, plot construction, the creation of characters. Think Ground Hog Day, the 1993 movie with Bill Murray, where a man relives the same day over and over again until he gets it right. In a sense, that’s what Replay is about, except that Jeff Winston relives entire decades of his life with the knowledge of a man who lived 25 years plus in the future. And those lives diverge from the life he previously led.

The back cover copy reads: A time travel classic in the tradition of Jack Finney’s Time and Again, Ken Grimwood’s acclaimed novel Replay asks the provocative question: “What if you could live your life over again, knowing the mistakes you’d made before?” Forty-three-year old Jeff Winston gets several chances to do just that.

 Finney’s book is also one I’ve read several times. But it isn’t really anything like Grimwood’s Replay. Time and Again is true time travel, and illustrated! Replay is metaphysial time travel. Once you read it, you’ll never look at death in the same way again.

 Grimwood died in 2003, at the age of 58. He was working on a sequel of Replay. When he died, did he enter the replay?

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911

Posted on September 11, 2016 by Trish and Rob

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I dislike stories about 911 because it’s about fear, terror, and how governments often use fear to keep the populace in line. But there is value in remembering so that past mistakes are not repeated.

Here’s where we were 15 years ago: around 9 AM that day, my friend and co-author Phyllis Vega called and said, “Turn on the TV, Trish. We’ve been attacked. A plane flew into the Twin Towers.”

I watched  ten minutes of the news coverage, then ran into the garage, leaped into my car, and drove to our daughter’s middle school and pulled her out of school. I believed we were under attack.

Only later, of course, did I realize just what a mess the Bush administration had created, what a corrupt labyrinth of greed and negligence had enabled this attack to happen. This attack changed everything. Suddenly, we had Homeland Security (sounds like Nazi Germany) and the TSA, and countless other government agencies and covert activities (many of which Edward Snowden brought to light) . Suddenly, we had new enemies – not Russia or Cuba or the usual suspects, but Islamic terrorists who really hated us and sought to do us harm. Suddenly, every car I passed in our community had an American flag flapping from its hood.

I felt like I had entered an alternate reality.

The rest is a sad history. Colin Powell testified that Iraq had nuclear bombs and we invaded that country and toppled Saddam, a dictator we had put into place, and the Mideast blew up. Eventually, of course, the Bush administration became history and Obama won and has been president for eight years. And yet, not a single person in the lying Bush administration has been indicted for war crimes. W Bush has picked up painting, Cheney has gotten a new heart, and Wolfowitz is nowhere to be found. Now and then, Cheney rears his scowling ugly face to comment on something, and I turn off the TV.

Let’s be clear on a couple of things here. 911 was an anomaly, where some dudes from Saudi Arabia (our friends!?) used box cutters to bring down the symbols of western civilization – the Twin Towers, the 11 in the equation. The Bushies knew something was coming and ignored it. The Bushies used the disaster to their advantage. Certain people profited enormously because of it – Halliburton, do we hear about them anymore??

Now we’re in a new election season, where Clinton’s Iraq vote haunts her – yes, yes, let’s invade – and Trump claims that he was always against this war. Google his interview with Howard Stern, where he supports the invasion. As any reasonable person can see,  911 set us up for a police state – subtle but present, Orwellian in terms of government spying, a world changed , a paradigm shift in the making.

Personally, I prefer to live in some other reality, where people are united by their good intentions for mankind and for themselves, where the TSA is only as annoying as that mosquito at a picnic that is eventually slapped into oblivion, where those flies called Bush and Cheney and Wolfowitz are merely postscripts in history. I want that reality. I hope for it.

The enemies we have are those conjured from the political imagination. The more you focus on them, the more real and present they become and the greater their influence in your life.  How about a world where we’re all truly equal in terms of pay, services, benefits?  Where everyone has health care that is actually about care and not about profit? Where kids can graduate from college debt free? Where we really know what is in our food? These are simple, important things.

We are all connected, an Indra’s net. What affects you affects me and on down the line to infinity. Can we do this? Can we find the connective tissue, the collective thread? Can we actually bring an Aquarian age into reality?

 

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The Office of Alien Property

Posted on September 10, 2016 by Trish and Rob

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In recent years there has been repeated calls for the U.S. government to release all of its files on UFOs. There was even a conference in Washington D.C. a few years ago that focused on disclosure, the term associated with the government coming clean on what it knows.

Since UFOs are supposedly vessels under the control of alien beings, the crafts would be considered alien property. Right? Okay, that said, I have uncovered the records of the U.S. government’s Office of Alien Property. I am now going to release these records. Ta da.

Take a look right here.

You can see that that office was created in 1917 and disbanded in 1966, just as the famed Project Blue Book was preparing for termination. Coincidence?

Unfortunately, if we look close, there are no UFOs or even alien apparel listed in these files. It seems instead we’ve stumbled upon an office that confiscated property of people who were not American citizens and suspected of being enemies. I can imagine that under a President Trump’s administration this office might be reopened and people associated with certain ‘suspicious’ races and religions that don’t please the commander in chief could lose their property.

I find that scary and not exactly constitutional. Therefore, I propose that the U.S. Congress pass a law that says “From this day forward, in the event that the Office of Alien Property is re-opened, its duties will be limited to confiscating property left behind by space aliens – be they visitors, brothers, friends or enemies.”

Can we all agree?

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Ironically, I first learned about the Office of Alien Property from a book called UFO HUNTERS, by William J. Birnes. He noted on page 40 that upon the death of Nicola Tesla, the Office of Alien Property seized his files, including his notes on anti-gravity. Oddly, Birnes overlooked the obvious irony.  Hello, Bill, there’s something at least semi-amusing about the name of that office. But he played it straight and humorless.

 

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Jupiter Enters Libra

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Trish and Rob

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The planet Jupiter has fascinated me ever since I learned about it in elementary school. It’s the largest planet in the solar system, eleven times the size of Earth and was known to the Greeks as Zeus, the greatest of all the gods.

In mythology, he’s portrayed as a bearded, muscular dude on a throne, clutching a thunderbolt in one hand and a bolt of lightning in the other. He presided over the Olympian community and also over the human community, his larger family. As the god of weather, he was the one who made the rain fall and who, when he was ticked off, hurled lightning from the heavens. He was considered the father of both gods and men and was the founder of royal justice and the rule of law. He had it all – charisma, humanity, and power.

The planet has a diameter of nearly 89,000 miles, but in spite of its massive size, its density is only slightly greater than that of water. Its inner core is mostly hydrogen and helium and deep within its atmosphere, pressure and temperature increase and compress the hydrogen gas into a liquid. That means that Jupiter has the largest ocean in the solar system, but it consists of hydrogen instead of water. If Jupiter ignited and became a sun, it could become its own solar system because it has so many moons – at least 50 that have been confirmed. In astrology, this helps to explain why it always does things in a BIG way.

 It’s not that Jupiter or any other planet is a conscious entity. But its archetypal energy speaks to something within us that triggers that lucky break, that alternate path, that new idea, that aha! moment when we suddenly get it, when we understand how our talents can be tapped to pursue and achieve our dreams. In an archetypal sense, Jupiter is our spiritual benefactor, that part of our higher selves that made the journey with us into physical life and is eager to help us to achieve whatever we desire. Or, as one astrologer friend puts it, Jupiter has your back.

On  September 9, Jupiter enters air sign Libra, where it will be for the next 13 months – until October 10, 2017. So Libra individuals – or those of you with a Libra moon or rising – are in for a real treat. Your life is about to expand in unprecedented ways. You’ll be in the right place at the right time, luck with tag your heels, and wherever you set your sights, Jupiter will help you get there. This transit is also great for fellow air signs Gemini and Aquarius because Jupiter will be forming a beautiful angle to your sun signs during this transit.

If you look back 12 years – from late September 2004 to late October 2005- what was going on in your life at that time? This period is when Jupiter last transited Libra and it’s likely you’ll have similar experiences. I asked my Gemini neighbor about this today. She said that in February 2005, she and her family moved next door to us, a pivotal move for them. For me, as a Gemini, my dad died during this transit, we had sufficient contracts to get our daughter through college debt free, our beloved dusky conure, Kali,  died in the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma, we traveled to the Dominican Republic. Overall, life was good.

Take a look at your natal birth chart here.  

If you don’t know your exact time of birth, enter 12 noon. The rising and the sign of your moon won’t be accurate, but you can see which planets you may have in an air sign. That planet – the areas it represents – will be highlighted.

Fire signs – Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, will also benefit tremendously from this transit. For Aries and Sagittarius, transiting Jupiter will be forming a great angle to your sun, bolstering your endeavors and relationships in a positive, dynamic way. For Aries people, Jupiter will be opposing your sun and placing emphasis on your partnerships – business and personal. Oppositions from other planets – like Saturn or Pluto, for instance, can be challenging. But the biggest drawback from a Jupiter opposition to your sun is that you may take on too much, you don’t know when to say no.

Earth signs – Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn – will also benefit from this transit. For Taurus, the daily work area of your chart will be highlighted. Opportunities drop in your lap, but you may suddenly find that you have so much work that you have to delegate. Virgos are likely to benefit financially. Capricorns will benefit professionally.

If your natal Jupiter is in Libra, then it means you’re in a Jupiter return year – which happens about every 12 years – and oh wow, buckle up! It’s going to be a marvelous 13 months! This is when doors fly open.

So take a look at your natal chart. See where this transit will occur for you. You can check here for the meanings of the planets and what their symbols (glyphs) are.

Even if you don’t have any planets in Libra or air signs, you’ll have Libra somewhere on the cusp of one of the 12 houses. That house – which represents a particular area of your life – will benefit. Check here for the meanings of the houses.

Embrace the transit and enjoy the ride!

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Birthday Synchros

Posted on September 6, 2016 by Trish and Rob

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We went up to Orlando for Megan’s 27th birthday and after a wonderful dinner with more than twenty of her friends, we walked to a place called Casey’s for a drink. It had been raining off and on all day – you can see the wet streets in the above photo. The weather was  caused by what later became Hurricane Hermine. Since it was pleasant outside, some of us sat around under the awning.

Rob draw my attention to the billboard near the door. “Look at this! Megan’s birthday synchro!” The first side of the billboard:

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On the flipside of the billboard, was this:

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I asked the bartender if the band that night really was called Megan & Friends; he said it was. And since Casey’s had no idea the birthday group was going to drop by – or that it was Megan’s 27th birthday, this billboard counts as a double synchro!

To top it off, our favorite street magician, Richard, happened by and wowed the birthday group with his magic!

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Ed Gorman and The Writers’ Tribe

Posted on September 5, 2016 by Trish and Rob

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Many years ago, a writer named Ed Gorman and I had the same editor at Ballantine, Chris Cox. Ed and his wife lived in Iowa. Rob and I lived in Florida. But at some point during a trip to Minnesota, Rob and I drove south to Cedar Rapids and had lunch with Ed and Carol.

At the time, I didn’t realize how momentous this was. I didn’t realize that Ed and Carol would become one of the handful of writing couples that we know. And I didn’t realize just how reclusive Ed is. But I loved them both immediately and over the years, Ed and I have kept in sporadic touch.

For a long time, Ed edited Mystery Scene Magazine. He worked with book packager Marty Greenburg and employed a lot of writers for short stories, articles, ghostwriting projects. Ed was an underground railroad, rescuing writers who were floundering, in need of projects, writers struggling to adjust to the rapidly changing publishing landscape.

Back in the early 1990s, when I realized I needed to change agents, I went to Ed first. He recommended Al Zuckerman at Writers’ House, whom I have now been with for 22 years. In 2011, Ed told me about Crossroad Press, a small publishing house that was specializing in writers with large out of print backlists and thought it might be something that would interest Rob and me. He was right.

David Wilson and David Dodd, the two main players at Crossroad, are terrific people and they offer writers a deal that far surpasses traditional publishers in terms of royalty splits and, unlike a lot of these outfits, there’s no cost to the author for the upfront costs.

So the other day I emailed Ed, just checking in to see how he was doing. He’d had a stem cell transplant several years ago, seemed to be on a rise. He had grandkids, books were selling, life was good. Then two days passed and I didn’t hear back from him, and I felt uneasy about it. I wrote to his wife, Carol, on Facebook, and learned that Ed was in his 7th week of home hospice.

My heart broke.

Writers are a tribe. It doesn’t matter if you’re traditionally published, an Indie author, or if you’re published by an alien company on Mars. The point is always the story, the information, the thing that moves you to put it into words. The point is how you treat the people who are members of your tribe. And Ed…he has always been one of the most generous member of that tribe. I don’t know that I would have a writing career if it weren’t for him.

So please, whatever your spiritual beliefs, include Ed in your thoughts. Google him. His books are wonderful, but more than that, he is a stellar human being.

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Trump from the past

Posted on September 3, 2016 by Trish and Rob
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I was looking for an old Indiana Jones contract deep in my closet and this scrap of paper fell out of a file folder. It’s from the August 12, 1990 issue of Tropic Magazine, which was the Sunday magazine of the Miami Herald in the old days.

I have no idea why I tore this out since there’s nothing on either side that I can relate to – except this little tidbit about Donald Trump. Apparently, the writer was referring to a review of Trump’s book – The Art of the Deal.

What I can read says: …book’s title is all wrong. Some critics,” writes New York Magazine scribe Edwin Diamond, “suggest the book should be called Trump: F—ing up at the Top because he violates every one of his own rules.”

A prescient message from the past.

 
 

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A Past Life OOBE

Posted on September 2, 2016 by Trish and Rob

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Recently, I reconnected with ‘Larry,’ a former police officer in central Texas who has had numerous alien encounters and also out-of-body experiences. He first wrote us about his experiences last year and his stories were quite compelling. We published them in five parts.

Some of you might remember the astral sex story he related, and I recall a couple of readers didn’t feel good about it, and suggested it was an encounter with a lower astral being.

So here’s a story that balance that one – an astral journey to a monastery! What I found particularly interesting about this tale is that Larry referred to it as a journey into a past life. I had never heard of an out-of-body experience linked to a past life. So I asked for more details.

Larry has both spontaneous and intentional OOBEs and this one was intentional, though he had no idea where it would take him. He found himself in either Mexico or Texas in the 1600s, and he was a Catholic brother.

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“At this point in my life I had just ended my law enforcement career and was actually in-between jobs, so I was ‘Mr. Mom.’ I woke up around 6 AM and got my son off to school. Then on this particular morning, I went back to bed in a spare bedroom because my wife, who worked night , had just gotten to sleep and I didn’t want to disturb her.

“So I laid down and began my ritual to have an out-of-body experience. After only a few minutes of relaxing and forming my intention, I felt the familiar vibration and rushing sound in my head.

“At first, I just flew, but then found myself kneeling in a small room. It was very sparsely furnished, a small bed, and beside table and a single wooden chair. I was looking out a small, high window and could onlys see a square of pure blue sky.

“At one point, I saw the person, but then I was instantly ‘in’ the person, and in a split second I realized that I was a monk in a monastery or church compound somewhere in he Southwest. I somehow knew I was either in what would become Texas or Mexico near what would become the southern border of Texas. I also knew that I was happy in my situation and at that very moment was praying with gratitude for my position in life.

“I do not know how long in ‘real time’ this experience lasted, but I think it was probably ten minutes or so. I felt in that experience that I was a native of Spain and voluntarily came to this place and was content.”

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He also told me about an OOBE to a topless bar in Texas, and it’s a good one. But we’ll hold that one for the book we’re working on: BEYOND STRANGE: True Tales of Alien Encounters, the Paranormal, Time Travel & More.

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